Here’s a look at some of the most memorable quotes from each of the past ten commencement addresses at Syracuse University.

2015 — Mary Karr — Award-winning author

“And if I could, I would download into all your brains today a hard-wired app that would permit you to observe your own rage and fear from inside that quiet, noticer place, to install a button you could push during the bad times and have somebody say in a really convincing voice, this might be the start of something great that I just can’t foresee right now because I am scared sh*tless.”

 

Full video of Mary Karr’s speech is available here.

2014 — David Remnick — Editor of The New Yorker

“No one is insisting you all become global politicians or selfless activists. Some of you will spend nearly all of your time pursuing private, professional, and personal comforts and rewards. But that does not rule out your spending at least some significant time in the service of all. Of all of us. Of seeing the world clear and taking part in some way large or small in making it better.

“This is what comes with citizenship. This is what comes with a diploma. So while we all congratulate you today on in effect joining the world, we also ask that you help us see that world anew. See it more clearly. And then act.”

 

Full video of David Remnick’s speech is available here.

 

2013 — Nicholas Kristof — New York Times columnist

“I certainly wouldn’t want to argue that money can’t buy happiness, and it’s equally true that poverty can’t buy happiness either. But I think the connections are more complicated than we sometimes assume, and in fact, there is pretty good evidence emerging about a more dependable way to raise one’s happiness level. And that is to engage with others collectively in a cause that is larger than yourself. Think of it as the selfishness of altruism.”

 

Full video of Nicholas Kristof’s speech is available here.

 

2012 — Aaron Sorkin ’83 — Award-winning screenwriter, producer and playwright

“Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character. You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance — and since you’re walking into the middle of a presidential election, it’s worth mentioning that you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy. Unless they went to Georgetown, in which case, they can go to hell.”

 

Full video of Aaron Sorkin’s speech is available here.

 

2011 — J. Craig Venter — World-renowned scientist

“Now commencement speakers usually give advice on how to be successful. I’m not going to do that. Few who knew me early on would have predicted my success. My path in life was profoundly altered by being drafted — off my surf board — and ending up as a medic in the middle of the Vietnam War. Most of you have no clue as to what unique challenges and highly motivating, life-altering experiences and events that lay in your path. I can only ask and hope that some of you will not get swallowed up into your everyday existence, but rather these incredible challenges for our future will incite you to want to change that future. Change is 100 percent dependent on motivated individuals.”

 

Full video of J. Craig Venter’s speech is available here.

 

2010 — Jamie Dimon, — Chairman, president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase

“It takes humility and humanity to be accountable. We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. Humility is the realization that those who came before paved the way. Never fool yourselves into thinking that your success is yours alone. Your success is the result of your parents, the family that sacrificed to give you a better life, your professors and administrators who help you get through your time here at Syracuse, your friends, your neighbors, those who encourage you. In fact, this wonderful country, whose bounties we all benefit from, was built by so many people who made endless sacrifices, often the ultimate sacrifice, before most of us were even born. It’s important to respect what they have done, and to be grateful for it.”

 

Full video of Jamie Dimon’s speech is available here.

 

2009 — Joseph R. Biden Jr. — 47th Vice President of the United States

“Folks, I’m not giving you the usual malarkey that every one of you are going to change the world, that every one of you are going to become the Nobel laureates and the presidents and the corporate heads and the leaders of great organizations. But I am telling you, the cumulative effect of what you’ve already demonstrated, your capacity to do, will – I guarantee you – will change the world. Because it cannot sustain itself in the direction it’s going now. Just as with every generation that is at an inflection point in history, it’s totally within your power to shape history and literally bend it. This is not bravado. This has been the history of the journey of America from its inception.”

 

Full video of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s speech is available here.

 

2008 — Bob Woodruff — ABC News journalist

“The last little nugget I want to share with you today is to make sure that you have humor. A sense of humor cannot be underestimated in my life, and there are plenty of people around me that have remarkable humor. My family and I would not have gotten through the last year without it. Our shared ability to laugh — even when we are the maddest at each other — has carried us through almost 20 years of marriage. We’ve had plenty of fights. And speaking of laughter, laugh a lot — it helps you live longer, and it releases good stuff.”

 

Full video of Bob Woodruff’s speech is available here.

 

2007 — Frank McCourt — Author and Pulitzer Prize winner

“So I’ve reached this point in my life where I’m doing what I want to do and that’s the most beautiful thing of all. Last year in San Francisco a young woman told me she was about to become a teacher, and did I have any advice for her. The only thing I could think of at that moment–I think I knew it all along–was to find what you love, and do it. If you don’t love what you’re doing, you’re dead. Take out insurance. You’re dead. And I leave you with a quotation from an old English poem: “Read your scriptures, follow in the path of virtue and keep your bowels open.”

 

Full video of Frank McCourt’s speech is available here.

 

2006 —  Billy Joel – Singer/songwriter

“You being here today is proof that you’ve learned a lot, and I hope that the time you were here you’ve learned something very important, and that is that you’ve learned what it is you love. If you haven’t learned it by now, I hope you learn it soon in the future because if there’s any advice I can give to you, it’s do what you love. Don’t do it for security, or status, prestige, money, or — for crying out loud — don’t do it for somebody else. Do it for love. Because if you love what you do, you’ll always do what you love.”

 

Full video of Billy Joel’s speech is available here.

– Compiled by Jacob Gedetsis, social media director, jagedets@syr.edu

Published on May 9, 2016 at 11:50 am

Contact Jacob: jagedets@syr.edu