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These are truly inspirational graduation speeches worth reading from the beginning to the end. The entries will change as I add more speeches. If you are in the mood for quick sound bites you may want to visit the favorite quotes section.

▫ 1. Steve Jobs at Stanford, 2006

▫ 2. Jerry Zucker at University of Wisconsin, 2003

▫ 3. Mark Lewis at University of Texas Austin, 2000

▫ 4. David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College, 2005

▫ 5. John Walsh at Wheaton College, 2000

▫ 6. Michael Uslan at Indiana University, 2006

▫ 7. David L. Calhoun at Virgina Tech, 2005

▫ 8. Earl Bakken at University of Hawaii, 2004

▫ 9. Bradley Whitford at University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2006.

▫10. Woody Hayes at Ohio State University, 1986.

View all graduation speeches

Not finding your favorite address in the top ten speeches or in the commencement archive? Please email me at: wengine@gmail.com

MARISSA MAYERS -
"Do Something You Are Not Ready to Do"

This speech grows stronger by the minute. Towards the end of the speech she has the courage to admit she is very shy which is of course surprising and inspiring at the same time. Her words of advice:

1. Find something that you are really passionate about. This gives you a strong sense of purpose and it is a big part of happiness. To do that, you need to be honest with yourself, observant, and make the most out of a situation.

2. Find the smartest people you can and surround yourself with them. You will be challenged to do your best and they would elevate your thinking. Smart people will challenge you to think harder and in entirely different ways. Search criticism to become a better self.

3. Find allies rather than adorers. You can choose to surround yourself with adorers who are easy to be around but never tell you when you screw up. Instead, seek out allies who are honest with you when you feel you are not living up to your potential; people who challenge you to be the best you can be.

4. Find the courage to do things you are not ready to do. Marissa lists as examples four things that she was not ready for (the move from WI to go to college 2,000 miles away, choosing a major that few people would Know what it means, go to Switzerland for a summer and, in 99, choose to work for a start up with 8 employee and a ridiculous name). Doing something you are not ready to do isn't comfortable. But in pushing through this discomfort you will learn a lot more about yourself. You learn you can do something you did not think you could do, or you'll learn where you're limits are. Either is valuable. It's important to push through that uneasiness because that's how you really grow and you really reach.

5. Find places where you're comfortable with. Marissa feels in her element at Google surrounded by people who are just like her and who share the same interests. Passion becomes an amazing neutralizing force for the fear or uneasiness one might usually feel.

6. You can help others find things. Be an information fountain. Power comes from sharing information. Sharing leads to connection, connection leads to collaboration, collaboration leads to creativity and innovation.

***
Marrissa Mayers, VP at Google Inc.
Speech given at Illinois Institute of Technology on May 16th, 2009
Added to the site on May 31st, 2009.

Paul Hawken -
Entrepreneur

...
There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.
…
There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.
…
The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

***
Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

University of Portland
May 3, 2009
Submitted by: Liz Frisch
Added: June 1st, 2009
Original Link with Full Commencement Speech