英文勵志演講稿 篇1
as you slowly open your eyes,look around,notice where the light comes into your room;listen carefully,see if there are new sounds you can recognize;feel with your body and spirit, and see if you can sense the freshness in the air.
yes, it's a new day,it's a different day,and its a bright day!and most importantly,it is a new beginning for your life,a beginning where you are going to make new desicisions, take new actions,make new friends,and take your life to a totally unprecedented level!
in your mind's eye, you can see clearly the things you want to have,the paces you intend to go,the relationships you desire to develop,and the positions you aspire to can hear your laughters of joy and happiness on the day when everything happens as you can see the smiles on the people around you when the magic moment can feel your face is getting red, your heart is beating fast,and your blood is rushing all over your body,to every single corner of your being!
you know all this is real as long as you are confident,passionate and committed! and you are confident,you are passionate,you are committed!
you will no longer fear making new sounds, showing new facial expressions, using your body in new ways,approaching new people,and asking new 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 will focus all your time and effort on the most important goals of your will never succumb to challenges of will never waver in your pursuit of r 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 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! now stand firm and tall,make a fist,get excited,and yell it out:i must do it!i can do it! i will do it!i will succeed!
英文勵志演講稿 篇2
five thousand years of glorious civilization, the chinese, the four major inventions in the world bright with china. descendants are all proud of our nation, proud.
we are proud, because china has a long history and splendid culture. five thousand years of glorious history of the chinese nation, settling the essence of eastern and western civilizations, revealing the dawn of human science, the history of civilization in the world with the enduring charm. four great inventions change the face of humanity as a whole, "book of songs" to create a realistic world literature precedent, the romantic poetry of qu yuan to bring the extraordinary imagination of mankind, the prose of qin and han, tang, song, yuan, ming and qing fiction, confucius and mencius doctrine as well as "the art of war", etc., all demonstrate the ancestors of the chinese nation rich emotion and wisdom.
we are proud that vast land of china. nature millions of years, sculpture, constitute a colorful picture, pentium nurtured
generations of descendants of the yellow river, the yangtze river each new year surging surging waves of wisdom, standing proudly on top of everest in the world peak of the chinese nation the symbol of unyielding character, and many countlerivers and lakes, mountains, okawa, cultural landscape, this is not the pride of all chinese people and proud?
however, history does not glow bright sun every day, china had been brilliant, has a catastrophe ordeal. but also created the chinese nation, we are proud of the great indomitable character, casting a strong backbone of china. over the past 50 years, numerous
miracles again in this wonderful land of birth. rapid economic
development, science and technology fruits. bombs and one satellite has heaven, a seat like a rainbow bridge acrothe yangtze river. three gorges project, the qinghai-tibet railway, hong kong and macao's return, china's accession to wto; test new varieties of hybrid rice succeof the world's agricultural science and technology research to fill gaps in the field, all these all reflect the great vitality and cohesion of china, fully demonstrating its great and brilliant
achievements, should we not be proud of these achievements, and proud of it? decades of good governance, top to bottom search of several years, our country has stood in the east, self-reliance among the nations in the world!
we are the most dynamic young people, like the morning eight or nine o'clock the sun, the hope of the chinese nation. the world is our 21st century is our century! let us work hard seeking knowledge, devote themselves to study culture, to master skills, work together to create our nation a more brilliant tomorrow!
英文勵志演講稿 篇3
there is a poem written by langston hughes hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die,life is a broken-winged bird. that can never fast to dreams, for if dreams go, life is a barren field,frozen with snow. how beautiful it is. yes, we shouldn’t give up our shouldn’t give in to the large pressure on the way to realize our shall we dorobert h. goddard gave us the answer, “it is difficult to say which is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and reality oftomorrow” youth is not a time of life，it is a state of mind; it is not a matter ofrosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees， it is a matter of the will, aquality of the imagination, a vigor of the is the freshness of the deep springs of h means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, 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 may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. worry,fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust. whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, 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 is a wirelessstation: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, you and i will remain young. when the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are upto catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may have young heart at 80.
