GRADUATION SPEECHES ARCHIVE
most recently added to the
site are at the top
▫ J.K. Rowling , writer
▫ 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.