优秀经典英语演讲稿范文（通用25篇）
i started a company called blueblood. this is for you. i created an online marketplace for professional truck drivers when they are in need of work to match with a motor carrier who needs a driver. we are just rolling out. my concern is the regulations. my concern is for all industries, what can we do with the regulationissued to help us through these phases?
you heard the president when he started off. he has rolled back already so many regulations to make it possible to move forward. he was only less than a dozen days in office when the executive order stated for every new regulation you want tocreate you've got to get rid of 2. i think that is bringing down theregulatory environment. i feel -- i hear the same message when i'mtouring the country. i'm visiting every district office. there's 68 of them. i hold business roundtables. the regulatoryenvironment is clearly one that is crippling a lot of small businesses as well as large businesses. i believe that it is a trillion dollars a year a cost for all businesses to comply with regulations. that is a time of money. a little example, just now i was in portland and seattle, and alaska. then i came back tomilwaukee. when i was at a small brewery, the owner said theregulations that bothers him, let me give you one example. he saidi want to launch a new beer. we had the body in the formula. hesent in the label and it was kicked back. the label was wrong. we resubmitted. it kicked back again. i finally found out it was a,missing in the text on the label of the description of the product. we were delayed six months launching our product. you are a small business person trying to reclaim that six months.those regulations we don't need.
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude to me is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past,than education,than money,than circumstances,than failures,than successes,than what the other people think, say,or do.
It is more important than the appearance,the giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company,a church ,a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day, regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past.We cannot change the fact that people will act in acertain way.We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one stage we have.And that is our attitudes.
I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me ,and ninety percent how I react to it.And so it is with you.
We are in charge of our attitudes.
someone said “we are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book, whose pages are infinite”. i don?t know who wrote these words, but i?ve always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want it to be. we are all in the position of the farmers. if we plant a good seed ,we reap a good harvest. if we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.we are young. “how to spend the youth?” it is a meaningfulquestion. to answer it, first i have to ask “what do you understand by the word youth?” youth is not a time of life, it?s a state of mind. it?s not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips or supple knees. it?s the matter of the will. it?s the freshness of the deep spring of life.youth means a temperamental predominance of courage overtimidity of the appetite , for adventure over the love of ease. this often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20 . nobody grows old merely by a number of years . we grow old by deserting our ideals. years wrinkle the skin , but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul . worry , fear , self –distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust .whether 60 of 16 , there is in every human being ?s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike appetite of what?s next and the joy of the game of living . in the center of your heart and my heart there?s a wireless station : so long as it receives messages of beauty , hope ,cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long as you are young .
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
last year,, this year, during national small -- smallbusiness week there was a company just outside of austin, texas.their company was all about electronics and small circuit boards. you have a warehouse of all of these intricate circuit boards and electronic equipment. the river flooded and came in and just flooded their entire operation. water was deep. med. ithink it destroyed a third of their inventory. everybody they hadnot processed. the gentleman who was the proprietor of thiscompany said what was so amazing, sba was able to come in with a $2 million disaster relief loan. he talked about how his employees would come and work all hours. they had to take cloths andwhite down all of the wires and cables and clean the circuitboards that were salvageable. they spent hours doing this. in six weeks they were back up and running. many couldn't come in and work during that time. he continued to pay his employees andtheir benefits through that entire time and helped with donations in the community as well. it lets you know the heart ofentrepreneurs. they are risk takers but they are on 24/7. that is why they will always have a special place in my heart . i know what that is like. we all started small.
wonderful stories just like many in this room. we have time for one more.
i'm the owner of the newtown athletic club in pennsylvania. i'malso cochair of the largest trade organization for fitnessindustry, and an advocate through my business of the right to try bill. i would like to ask both of you, what are the experiences you have had that you would like to share, some of the do's anddon'ts that would be beneficial to us today?
every entrepreneur goes into business knowing they are taking a risk. you have to manage the downside risk. one of the ups and downs, i have been bankrupt. my house was auctioned in my car repossessed. seven months pregnant with our second child. when i talked to entrepreneurs with failing businesses, some referred to it as a bad patch. they are determined to come back. one of the most inspirational things to me is to listen to entrepreneurs, how they get through thetough times. i've often said it is not how you fall, it is how you get back up. mrs.
During my brief time in office, our world has reminded us daily of the necessity and the urgency of our work.
