Commencement speeches
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Steve Jobs: You’ve got to find what you love (2005) | Напутственные речи
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.
I’d like to begin by thanking the class marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000. So I was reluctant to show up.
Conan O’Brien: Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be (2000) | Напутственные речи
Stephen Colbert: Get your own TV show (2006) | Напутственные речи
Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, I’m facing a little bit of a conundrum here. My name is Stephen Colbert, but I actually play someone on television named Stephen Colbert, who looks like me, and who talks like me, but who says things with a straight face he doesn’t mean. And I’m not sure which one of us you invited to speak here today.
Amy Poehler: You Can’t Do It Alone (2011) | Напутственные речи
Good afternoon thank you for that beautiful award and for giving me a symbol of an animal that is one its way to extinction. I will find a prominent place in my garbage for that later on tonight. thank you very much. Friends Romans Countrymen, lend me your beers. I am honored that you chose me to help you celebrate your graduation today.
Jon Stewart: Exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum (2004) | Напутственные речи
Thank you Mr. President, I had forgotten how crushingly dull these ceremonies are. Thank you. My best to the choir.
David Foster Wallace: The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline (2005) | Напутственные речи
Greetings and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. 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?» This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story ["thing"] turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be.