Six Inspirational College Commencement Speeches

Millions of college students will turn their tassels at colleges and universities all over the world this spring. One thing they’ll share aside from graduating? Many will be looking for inspiration regarding next steps, and many will find it in the commencement speeches they hear during their graduation ceremonies. Of course not all commencement speeches hit the mark. Sums up the Los Angeles Times, “Some messages are embraced, some ridiculed and others just endured.” Some also, however, endure, including the following six commencement speeches.

1. David Foster Wallace, Kenyon University, 2005

In his take-no-prisoners speech, “This Is Water,” Wallace said, “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”

Wallace goes on to acknowledge the “deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories” as common fodder for commencement speeches before going on to say he’s not the wise old fish, and that “the point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.”

Certainly, while college students aren’t necessarily oblivious, they can easily get caught up in the “bubble” of college life and can continue to do so in the real world. Wallace’s speech offers a reminder to students that a real education “has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: “This is water. This is water.”

The ultimate -- and “unimaginably hard” -- point of committing to “to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out,” is freedom, says Wallace: “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”

2. J.K. Rowling, Harvard University, 2008

We challenge you not to be inspired by JK Rowling’s rags to riches journey from living in her car to becoming the most successful children’s writer of all-time credited with igniting the imaginations - and reading habits -- of an entire generation of young people.

In her beloved speech, Rowling not only shares her story and touts the many benefits of failure -- the humor of doing so to a bunch of Harvard graduates is not lost on her -- but also challenges listeners with words worthy of the great wizard Dumbledore himself: “If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

3. Stephen Colbert, Wake Forest University, 2015

Colbert was uniquely suited to deliver a commencement speech as he set out on an adventure of his own in walking away from The Colbert Report to take over for David Letterman on The Late Show. He said, “I think it’s entirely appropriate that I’m the one talking to you right now, because I just spent many years learning to do one thing really well. I got so comfortable with that place, that role and those responsibilities that it came to define how I saw myself.”

Colbert’s speech shared a common theme with those of Wallace and Rowling: “I hope you find the courage to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong. And then, please expect as much of the world around you. Try to make the world good according to your standards. It won’t be easy. Get ready for my generation to tell you everything that can’t be done — like ending racial tension, or getting money out of politics, or lowering the world’s carbon emissions. And we should know they can’t be done. After all, we’re the ones who didn’t do them. Your job, Pro Humanitate, is to prove us wrong. Because if you don’t prove us wrong, then forget everything I’ve been saying.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be Colbert it the speech wasn’t at least slightly off kilter. His concluding words? “I’d like to leave you with a bit of wisdom I picked up from a documentary I saw this weekend: Mad Max: Fury Road. All you young people really need to succeed in the future is a reliable source of fuel and a fanatical cadre of psychopathic motorcycle killers. May you ride eternal, shiny and chrome.”

4. Ellen DeGeneres, Tulane, 2009

Ellen’s notoriously self-deprecating humor quickly gave way to the tragic tale of the death of her girlfriend when she was 19 years old. What she learned during a subsequent period “soul-searching” -- not to mention throughout the series of personal and professional ups and downs that followed -- is that “the definition of success changes” as we grow.

DeGeneres said, “For many of you, today, success is being able to hold down 20 shots of tequila. For me, the most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and not to give into peer pressure to try to be something that you’re not, to live your life as an honest and compassionate person, to contribute in some way. So to conclude my conclusion, follow your passion, stay true to yourself. Never follow anyone else’s path, unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path and by all means you should follow that.”

Of course, Ellen wouldn’t be Ellen without at least a small amount of dancing, and dancing she did. She advised others to do the same with her concluding words, “So the Katrina class of 2009, I say congratulations and if you don’t remember a thing I said today, remember this, you’re going to be ok, dum de dumdumdum, just dance.”

5. Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005

Like J.K. Rowling, Jobs has become one of society’s go-to tales of success after failure. "Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick,” he said during his speech. “Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going [after being fired from Apple] was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle."

Jobs’ insights on life and death were remarkably prescient: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. 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. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

6. Michelle Obama, Eastern Kentucky University, 2013

Few people will be surprised to find Michelle Obama on this list -- a person with whom the word “inspirational” may well be synonymous. In addition to congratulating the grads, Obama paid homage in her speech to parents and families for the “gifts” they bestowed upon their graduating children.

Above all else, Obama urged grads to be open: “If you’re a Democrat, spend some time talking to a Republican. And if you’re a Republican, have a chat with a Democrat. Maybe you’ll find some common ground, maybe you won’t. But if you honestly engage with an open mind and an open heart, I guarantee you’ll learn something. And goodness knows we need more of that, because we know what happens when we only talk to people who think like we do -- we just get more stuck in our ways, more divided, and it gets harder to come together for a common purpose.”

She also proposed that all grads ask themselves three basic questions: Who they want to be, how they’ll serve others, and who they’ll include in their lives. “Let me just share just a little secret before I end,” she said, “as someone who has hired and managed hundreds of young people over the course of my career, the answers to those questions, believe me, are far more important than you can ever imagine.”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of commencement speeches as a necessary evil. After all, when the speeches end, the partying begins, right? But the reality is that learning continues to happen long after you’ve completed your last class, and what better time to commit to continuing your lifelong education than by listening -- and learning -- during your graduation ceremony?