We’ve witnessed the coarsening of public discourse and the volatility of national and international affairs.
We’ve mourned when gun violence has cut future short, and gatherings of the faithful – Jewish, Muslim, and Christian – have ended in bloodshed.
We’ve continued to confront the existential threat posed by climate change, and we’ve reeled as extreme weather has destroyed homes and claimed lives.
And we’ve grown increasingly aware of the scourge of sexual harassment and sexual assault, and have struggled to consider how institutions, Harvard among them, can prevent and address behavior that threatens individuals and weakens communities.
To be sure, there is much in this world that rightly troubles us. But there’s even more that gives us cause for hope.
And it’s that spirit of hope – the willingness both to see the world as it is, and to consider how we can help make it better – that is in many ways the spirit that defines this university and I believe joins us all together.
Since I took office on July 1, I’ve seen the value of both knowledge and education at work in the world. I’ve seen the good being done by our faculty and our students, by our alumni, and our staff, and our friends. And I’ve seen expressions of compassion, and patience, and kindness, and wisdom that have moved me deeply.
good afternoon. i'm the president and ceo of pda drywall. we are based in raleigh, north carolina. one of the biggest setbacks in the last 12 years has been tax regulations. as we are embarking on tax forms discussions, what are you going to do for small businesses to help change those regulations in favor of small businesses?
many of the same things we have been discussing,comprehensive tax reform. mr. gary co. in the here has beenspearheading this charge at the white house. you can definitely pick his brain about tax reform. it is high on his mind these days.lowering the corporate rate, encouraging business to grow,encouraging businesses based here to stay here, bring theircapital back that has been trapped overseas will have anenormously positive impact within our country and free updollars that can be reinvested. in conjunction with regulatoryreform, we have come out of the gate swinging. it's a major focus. my father's particular sensitivity to this issue is havingbeen a successful person in business himself. he understands thelimitations, whether businesses he was looking to buy or grow, dealing with suppliers and smaller businesses that services companies. he very much understands how the regulatory environment, while important has grown to a place where it is the unintended consequences is stifling entrepreneurial spirit. we are going to bring that back. we have started doing it. tax reform is going to be incredibly important for every american. we are optimistic about those things. and continued progress.
i would like to add, small businesses will say to me any tax reduction will be great. just let me know what it is. what is going to be my percentage. tell me what the rate is going to be so i can plan. without fail, every single one of those businesses tell me they will take that money and reinvest it in their business and hire more people. that will grow our economy. we will see that growth when we see tax rates go down. especially those in thellcs, all that money flows through. you know exactly how that works. we are working on it.
Good morning, everybody!
In this world, there is one thing that is very fair to everybody, whether you are a male or female, young or old, rich or poor. Does anybody know what it is called?
Right.It is time. The topic I am going to present to you today is called “Treasure Every Minute”.
The clock is running. Make the most of today.
To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.
Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with.
And remember that time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is amystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present!! The clock is running. Make the most of today.
Good luck, everybody!
Good morning, my name is LXG, it is really a great honor to have this opportunity for a interview, I would like to answer whatever you may raise, and I hope I can make a good performance today. I'm confident that I can succeed.
Now I will introduce myself briefly, I am 20 years old, born in shandong province ,east of china, and I am curruently a senior student at UPC of Information and Engineering Control. my major is Information and Signal Processing, and I will receive my master degree after my graduation in june. In the past 3 years,I spend most of my time on study and research, Ihave passed CET6 and I have acquired basic knowledge both in theory and in practice.
Through college life,I learn how to balance between study and entertainment. By the way,I has acted as class Mission secretary for two years and given the title of an excellent class leader. I had a few glorious memory on stage.That is my pride.
Sometimes I prefer to stay alone, reading, listening to classic music, but I am not lonely, I like to chat with my classmates, almost talk everything ,I have lots of interest, such as films,travels,handwriting ,sports and so on. My favorite pastime is playing basketball, also, I like blogging on the internet. if you are interested in my blog, you can visit my website: , it will be my honor.
I think I'm a good team player and I'm a person of great honesty to others. Also I am able to work under great pressure. That's all. Thank you for giving me the chance.
you will no longer fear making new sounds, showing new facial expressions, using your body in new ways,approaching new people, and asking new questions. you will live every single day of your life with absolute passion, and you will show your passion through the words you speak and the actions you take. you will focus all your time and effort on the most important goals of your life. you will never succumb to challenges of hardships. you will never waver in your pursuit of excellence. after all,you are the best, and you deserve the best!
as your coach and friend, i can assure you the door to all the best things in the world will open to you, but the key to that door is in your hand. you must do your part, you must faithfully follow the plans you make and take the actions you plan, you must never quit, you must never fear. i know you must do it, you can do it, you will do it, and you will succeed!
