5 famous speeches, curated
Citation-ready excerpts from the speeches that compounded — from Jobs's Stanford commencement to Feynman's BBC interview. Each speech cross-linked to relevant books and concepts in the library.
- Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address · 2005
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Three stories — connecting the dots, love and loss, death — delivered on June 12, 2005 to Stanford graduates. The first viral commencement address of the YouTube era, and still the most-quoted.
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
- David Foster Wallace · Kenyon College Commencement Address · 2005
This is water
Delivered May 21, 2005 — what it means to think, to choose what to attend to, and to refuse the default settings of self-centered consciousness. The most-quoted essay on adult awareness.
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people.”
- Charlie Munger · USC Gould School of Law Commencement · 2007
A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom
Munger's mental-models framework delivered to USC Law graduates in May 2007. The case for cross-disciplinary thinking and ruthless avoidance of dumb decisions.
“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”
- J.K. Rowling · Harvard Commencement Address · 2008
The Fringe Benefits of Failure
Delivered June 5, 2008. The case for failure as the necessary substrate of self-knowledge — and imagination as the lever that lets us empathize beyond our own experience.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.”
- Richard Feynman · BBC Horizon Interview · 1981
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Feynman's 1981 BBC interview on what science actually feels like from the inside — curiosity over certainty, beauty in the mechanism, and the honesty principle.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
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