青春不是生命的一瞬，它是一種自然的心境；青春不是如花的臉龐、鮮紅的嘴脣和健康柔潤 的雙腿，它是一種意志、想象、精力，更是生命中那生機勃勃的春天。 青春是衝動的勇敢而不是懦弱,青春是挑戰的慾望而不是安逸的生活。即使年過花甲,壯心不已.沒有人痴長百歲,而伴隨着的是我們拋卻幻想,錘鍊生活的經歷。歲月讓我們的皮膚起了皺紋,但缺乏激情會讓我們的靈魂萎縮。焦慮、恐懼、缺乏自信讓心稽首，更讓心靈的青春塵封。無論60歲還是16歲，我們每個人都有着天生的好奇心、孩子般刨根追底不厭其煩的渴求慾望、幻想遊戲人生的生活方式。在你我心中有着心靈的默契：只要我們的心還能從人們的身上和大自然的懷抱中感受到美麗、希望、快樂、勇氣和力量，那麼我們依舊年輕無限。當幻想破滅，而你憤世嫉俗，對生活充滿悲觀情緒，那麼你已經老了。即使在20歲的時候，只要你積極樂觀的追求你心中的幻想，一直到永遠，那麼你在80歲的時候仍有一顆永保青春的心。
英文勵志演講稿 篇4
Dear：
as you slowly open your eyes,look around,notice where the light comes into your room;listen carefully,see if there are new sounds you can recognize;feel with your body and spirit,and see if you can sense the freshness in the air.
yes,yes,yes,it’s a new day,it’s a different day,and it’s a bright day!and most importantly,it is a new beginning for your life,a beginning where you are going to make new desicisions,take new actions,make new friends,and take your life to a totally unprecedented level!
in your mind’s eye,you can see clearly the things you want to have,the paces you intend to go,the relationships you desire to develop,and the positions you aspire to reach.
you can hear your laughters of joy and happiness on the day when everything happens as you dream.
you can see the smiles on the people around you when the magic moment strikes.
you can feel your face is getting red,your heart is beating fast,and your blood is rushing all over your body,to every single corner of your being!
you know all this is real as long as you are confident,passionate and committed!and you are confident,you are confident,passionate and committed!
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 will never succumb to challenges of hardships.
you will never waver in your pursuit of r all,you are the best,and you deserve the best!
as you 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 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!now stand firm and tall,make a fist,get excited,and yell it out:
i must do it!i can do it!i will do it!i will succeed!
英文勵志演講稿 篇5
many things in this world find neither an answer nor a proper explanation. for example, why should two become a couple among the billions of people on earth? why don't they love each other even though they live together everyday, and yet one of them falls in love with someone else at the first sight? why do the members of a family quarrel daily but still stay unhappily together? why can't they get married in spite of the fact that they are a perfect match to each other? why should one toil so much for the other? why should the love-infatuated always be deserted by the heartless?.....
people remain puzzled in spite of their great effort to understand the endless questions, so they invented the all-embracing word---“predestination”. in order to be more precise, different combinations were derived from it: love predestination, sinful predestination, evil predestination, and kind predestination etc., hence we have the sayings like: “predestination will definitely bring you together despite the great distance while without predestination, you'll never know each other even though you are standing fact to face” “a distant couple is tied up with the thread of predestination” and even the phrases and expressions like “the god of marriage”, “predestination without luck”, “luck without predestination”, “coming across each other is a kind of predestination”, “enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road”, “they shall not marry each other unless they are predestined lovers”. if people still can not find answers, they turn to “reincarnation” for help. lin daiyu is always in tears just for repaying for the water jia baoyu had given her when she was a plant in her previous life in a dream of the red mansions .
in fact, the so-called “predestination” is often a kind of coincidence or chance encounter, even a kind of accident. if you don't meet this person, you'll surely meet some one else. but people insist on adding some colors of emotions or superstition, thus generating various religious factions, the main theories of which are no more than that of “reincarnation”, “heaven and hell” and “the ever-lasting soul” etc.
but does anyone know anything about his previous life or his after life? what could he do even if he knew them? if he can't grasp the present life, what's the benefit of commenting on the visionary after life? giving up today is the same as giving up tomorrow, for they are closely connected. how absurd it is to work like the horse or cattle in the present life in order to be above others in the next life.