Looking around me today, I think of the generations of Yale graduates who have come before you. Individuals who have been for something.
There are many names we know and others that would be less familiar – presidents and world leaders, artists and business executives, scholars and scientists.
Like them, I know you will heed the call to leadership and service and leave your mark on every realm of human endeavor.
That is Yale’s mission – that is what Yale is for.
As members of the Yale community, what do we believe?
We believe that facts and expertise, applied with creativity and wisdom, can transform the world.
We believe that education and research save lives and make life more meaningful.
We believe that diversity of thought and diversity indeed are essential to human progress.
We believe, most of all, in the boundless potential of human ingenuity; that together, we can solve great challenges and bring light and truth to a world in great need of it.
Thank you very much, Margaret, for that very generous introduction.
First, let me say congratulations to our graduates. Welcome back to our alumni. Good afternoon to everyone – colleagues and friends, and family members, loved ones, and our most special guest – our eminent speaker. It’s a pleasure to address you this afternoon and to offer a few reflections as I approach the end of my first year as president.
I realize, however, that I’m literally the last thing standing between you and the speech that you’ve all actually come here to hear. So, while I can’t promise to be mesmerizingly eloquent, I can at least promise to be mercifully brief.
We gather this afternoon buoyed by the aspirations of our graduates – some 7,100 people who have distinguished themselves in nearly every field and every discipline imaginable. We welcome them into the venerable ranks of our alumni, and we send them forth into a world that is very much in need of both their minds and their hearts.
The problem with these stories is that they show what the data shows: women systematically underestimate their own abilities. If you test men and women, and you ask them questions on totally objective criteria like GPAs, men get it wrong slightly high, and women get it wrong slightly low. Women do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce. A study in the last two years of people entering the workforce out of college showed that 57 percent of boys entering, or men, I guess, are negotiating their first salary, and only seven percent of women. And most importantly, men attribute their success to themselves, and women attribute it to other external factors. If you ask men why they did a good job,they'll say, "I'm awesome. Obviously. Why are you even asking?" If you ask women why they did a good job, what they'll say is someone helped them, they got lucky, they worked really hard.
We've all been taught that we should help people. It is the right thing to do and will make us popular with others. It may even win us favors in return. However, we must be realistic. We can't say yes to every request. If we did, we would fail or go crazy for sure. Sometimes we simply don't have the time to help. In this case, we must know how to say no politely. When we need to say no, here is one method we can try. First, we should tell the truth. If we really can't do something, we should just say so. Second, we should remember to refuse requests politely. We must communicate clearly, but must also be sincere and sympathetic. A true friend will understand. Finally, we must not feel guilty about saying no. Sometimes refusing others is the right thing to do. It can save ourselves, and them, a lot of trouble. In short, we cannot please everyone all the time. Refusing favors is a part of life.
i've had an interesting experience. i'm an entrepreneur, having started my own business, also worked in the context of a family business that was highly entrepreneurial.i've had both, working in a large family business, that grew to be arather large business. i think for me, one of the challenges wasmanaging the competing demands of raising a family and, and running a business, working in a family business. and then politics got layered on top of that. then i got pregnant with my thirdchild in the midst of that. one of the things, there is no right answer. people ask about balance a lot. i don't think you can plan for balance. you can structure your schedule to avoid worktravel, coming home and having an event or you have to be out.you can manage things like that. we are one kid illness away from losing balance. there's no way you can plan for certain things. i have found every time i think a challenge is large and will behard to overcome that has been put in my path, if you grindthrough it, you look back in retrospect and it feels much more manageable than it was in the moment. this perspective, staying in the moment, keeping a laser focus on what your priorities are. i tell people not to architect their life for balance, but aligned with what their priorities are. and fully measure yourself againstpriorities to ensure you are where you needed to be in the long term. give yourself a little slack in the short term. i will say as anadministration, we are focused on thinking about how weempower the american working family and empower people to achieve a balance through policies around making child caremore affordable and accessible, advocating strongly for paid family leave. to support the reality of of the dual income modernworking family. thinking through policies that support the family is informed by what i have seen and what i have witnessed.
