Unconventional Wisdom
Here’s a list of commencement speeches filtered from thousands others that have been inspirational to me. I thought I should just compiled and shared them with you fellow readers. Hope it will be a blessing to you.
Commencement Speech
- Bill Gates at Harvard University
“Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit. The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.” - David Halberstam Tulane University
“Do not be afraid to make some mistakes when you are young. Do not be afraid to try and fail early in your life. We often stumble towards the things we will end up doing best; do not be afraid to take chances when you are young, to choose the unconventional over the conventional. Often it is experience in the unconventional which prepares you best for the conventional. Be aware that it’s all right to make mistakes, and it is all right to try at something and fail. The price of failure when you are young is much lower than when you are older. I suspect that you in the audience may look at us upon the stage and see people who seem like we have always succeeded, men and women who have led professionally flawless lives. Would that it were true. What you do not see is our own anxieties, not just when we were your age, but throughout our careers, when again and again–in our own minds–we seemed to be on the edge of some new failure.” - Conan O’Brien at Harvard University
“So, that’s what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over.” - J.K. Rowling at Harvard University
“Retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages,” said Rowling. “We do not need magic to transform our world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: We have the power to imagine better.” - Jon Steward at The College of William and Mary
“College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine…“
- Oprah Winfrey at Wellesley College
“Turn your wounds into wisdom. You will be wounded many times in your life. You’ll make mistakes. Some people will call them failures but I have learned that failure is really God’s way of saying, “Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.” It’s just an experience, just an experience.”
- Michael Dell at University of Texas, Austin
“As you walk the path you’ve chosen, remember that the road ahead is paved with relationships. I’ve enjoyed some great fortune, but none of it would have happened without the people who shared their wisdom, the hard work of the Dell team worldwide, and the love and support of my family and friends. Remember … there’s no such thing as a self-made success.”
- Steve Jobs at Stanford University
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
If you come across any inspirational commencement speech that is not included in the list, please email them to me. I would promptly add it to the list.
It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others. — Anonymous