have you ever seen emperor qinshihuang reincarnate? have you ever heard of emperor wudi of the han dynasty going into another life? where is now monk xuanzang of the tang dynasty (what we know is the big wild goose pagoda)? where is the monkey king (the flower and fruit mountain does exist, though)? and where can we find those great emperors such as yao , shun yu and the influential philosophers like confucius, laozi and zhuangzi?
how many heavens do we find? are they also divided into the oriental and the occidental world? is god a chinese or westerner? which is the greatest religion among buddhism, daoism, christianity, catholicity and islamism? all religions advocate doing good deeds and not killing, but why do they keep contending against each other, even fighting and killing among themselves? is the paradise the same one in all religions? there's only one sun in the sky, and there should be only one emperor in a country, but do all religions believe in the same god, or do they have different gods of their own? if all of us expected god's help, wouldn't god be too busy and too tired?
does god respect science? if not, why does he allow computers and telecommunications to run rampant? if it is god who created human beings, then doesn't he feel out of control of what the human being are doing now (the nuclear weapons and bio-chemical weapons, etc.)?
we human beings have an origin, and is it the same with god? does god get married? is god hereditary, or is it the same ever-lasting one?
we have all those questions but who can answer them?.
predestination needs us to strive for; friendship needs us to maintain; good will needs us to treasure and future needs us to create. there is no savior, nor goddess of mercy who once saved people in the past but cannot do anything to help the people at the present. the world is developing too fast.
people have to work together and associate with each other. talking about predestination, it's just a kind of explanation about what has happened, and i'm afraid nobody can predict it before hand. from ancient times till the 1980' s, once getting married, the couple had to stick to each other for their whole life. can we say it is because of their life-long predestination? it is just because of the marriage system. in the western countries, life-long marriage is rare. can we sa
y it is because their predestination makes it so? it is actually the result of human nature. the color of love could be attached to predestination, but not the color of superstition.
predestination is a lovely word which we should treasure and respect. in the present world, we should always follow the win-win or multi-win policy, instead of being single-handed. in order to achieve success, we must gain mass support instead of indulging in self-admiration. we might as well call the communication, the cooperation, the common concerns and the common aspirations of human beings “predestination”.
英文勵志演講稿 篇6
as you slowly open your eyes,look around,notice where the light comes into your room;listen carefully,see if there are new sounds you can recognize;feel with your body and spirit,and see if you can sense the freshness in the air.
yes,yes,yes,it’s a new day,it’s a different day,and it’s a bright day!and most importantly,it is a new beginning for your life,a beginning where you are going to make new desicisions,take new actions,make new friends,and take your life to a totally unprecedented level!
in your mind’s eye,you can see clearly the things you want to have,the paces you intend to go,the relationships you desire to develop,and the positions you aspire to reach.
you can hear your laughters of joy and happiness on the day when everything happens as you dream.
you can see the smiles on the people around you when the magic moment strikes.
you can feel your face is getting red,your heart is beating fast,and your blood is rushing all over your body,to every single corner of your being!
you know all this is real as long as you are confident,passionate and committed!and you are confident,you are confident,passionate and committed!
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 will never succumb to challenges of hardships.
you will never waver in your pursuit of r all,you are the best,and you deserve the best!
as you 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 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!now stand firm and tall,make a fist,get excited,and yell it out:
i must do it!i can do it!i will do it!i will succeed!
英文勵志演講稿 篇7
Wherever you are,and whoever you may be, there is one thing in which you and I are just alike, at this moment, and in all the moments of our existence. We are not at rest; we are on a journey. Our life is not a mere fact; it is a movement, a tendency, a steady, ceaseless progress towards an unseen goal. We are gaining something, or losing something, every day. Even when our position and our character seem to remain precisely the same, they are changing. For the mere advance of time is a change. It is not the same thing to have a bare field in January and in July. The season makes the difference. The limitations that are childlike in the child are childish in the man.
