“Do all the other things, the ambitious things—travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes…but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.”
George Saunders to Syracuse University in 2013
“Sometimes you find out what you are supposed to be doing by doing the things you are not supposed to do.”
Oprah Winfrey to Howard University in 2007
“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.”
Steve Jobs to Stanford in 2005
“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.”
David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College in 2005
“A world where men ran half our homes and women ran half our institutions would be just a much better world.”
Sheryl Sandberg to Barnard College in 2011
“From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.”
Toni Morrison to Wellesley College in 2004
“Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.”
Anna Quindlen to Villanova University in 2000
“There is no script. Live your life. Soak it all in. Dick Costolo to University of Michigan,”
Ann Arbor in 2013
“But real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing.”
Madeleine Albright to UNC in 2007
“I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve.”
Maya Angelou to UC Riverside in 1977
“The most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and to not give into peer pressure to try to be something that you’re not.”
Ellen DeGeneres to Tulane in 2009
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”
J.K. Rowling to Harvard in 2008
