Graduation Gems, 2016

You’ll look at things with fresher eyes, unencumbered by the biases and blind spots and inertia and general crankiness of your parents and grandparents and old heads like me.
--Barack Obama at Rutgers University

You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.
--Michelle Obama at City College of New York

Finding gratitude and appreciation is key to resilience. People who take the time to list things they are grateful for are happier and healthier. It turns out that counting your blessings can actually increase your blessings.
--Sheryl Sandberg at University of California, Berkeley

So the question I asked when life told me no was, “What am I capable of? Am I capable of doing what I want to do?”
--Russell Wilson at University of Wisconsin-Madison

But the message is that if you want to have a deep impact on what matters to you, don’t do things at remove. Invest yourself fully. Get close.
--Samantha Power at Yale College

And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, ‘here’s what you should do,’ while your intuition whispers, ‘here’s what you could do.’ Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that.
--Steven Spielberg at Harvard University

Turn towards the problems that you see. And engage with them. Walk right up to them, look them in the eye ... then look yourself in the eye and decide what you’re going to do about them. In my experience, there’s just no substitute for actually going and seeing things.
--Matt Damon at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Look, if you take the unexpected opportunities when they come up, if you know yourself, and if you fight for what you believe in, I can promise that you will live a life that is rich with meaning.
--Elizabeth Warren at Suffolk University

Now's the time to seize the day, take advantage of this unique moment in history, and build bridges amongst us. Talking about gender, race, religion, and nations, not walls. Let us build bridges of love, versus walls of hate.
--Spike Lee at Johns Hopkins University

The ‘uh-oh’ moments are worth cherishing just as much as ‘ah-ha’ moments: Mistakes, failures, embarrassments and disappointments are a necessary component of growing wise. We can learn more from our not-so-good experiences than we can learn from our good ones.
--Sonia Sotomayor at University of Rhode Island

You must be weak before the world, because love and listening weaken you. They make you vulnerable. They break you open. And it is only when you are weak that you can truly see and acknowledge and forgive and love the weakness in others. Weakness allows you to see other humans not as enemies to defeat, but as collaborators and co-creators.
--John Green at Kenyon College

At this moment in your life you know fewer limits, fewer taboos and fewer fears than you will ever in the future. So do not squander your ignorance. Go out and do what your teachers and parents thought could not be done -- and what they never thought of doing.
--Peter Thiel at Hamilton College

The history we know, the stories we tell ourselves, relieve that existential anxiety, allow us to live beyond our fleeting lifespans, and permit us to value and love and distinguish what is important. And the practice of history, both personal and professional, becomes a kind of conscience for us.
--Ken Burns at Stanford University

This act of choosing—the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out—will reverberate across the rest of your life.
--Lin-Manuel Miranda at University of Pennsylvania

So all of us need to do much more to build relationships with partners overseas, to deliver assistance to families and communities abroad, to promote stability worldwide. And we need to do this not because it is morally right, which it is; not just because it’s in keeping with our national ethos, which is also true; but because our own security and prosperity demand it.
--John Kerry at Northeastern University

So whether you’re running for president or just about to enter the workplace, sleep is the ultimate performance-enhancing drug – and one without side effects, if you don’t count bed-head, which apparently some young people actually want, therefore it’s not a side effect, it’s a bonus feature.
--Arianna Huffington at Colby College