無論你現在身處何方,也無論你是何等人物，此時此刻，以及我們生命中的任一瞬間，你我之間都有一點相同之處。那就是，我們並未停歇，而仍在旅途。我們的人生並不僅僅是一種存在的事實,而是一種運動，一種趨勢，一種堅定不移而沒有停息地朝向某個看不見的目標前行的過程。每一天，我們都有所得,也有所失。即使我們的地位和品性看似與原來無異，但實際上它們正在改變，因為時間的推移本身就是一種改變。同一片荒野，在一月和七月是不同的，季節造成了這種差異。智能上的不足，在孩子身上被視為天真無邪，而對於成人來説則是一種幼稚的表現。
Everything that we do is a step in one direction or another. Even the failure to do something is in itself a deed. It sets us forward or backward. The action of the negative pole of a magnetic needle is just as real as the action of the positive pole. To decline is to accept the other alternative.
我們所做的每件事都是朝着某一個方向邁出的一步。甚至無為，其本身也是一種作為，它使我們前進或後退。一根磁針的磁極作用，無論正負都是一樣的真實。拒絕也是一種接受，只不過是另外一種選擇罷了。
Are you richer today than you were yesterday? No? Then you are a little poorer. Are you better today than you were yesterday? No? Then you are a little worse. Are you nearer to your port today than you were yesterday? Yes, you must be a little nearer to some port or other; for since your ship was first launched upon the sea of life you have never been still for a single moment; the sea is too deep, you could not find an anchorage if you would; there can be no pause until you come into port.
你今天比昨天富有嗎？沒有，那説明你變窮了點。你今天比昨天過得好嗎？沒有，那麼你的情況變糟了一點。你今天比昨天更接近你的港口了嗎？是的，那麼你一定距某個港口更近了。因為，自從你駛入人生之海，你的航船至今尚未停歇片刻。這片海洋太深了，縱使你想找到一個拋錨停泊之處也難以求得。因此，在駛入港口之前，你無法稍作歇息。
英文勵志演講稿 篇8
Only mother love is true love 's gives everybody everything in all his life ,When you are still a baby ,mother takes good care of you as much as your waking hour she always holds you in her you are ill,she stop her work right now to look after you day and night and forgets about you are growing up day by day,she feels very you are old enough to go to school,mother still looks after you all the cold winter days,she always tells you to put on more always stands in the window waiting for you back from you are hurry to leave home for school for breakfast ,she feels worried about you at usually knows about your study and spends much money on your school things you do well at school will see the brightset smile on her face.
Mother is ailways ready to give everything she has to her children ,not to receive.
What true love that is in the world !We will remember Mother love forever .
Every one of us,rich or poor,should at least have one or two good friends will listen to me when I want to speak,will wipe my eyes when I cry,will take care of me when I am sick,and my friends will go together with me side by side through this journey of life.
英文勵志演講稿 篇9
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!
now stand firm and tall, make a fist, get excited, and yell it out:
i must do it! i can do it! i will do it! i will succeed!
英文勵志演講稿 篇10
It is such an honor and pleasure for me to be back at Yale, especially on the occasion of the 300th anniversary. I have had so many memories of my time here, and as Nick was speaking I thought about how I ended up at Yale Law School. And it tells a little bit about how much progress we’ve made.
What I think most about when I think of Yale is not just the politically charged atmosphere and not even just the superb legal education that I received. It was at Yale that I began work that has been at the core of what I have cared about ever since. I began working with New Haven legal services representing children. And I studied child development, abuse and neglect at the Yale New Haven Hospital and the Child Study Center. I was lucky enough to receive a civil rights internship with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children’s Defense Fund, where I went to work after I graduated. Those experiences fueled in me a passion to work for the benefit of children, particularly the most vulnerable.
Now, looking back, there is no way that I could have predicted what path my life would have taken. I didn’t sit around the law school, saying, well, you know, I think I’ll graduate and then I’ll go to work at the Children’s Defense Fund, and then the impeachment inquiry, and Nixon retired or resigns, I’ll go to Arkansas. I didn’t think like that. I was taking each day at a time.名人勵志演講稿But, I’ve been very fortunate because I’ve always had an idea in my mind about what I thought was important and what gave my life meaning and purpose. A set of values and beliefs that have helped me navigate the shoals, the sometimes very treacherous sea, to illuminate my own true desires, despite that others say about what l should care about and believe in. A passion to succeed at what l thought was important and children have always provided that lone star, that guiding light. Because l have that absolute conviction that every child, especially in this, the most blessed of nations that has ever existed on the face of earth, that every child deserves the opportunity to live up to his or her God-given potential.
