经典毕业演讲

世界十大最著名毕业典礼上的演讲世界十大最著名毕业典礼上的演讲 DavidDavid FosterFoster Wallace Wallace Kenyon Kenyon 20052005 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life you will be totally hosed This address at Kenyon was vintage Wallace a smart occasionally meandering discussion of the issues that consumed him from the banality of life to the meaning of consciousness I know that this stuff probably doesn t sound fun and breezy and grandly inspirational he concluded What it is so far as I can see is the truth The capital T Truth is about life before death It is about making it to 30 or maybe 50 without wanting to shoot yourself in the head All the reasons Wallace didn t make it to 50 are apparent here in hindsight the speech reads like the first draft of a suicide note for an author who took his own life last year at age 46 While it s a macabre read there s tons that s worthwhile here the speech crackles with wit and intelligence and offers tricks for escaping the depression to which Wallace ultimately succumbed David Foster Wallace 美国著名小说作家 评论家 幽默作家 代表作 无尽的玩笑 入选 时代周刊 百部最佳英文小说 David Foster Wallace2008 年 9 月 13 日患抑郁症自杀家中 享年 46 岁 SteveSteve Jobs Jobs Stanford Stanford 20052005 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom No one wants to die Even people who want to go to Heaven don t want to die to get there And yet death is the destination we all share No one has ever escaped it And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life It is life s change agent It clears out the old to make way for the new Right now the new is you but someday not too long from now you will gradually become the old and be cleared away Sorry to be so dramatic but it is quite true 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 Stay hungry Stay foolish Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick said Jobs Don t lose faith Despite his prickly reputation this heartfelt commencement address is about as good as the genre gets short smart poignant and uplifting Discussing life love and loss the Apple co founder hit all the right notes Steve Jobs 苹果电脑创始人 声名显赫的 计算机狂人 ConanConan O Brien O Brien HarvardHarvard Class Class Day Day 20002000 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom I ve dwelled on my failures today because as graduates of Harvard your biggest liability is your need to succeed Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve Because success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo You feel terrific when you get it but then you re desperately afraid of getting it dirty of spoiling it in any way I left the cocoon of Harvard I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live I left the cocoon of The Simpsons And each time it was bruising and tumultuous And yet every failure was freeing and today I m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good So that s what I wish for all of you the bad as well as the good Fall down make a mess break something occasionally And remember that the story is never over When Conan O Brien spoke at Harvard University s 2000 Class Day he had a lot of things to say many of them about Harvard O Brien graduated from the prestigious university in 1985 and he took at few shots at his alma mater s expense The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me 110 000 he said so you ll forgive me if I m a bit suspicious O Brien also spoke about the difficulties of trying to make it in comedy first as a writer for Saturday Night Live then for The Simpsons and then finally as a late night talk show host and all of the setbacks and failures he endured along the way He discussed his bombed television pilot embarrassingly bad reviews and what it was like to be 28 and unemployed in New York City proving that no one not even the man who would one day take over the Tonight Show escapes disappointment and self doubt But despite his stumbles O Brien kept going And he told Harvard s class of 2000 that they should too Conan O Brien 美国著名脱口秀主持人 RussellRussell Baker Baker ConnecticutConnecticut College College 19951995 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom Listen once in a while It s amazing what you can hear On a hot summer day in the country you can hear the corn growing the crack of a tin roof buckling under the power of the sun In a real old fashioned parlor silence so deep you can hear the dust settling on the velveteen settee you might hear the footsteps of something sinister gaining on you or a heart stoppingly beautiful phrase from Mozart you haven t heard since childhood or the voice of somebody now gone whom you loved Or sometime when you re talking up a storm so brilliant so charming that you can hardly believe how wonderful you are pause just a moment and listen to yourself It s good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you and next time maybe just maybe you will not talk so much so loudly so brilliantly so charmingly so utterly shamelessly foolishly Baker a Pulitzer Prize winning author and columnist knows how to reach college kids He s funny and engaging The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this Don t do it without being cynical and lands enough light jabs to remind his audience that his advice from get married to sleep in the nude is worth heeding Russell Baker 纽约时报 专栏作家 1982 年普利策奖获得者 成名 作为个人自传 成长 WinstonWinston Churchill Churchill HarrowHarrow School School 19411941 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom Never give in Never give in Never never never never in nothing great or small large or petty never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense No leader in history perhaps matched Churchill s capacity for blurring the lines between speech and battle cry This is one of his best It s an urban legend that the Never give in exhortation comprised the totality of his address Churchill went on for several more paragraphs But there s no question that this far and away was what Harrow s students remembered Winston Churchill 英国前首相 GeorgeGeorge Marshall Marshall Harvard Harvard 19471947 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger poverty desperation and chaos Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist Marshall s address at Harvard was pretty dry stuff but give the guy a break Instead of following the conventional blueprint for a commencement speech a poignant metaphor here some poetic turns of phrase there wrapped up in a neat life lesson Marshall did nothing less than outline the plan to rebuild postwar Europe and curb the spread of communism that would eventually bear his name Since this speech was step one toward saving a continent Marshall gets a pass for failing to meet today s quota for snappy one liners George Marshall 1880 1959 美国将军 政治家 出任国务卿期间 推 出欧洲复兴计划 JohnJohn F F Kennedy Kennedy AmericanAmerican University University 19631963 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself Too many of us think it is impossible Too many think it unreal But that is a dangerous defeatist belief It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable that mankind is doomed that we are gripped by forces we cannot control We need not accept that view Our problems are man made therefore they can be solved by man And man can be as big as he wants No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings Man s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again Consider the last time you witnessed an exchange about the thorny issues on today s agenda pork barrel spending say or instituting universal health care Chances are the discussion was conducted in weary whispered tones Pragmatism is in and talk of grand solutions is the kiss of death for many a politician Reading J F K s 1963 address to American University graduates on the need for world peace is a reminder of how much our political discourse has changed and in many ways diminished Say this for the President he made no small plans John F Kennedy 美国前总统 BradleyBradley Whitford Whitford Wisconsin Wisconsin 20062006 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom Take action Every story you ve ever connected with every leader you ve ever admired every puny little thing that you ve ever accomplished is the result of taking action You have a choice You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair You will inevitably make mistakes Learn what you can and move on At the end of your days you will be judged by your gallop not by your stumble As an actor Whitford s most famous character was The West Wing s Josh Lyman a pragmatic political wonk with a drive to win and no compunction about kneecapping his foes So it s a little strange to read Whitford s earnest advice for overcoming adversity But there s no denying that his address makes a heartfelt inspiring read Bradley Whitford 美国著名电影演员 BarbaraBarbara Kingsolver Kingsolver Duke Duke 20082008 WordsWords ofof Wisdom Wisdom If somebody says Your money or your life you could say Life And mean it You ll see things collapse in your time the big houses the empires of glass The new green things that sprout up through the wreck those will be yours The arc of history is longer than human vision It bends We abolished slavery we granted universal suffrage We have done hard things before And every time it took a terrible fight between people who could not imagine changing the rules and those who said We already did We have made the world new The hardest part will be to convince yourself of the possibilities and hang on At Duke in 2008 Kingsolver the author of a dozen books including The Poisonwood Bible didn t shy away from weighty matters Without being preachy she enumerated the perils of climate change of the all consuming need to accumulate wealth and of in this age of digital connectedness our increasing isolation from one another But this beautifully written speech ends on a hopeful note The ridiculously earnest are known to travel in groups she said And they are known to change the world Barbara Kingsolver 美国作家 StephenStephen Colbert Colbert KnoxKnox College College 20062006 WordsWords