It’s OK to be scared. In fact, if you weren’t scared, I’d be scared for you. But let me repeat something that the most extraordinary, certainly one of the most extraordinary men I’ve ever known said. “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Let your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
“Lose one’s nerve” 的意思是 “屈服于恐惧和焦虑，失去了做某件事情的勇气，惊慌失措”。人们常常用这个表达来劝他人 “别害怕”：“Don’t lose your nerve.”。
No matter how cliché it may sound, you will never truly be successful until you learn to give beyond yourself. Empathy and kindness are the true signs of emotional intelligence. Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of results…trust your gut……keep throwing darts at the dart board…..don’t listen to the critics and you will figure it out.
We’re never going to achieve perfection. Certainly not in a democracy. But we can do better. And it’s a slow process of doing better each and each generation. With setbacks, with failures, but then we keep on going. Our grandparents, our parents. It’s that process that ultimately is a great responsibility for all of us. But it is also a remarkable privilege to make this world better.
Don’t get hung up on what other people say is practical. Instead, steer your ship into the choppy seas. Look for the rough spots, the problems that seem too big, the complexities that other people are content to work around. It’s in those places that you will find your purpose. It’s there that you can make your greatest contribution.
I believe anyone committed to human rights is an internationalist. It means seeing the world with a sense of fairness and humility, and recognizing our own humanity in the struggles of others. It includes the view that success isn’t being better or greater than others, but finding your place in a world where others succeed too.
Technology is wonderful and powerful and efficient, but there’s no app for inspiration. Don’t let a four-inch screen narrow your vision. Open your eyes so wide that you let the entire world come in.
The problem is lack of political will. We cannot look at Syria, and the evil that has arisen from the ashes of indecision, and think this is not the lowest point in the world’s inability to protect and defend the innocent. And I say this as someone who is proud to have been part of the UN system for 13 years.
The past often offers an illuminating and clear-headed perspective from which to observe and reconcile the passions of the present moment, just when they threaten to overwhelm us.
My wish for you graduates is that you get comfortable with failure, with rejection, accept that it’s a possibility, but never let it define you. And never let it hold you back.
I believe those of us who believe in democracy have to acknowledge the anxieties and frustrations that rapid economic and cultural and demographic changes have brought, and we have to find a language, a story of how we can affirm the best of traditional values in our respective countries or respective communities. We have to create a space for our differences, while insisting that our politics and our governmental institutions uphold the overarching principles of equality for all people.
It’s been said that those we most deeply love, we can never truly lose, for they become part of us. Almost 10 years after an act of unspeakable violence shattered the quiet community of Newtown, the souls that were lost that day, those of 20 beautiful children and six courageous adults, their souls remain part of us.
We’re here because we believe that humanity can bridge our differences and make better choices, that we can see each other and listen to each other, and imagine each other’s hardships and pain, and that this better future is most likely to happen under democratic systems of government, democracies in which everyone’s dignity is recognized, where the rule of law and human rights are respected by everybody, where people have a voice in how they’re governed, where we all have a stake in maintaining the social order, and where we can disagree with each other, sometimes bitterly, without losing sight of the ties that bind us together.
You enter a world of difficulty with open eyes, tasked with writing a story that is not necessarily of your choosing but is still entirely yours. You’re the pride of your parents and grandparents, of aunts, uncles and teachers, of the communities that shaped you in ways seen and unseen. You weren’t promised this day.
Graduates, being a builder is about believing that you cannot possibly be the greatest cause on this Earth, because you aren’t built to last. It’s about making peace with the fact that you won’t be there for the end of the story.
There can be no peace and stability in Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world, that involves trading away the rights of women. Worse still we see impunity for crimes committed against women and girls during conflict, or when women human rights defenders are attacked, or killed, or imprisoned.
She wasn’t really the best critic since she never had anything unkind to say, but she did give me love and confidence and, above all, she was very clear that nothing would mean anything if I didn’t live a life of use to others.
It is in the truly trying moments that the fearless inspire us. Duke graduates, be fearless! Be the last people to accept things as they are. And the first people to stand up and change them for the better.
I encourage you to remember that when you discover your passion, and make the first steps of your career, everything you’ve learned, everything you’ve experienced, makes you a different kind of contributor.
If we are to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, sustainable development is imperative. But development is neither achievable nor sustainable in the absence of peace. It is critical that we work in concert tours attaining both sustainable peace and sustainable development.