But you know that belief and conviction-it may make for a personal mission statement, but standing alone, not translated into action, it means very little to anyone else, particularly to those for whom you have those concerns.
When I was thinking about running for the United States Senate-which was such an enormous decision to make, one I never could have dreamed that I would have been making when I was
here on campus-I visited a school in New York City and I met a young woman, who was a star athlete.
I was there because of Billy Jean King promoting an HBO special about women in sports called “Dare to compete.” It was about Title IX and how we finally, thanks to government action, provided opportunities to girls and women in sports.
And although I played not very well at intramural sports, I have always been a strong supporter of women in sports. And I was introduced by this young woman, and as I went to shake her hand she obviously had been reading the newspapers about people saying I should or shouldn’t run for the Senate. And I was congratulating her on the speech she had just made and she held onto my hand and she said, “Dare to compete, Mrs. Clinton. Dare to compete.”
I took that to heart because it is hard to compete sometimes, especially in public ways, when your failures are there for everyone to see and you don’t know what is going to happen from one day to the next. And yet so much of life, whether we like to accept it or not, is competing with ourselves to be the best we can be, being involved in classes or professions or just life, where we know we are competing with others.
I took her advice and I did compete because I chose to do so. And the biggest choices that you’ll face in your life will be yours alone to make. I’m sure you’ll receive good advice. You’re got a great education to go back and reflect about what is right for you, but you eventually will have to choose and I hope that you will dare to compete. And by that I don’t mean the kind of cutthroat competition that is too often characterized by what is driving America today. I mean the small voice inside you that says to you, you can do it, you can take this risk, you can take this next step.
And it doesn’t mean that once having made that choice you will always succeed. In fact, you won’t. There are setbacks and you will experience difficult disappointments. You will be slowed down and sometimes the breath will just be knocked out of you. But if you carry with you the values and beliefs that you can make a difference in your own life, first and foremost, and then in the lives of others. You can get back up, you can keep going.
But it is also important, as I have found, not to take yourself too seriously, because after all, every one of us here today, none of us is deserving of full credit. I think every day of the blessings my birth gave me without any doing of my own. I chose neither my family nor my country, but they as much as anything I’ve ever done, determined my course.
You compare my or your circumstances with those of the majority of people who’ve ever lived or who are living right now, they too often are born knowing too well what their futures will be. They lack the freedom to choose their life’s path. They’re imprisoned by circumstances of poverty and ignorance, bigotry, disease, hunger, oppression and war.
So, dare to compete, yes, but maybe even more difficult, dare to care. Dare to care about people who need our help to succeed and fulfill their own lives. There are so many out there and
sometimes all it takes is the simplest of gestures or helping hands and many of you understand that already. I know that the numbers of graduates in the last 20 years have worked in community organizations, have tutored, have committed themselves to religious activities.
You have been there trying to serve because you have believed both that it was the right thing to do and because it gave something back to you. You have dared to care.
Well, dare to care to fight for equal justice for all, for equal pay for women, against hate crimes and bigotry. Dare to care about public schools without qualified teachers or adequate resources. Dare to care about protecting our environment. Dare to care about the 10 million children in our country who lack health insurance. Dare to care about the one and a half million children who have a parent in jail. The seven million people who suffer from HIV/AIDS. And thank you for caring enough to demand that our nation do more to help those that are suffering throughout this world with HIV/AIDS, to prevent this pandemic from spreading even further.
And I’ll also add, dare enough to care about our political process. You know, as I go and speak with students I’m impressed so much, not only in formal settings, on campuses, but with my daughter and her friends, about how much you care, about how willing you are to volunteer and serve. You may have missed the last wave of the revolution, but you’ve understood that the unity revolution is there for you every single day. And you’ve been willing to be part of remarking lives in our community.
And yet, there is a real resistance, a turning away from the political process. I hope that some of you will be public servants and will even run for office yourself, not to win a position to make and impression on your friends at your 20th reunion, but because you understand how important it is for each of us as citizens to make a commitment to our democracy.
