The Top Ten All-Time Best Graduation Speeches

We, the editors of Gradspot.com would like to take this opportunity to hail one of the grandest traditions of beleaguered academia: The Commencement Speech. Like Gradspot, the CS (as we in the industry call it) tries to usher students into the “real world” with a combination of wit, substance, and self-love. Unlike Gradspot, it will never help its audience figure out the difference between a 401k and an IRA, the best place to live, or the best way to avoid getting a dose of the Clap. That being said, the CS will likely be delivered by someone with a one-word, symbolic, or acronymic name like JFK or Sting. So since we’re not yet cool enough for such a moniker, we’ve decided to do what we do best and research all of the commencement addresses ever given from the dawn of time in order to compile this precious list of winners.

Best Extended Metaphor – Will Ferrell, Harvard 2003

“I’m not one of you. Okay? I can’t relate to who you are and what you’ve been through. I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went to for real, okay?”

Best Motivational Cadence – Winston Churchill, Harrow 1941

“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. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Best Anecdotal Counterpoint – Jon Stewart, William and Mary 2004

“I was in New York on 9/11 when the towers came down. I lived 14 blocks from the twin towers. And when they came down, I thought that the world had ended. And I remember walking around in a daze for weeks. And Mayor Giuliani had said to the city, “You’ve got to get back to normal. We’ve got to show that things can change and get back to what they were.” And one day I was coming out of my building, and on my stoop, was a man who was crouched over, and he appeared to be in deep thought. And as I got closer to him I realized, he was playing with himself. And that’s when I thought, “You know what, we’re gonna be OK.”

Best Top Ten List – Russell Baker, Connecticut College 1995

“Point three follows from point two, and it’s this: 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…. Or sometimes 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 shamefully foolishly.”

Best Call to Peace – JFK, American University 1963

“What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time”