Commencements
Self Help Resources





GRADUATION SPEECHES ARCHIVE

most recently added to the site are at the top

J.K. Rowling , writer

John Mackey , businessman

Katie Couric , TV journalist

▫ Bradley Whitford, actor

Brian Kenny, sportscaster

Ray Sidney, businessman

Bill Watterson, cartoonist

Oprah Winfrey, talk show host

Paul Glaser, actor and director

Woody Hayes, college football coach

Guy Kawasaki, businesman

Alan Alda, actor

Chris Matthews, journalist

Michael Uslan, movie producer

Ruth Westheimers, professor and media psychologist

Margaret Spellings, politician

David Foster Wallace, novelist

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers

Marc S. Lewis, professor of clinical psychology

David L. Calhoun, businessman

Billie Jean King, tennis player

Jean Andrews, marine scientist and artist

Muriel Siebert, businesswoman

John Walsh, author and art historian

Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize winner author

Doug Marlette, Pulitzer Prize winner editorial cartoonist

Suzan-Lori Parks, playwright

Earl Bakken, businessman

David Woddle, businessman

Jerry Zucker, movie director and producer

Yvonne Thorton, Pulitzer Prize nominated author

You might wonder why do I have so few speeches. For one, this site is something that I do in my spare time - which with two young kids, a full time job, and a husband who works six days a week- is definitely limited. Second, it is really hard to find truly inspirational speeches. As I said in the about graduation speeches section, the majority of the commencement speeches are plain boring. They either talk about politics and how graduates can change the world or, if they try to be motivational, the speakers use the words too directly: for example " Take risks" or " Fight your fears" - which are all true but they do not work in helping people.

I like the speech where the author is a good storyteller so we can really learn from his or her life experience (check out for example Steve Job's college graduation speech), or the ones where the speaker gives advice using metaphors to make a point.

On average, for each graduation speech that I put on my side I go through at least 20 others that I reject as not having enough good life advice. Therefore, if this would be a repository of commencement speeches I would have already had a list of 400 or so by the time I am writing this blurb (October 2007). It just recently occurred to me that many people may not have realized that I am so painstakingly trying to find really meaningful speeches so I will start listing below the speeches that did not make the cut, in case anybody is interested.