Your generation, the first one born after the social upheavals of the 60’s and 70’s, in the midst of the technological advances of the 80’s and 90’s, are inheriting an economy, a society and a government that has yet to understand fully, or even come to grips with, our rapidly changing world.
And so bring your values and experiences and insights into politics. Dare to help make, not just a difference in politics, but create a different politics. Some have called you the generation of choice. You’ve been raised with multiple choice tests, multiple channels, multiple websites and multiple lifestyles. You’ve grown up choosing among alternatives that were either not imagined, created or available to people in prior generations.
You’ve been invested with far more personal power to customize your life, to make more free choices about how to live than was ever thought possible. And I think as I look at all the surveys and research that is done, your choices reflect not only freedom, but personal responsibility.
The social indicators, not the headlines, the social indicators tell a positive story: drug use and cheating and arrests being down, been pregnancy and suicides, drunk driving deaths being down.
Community service and religious involvement being up. But if you look at the area of voting among 18 to 29 year olds, the numbers tell a far more troubling tale. Many of you I know believe that service and community volunteerism is a better way of solving the issues facing our country than political engagement, because you believe-choose one of the following multiples or choose them all-government either can’t understand or won’t make the right choices because of political pressures, inefficiency, incompetence or big money influence.
Well, I admit there is enough truth in that critique to justify feeling disconnected and alienated. But at bottom, that’s a personal cop-out and a national peril. Political conditions maximize the conditions for individual opportunity and responsibility as well as community. Americorps and the Peace Corps exist because of political decisions. Our air, water, land and food will be clean and safe because of political choices. Our ability to cure disease or log onto the Internet have been advanced because of politically determined investments. Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo ended because of political leadership. Your parents and grandparents traveled here by means of government built and subsidized transportation systems. Many used GI Bills or government loans, as I did, to attend college.
Now, I could, as you might guess, go on and on, but the point is to remind us all that government is us and each generation has to stake its claim. And, as stakeholders, you will have to decide whether or not to make the choice to participate. It is hard and it is, bringing change in a democracy, particularly now. There’s so much about our modern times that conspire to lower our sights, to weaken our vision-as individuals and communities and even nations.
It is not the vast conspiracy you may have heard about; rather it’s a silent conspiracy of cynicism and indifference and alienation that we see every day, in our popular culture and in our prodigious consumerism.
But as many have said before and as Vaclav Havel has said to memorably, “It cannot suffice just to invent new machines, new regulations and new institutions. It is necessary to understand differently and more perfectly the true purpose of our existence on this Earth and of our deeds.” And I think we are called on to reject, in this time of blessings that we enjoy, those who will tear us apart and tear us down and instead to liberate our God-given spirit, by being willing to dare to dream of a better world.
During my campaign, when times were tough and days were long I used to think about the example of Harriet Tubman, a heroic New Yorker, a 19th century Moses, who risked her life to bring hundreds of slaves to freedom. She would say to those who she gathered up in the South where she kept going back year after year from the safety of Auburn, New York, that no matter what happens, they had to keep going. If they heard shouts behind them, they had to keep going. If they heard gunfire or dogs, they had to keep going to freedom. Well, those aren’t the risks we face. It is more the silence and apathy and indifference that dogs our heels.
Thirty-two years ago, I spoke at my own graduation from Wellesley, where I did call on my fellow classmates to reject the notion of limitations on our ability to effect change and instead to
embrace the idea that the goal of education should be human liberation and the freedom to practice with all the skill of our being the art of making possible.
For after all, our fate is to be free. To choose competition over apathy, caring over indifference, vision over myopia, and love over hate.
Just as this is a special time in your lives, it is for me as well because my daughter will be graduating in four weeks, graduating also from a wonderful place with a great education and beginning a new life. And as I think about all the parents and grandparents who are out there, I have a sense of what their feeling. Their hearts are leaping with joy, but it’s hard to keep tears in check because the presence of our children at a time and place such as this is really a fulfillment of our own American dreams. Well, I applaud you and all of your love, commitment and hard work, just as I applaud your daughters and sons for theirs.
And I leave these graduates with the same message I hope to leave with my graduate. Dare to compete. Dare to care. Dare to dream. Dare to love. Practice the art of making possible. And no matter what happens, even if you hear shouts behind, keep going.
Thank you and God bless you all.