Best Commencement Speech, Ever?

NPR with a solid job compiling what it feels are the 300 best commencement speeches.

Best ever? Mr. Rogers, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, '02.

http://apps.npr.org/commencement/



Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not. Have you heard my favorite story that came from the Seattle Special Olympics? Well, for the 100-yard dash there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at the starting line and at the sound of the gun, they took off. But not long afterward one little boy stumbled and fell and hurt his knee and began to cry. The other eight children heard him crying; they slowed down, turned around and ran back to him. Every one of them ran back to him. One little girl with Down Syndrome bent down and kissed the boy and said, "This'll make it better." And the little boy got up and he and the rest of the runners linked their arms together and joyfully walked to the finish line. They all finished the race at the same time. And when they did, everyone in that stadium stood up and clapped and whistled and cheered for a long, long, time. People who were there are still telling the story with great delight. And you know why. Because deep down, we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win too. Even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.

 

Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005 was pretty solid.

 

Is that good advice? I guess maybe to Stanford. I know the NYT had a column about this recently, haven't gotten to it.

 

I enjoyed Charlie Day's from this year.

http://gawker.com/charlie-day-advises-graduates-to-not-give-a-shit-in-com-1579296766

 

If everyone actually did this, the entire world would grind to a halt.

 

Mr. Rogers makes more fucking sense than Steve Jobs. Sure Steve, I'll ditch everything I am doing at 48 to pursue my dream of playing in the big leagues.

 

Patton Oswalt's remains my favorite.

http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=78

 

But a lot of people would be sitting under trees in parks playing guitar, so that would be pretty cool -- until they had to sell the guitars to eat.

 

Thank you for posting this, Songbird. I ought to print off a copy to read every morning just to keep life in perspective.

 

Don't know if its best-ever, but it's definitely in the Top 5/Top 10....

David McCullough, Wellsley High School 2012
Video:

Transcript: http://theswellesleyreport.com/2012/06/wellesley-high-grads-told-youre-not-special/

Two excerpts from it:

 

Mr. Rogers was at mine. Love the guy and all he represented.

Loved Johnny Carson's parodies of him too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZAPoxtM9ME

 

I think I've mentioned before that I had bad luck with two dreadfully boring speakers: Sheldon Silver undergrad & Bill Lan Lee for law school. With the latter, they circulated a ballot to vote with Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell and other such personalities. I'm guessing we did not get our first choice.

I was taking Kaplan classes in Queens College the summer after Jerry Seinfeld's commencement & the place was abuzz. If I recall, he did a good job.