in a related german study, researchers used fmri imaging to measure brain activity before and after injecting botox to suppress smiling muscles. the finding supported darwins theory by showing that facial feedback modifies the neural processing of emotional content in the brain in a way that helps us feel better when we smile. smiling stimulates our brain reward mechanism in a way that even chocolate -- a well-regarded pleasure inducer -- cannot match.british researchers found that one smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 bars of chocolate. (laughter) wait. the same study found that smiling is as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 pounds sterling in cash. thats like 25 grand a smile. its not bad. and think about it this way: 25,000 times 400 -- quite a few kids out there feel like mark zuckerberg every day.and, unlike lots of chocolate, lots of smiling can actually make you healthier. smiling can help reduce the level of stress-enhancing hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine, increase the level of mood-enhancing hormones like endorphin and reduce overall blood pressure.
my name is richard daphne. i have over 30 years in different sizebusinesses, with many ups and downs. my question is for ivanka.what do you feel has been your biggest challenge, most exciting success? mrs.
as an entrepreneur you try to balance yourown time, energy, focus, especially when you think big. you sometimes have to slow yourself down. so, to not -- to impose thediscipline on yourself to enable you to achieve the growth youwant, especially in the early days, you have limited people. you arejust launching a product or a service. you hopefully feel thatearly momentum. when you are an entrepreneur you have to be a visionary. we also have to be an secured her. successfulentrepreneurs are both. they dream big. they think big. they also are highly pragmatic, able to execute at the task at hand.sometimes there is an imbalance. i think for anyone to besuccessful, they have to reconcile those things. ultimately we were talking about it, in terms of recruitment, you are as good as your people. investing in your teams, your employees, making sureyou have cultivated a group that complements you, that pushesyou , that will enable you to succeed. for me, success that is scaled and done tremendously well is because they have a great team and great people.
thank you for doing this work today. we are a marketing publicengagement firm. we are a serviced a bold veteran small business. we have been based in northern virginia for many years. virginia is the number one state for veteran owned businesses. our right to pursue the american dream is something i hold dear to my heart.i'm curious, i'm sure you have had the opportunity to meet greatentrepreneurs. is there one story that is the most inspirational story?
it is been incredible to hear so many stories.during the two years prior campaigning, traveling around the country. one of the unique things about this experience, my father was running for president. people would come up to youwherever you were and tell you their stories. with suchtremendous detail, and tell you of their hardest challenges, and share with you things in a way they neither -- never would have.they would never open themselves up to you in the same way theydo during the process of a campaign. now today, being part of this administration. i feel blessed for the candor in which people share their ideas and personal stories. linda and i were together in baltimore just days after the inauguration. we did a roundtable with small business owners, predominantly female, hosted by the national urban league. one of those women who actually i brought her to the white house a few months later is named lisa phillips. she had a small's ness. she told me her storyand i think -- we were all crying. it was so amazing. she started out homeless. she is now engaged. this spring she got her mastersdegree. she has a small but thriving small business and party planning. she is volunteering with homeless youth in baltimore. so this is -- these types of stories forever change you. it is unbelievable to hear the purser variants, the grant, the energy. i know she is going to make an enormous impact not just in her business but her community. we talk about small business, how it is going to grow our economy and benefit american workers, butthe amount of philanthropy being done on the local level by small business is a norm is enormous. i'm sure each of you can share your own stories just about how you are able to give act and you do in such a tremendous way. lisa story was moving to me.
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.
I am for the robust and free exchange of ideas, as essential to the mission of a great university as it is to the health of our democracy.
I am for a world where we welcome the immigrant, the poor, and the forgotten; we did [do] not shut them out or silence them; a world where showing empathy and understanding is considered the true hallmark of success, of a life well-lived.
That is what I am for.
Yale’s mission says, in part, that we are “committed to improving the world today and for future generations.” That commitment does not end at graduation.
Soon you will leave Yale and, as Robert Penn Warren, who studied and taught at Yale, wrote, “You will go into the convulsion of the world, out of history and into history.”
Indeed, you’ll go into history and make history.
On Monday, tomorrow, during your commencement ceremonies, I will confer on you all the “rights and responsibilities” of a Yale degree. Yours is a great responsibility. You will have to know what you are for.
What are you for?
“Surely in the light of history,” Eleanor Roosevelt said, “it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.”
Yale has prepared you, as a scholar and a human being, to try; to face challenges with courage and determination. And I trust you are leaving Yale with a sense of your own responsibilities to one another, to the planet, and to our shared future.
By serving others and our communities with the many gifts you have been given, you will live a life that is for something, a life of meaning and purpose.
There is no time to waste; there are no words to waste: As a young Bob Dylan sang in 1965, “He not busy being born is busy dying.” We must give life to new ideas, imagine new ways of being in the world, new answers to the problems that vex us and our neighbors.
Now is the time.
Members of the Class of 20xx, please rise:
We are delighted to salute your accomplishments, and we are proud of your achievements. Remember to give thanks for all that has brought you to this day. And go forth from this place with grateful hearts, paying back the gifts you have received here by using your minds, your voices, and your hands to imagine and create the new worlds you wish to see.
What are you for?
Congratulations, Class of 20xx!
Thank you. Thank you.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.
So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
So many people under estimate the power and importance of a smile, that simple little facial expression characterized by an upward curving of the corners ofthe mouth.
A smile has many meanings: pleasure, friendliness, welcome, amusement, and many more; and it is part of a universal body language that doesn’t need any extrainter pretation.
Plus a smile, with all its simplicity and beauty, can be a very important factor in many aspects of our lives:
You fall in love with a new country you visit because its people greet you with a welcoming smile everywhere you go; other countries you just don’t like even though they might have more history, nature, entertainment and what not because their people don’t seem so friendly or accepting.
You feel like buying from a certain store when the vendor welcomes you in with asmile, sometimes even if you wouldn’t initially have bought anything; and in other stores, even though they have exactly what you need or better, you decide to walk away because the vendor doesn’t look welcoming at all.
You want to give a waiter a good tip when he serves you with a smile, even if the food turns out not that good; on the other hand, sometimes you’ll have some of the best food ever, but you won’t feel like giving the waiter a tip, even if you do, because he was grumpy.
More and more examples from our everyday life show how much a simple smile can change everything.
Forever engraved in my mind will be the smiling faces of the people of Thailand, the friendly pizza delivery boy, the welcoming supermarket vendor, the nice cashier at the bank, … etc.
It is these smiles that keep me wanting to go back, and that keep us all wanting to go back; looking at it from another view, if we break it down using business sense, a smile is one of the most effective means to generate sales and develop customer loyalty.
On top of all that, a smile is a very simple and easy thing to do, so it amazes why no one bothers to do it, it not only makes the person in front of you better, but it also makes you feel better as well, and I’m not making this up,it has been psychologically proven.
Personally, I’d like to see more smiling faces in this world; in the airports when I enter a new country, in companies, government agencies, restaurants, hotels, banks,everywhere; and I think it is up to governments to campaign about this, and even make it obligatory in certain important places like airports, hospitals,hotels … etc.
Let’sall simply smile.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
In the matter of courage we all have our limits. There never was a hero who did not have his bounds. I suppose it may be said of Nelson and all the others whose courage has been advertised that there came times in their lives when their bravery knew it had come to its limit.
I have found mine a good many times. Sometimes this was expected--often it was unexpected. I know a man who is not afraid to sleep with a rattle-snake, but you could not get him to sleep with a safety-razor.
I never had the courage to talk across a long, narrow room. I should be at the end of the room facing all the audience. If I attempt to talk across a room I find myself turning this way and that, and thus at alternate periods I have part of the audience behind me. You ought never to have any part of the audience behind you; you never can tell what they are going to do.
I'll sit down.
One of the legacies of receiving a world-class education is the sobering awareness of the inadequacy of our knowledge. Some years ago, one of the people I admire and respect most architect is Renzo Piano just turned 70 and I asked him what felt like. He said that, as much as he had thought about and prepared for that moment, it still came as a shock. Now I can attest to that feeling of shock but more than anything he said it made him feel that our proper lifespan should be 210 years, 70 to learn, 70 to do, and 70 to teach the next generation.
This lovely description captures an elementary fact of life: a good life has the feeling that we’re learning more and more as we go. And that we could do even better if we just learned a bit more. I hope that you are fortunate enough to carry that spirit of life with you and we must hope together that it continues to define this nation and the world. In the centuries ahead, on behalf of Columbia University, I extend to all our graduates the centennial class of 20xx warmest congratulations.Thank you!