Welcome to Panipuan High School 4th Moving Up for Batch 2018-2019! We are now about to
witness the Processional…. To begin with the honors together with their proud parents followed by
the candidates for moving up together also with their loving parents, pls. welcome Grade 10 Charity
, next in line are the 10 Bravery, next are the 10 Obedience, ladies and gentlemen approaching the
stage are the 10 Piety and last but not the least the 10 Generosity…We also welcome the PTA
officers, headed by Ms. Jhoane Norton PTA Pres., and Mrs. Jesusa Camiling PTA V-Pres.,
Approaching the stage ladies and gentlemen pls. Give them a big round of applause are the faculties
of Panipuan High School, to start with : The teachers from grade 7, Mrs. Jhoanne Mallari, Mrs.
Anita Guanzon, Mrs. Mariz Rosales, Mrs. Regina Liangco, Mrs. Mary Ann Waje, Ms. Ledilyn Placer
and Mr. Allkhem Moran, Approching the stage pls give a big round of applause for the grade 8
teachers, Mrs. Raquel Sulla, Mr. Joseph Rosales, Mrs. Jennifer Arceo, Mrs. Jennifer Tullao, Mr.
Dave Lorenz Suboc, Ms. Guadalupe Pangan and Mrs. Juvy Baluyut, walking down the aisle are the
Grade 9 teachers Mrs. Michelle Angeles, Ms. Annalyn Canlas, Mrs. Devy Mangune, Mrs. Medcylyn
Bernardino, Mrs. Marilyn Apuan, Mrs. Dianne Catabay and Mrs. Josie Dayrit, pls. give a big round of
applause to the Senior HS; Mr. John Nathaniel Roque, Ms. Catherine Santos, Mr. Oliver Yabut, Mrs.
Windy Romero, Mrs. Judith Vergara, Mr. Antonio Guevarra and Mrs. Irene Omelda.
And now ladies and gentlemen I am proud to present to you the Grade 10 advisers and Teachers pls
give them a big round of applause for the job well done! Mrs. Gina Valencia, Mrs. Arsenia Santos,
Mrs. Maria Teresa Camasis, Mrs. Heidee Torres, Mrs. Ovia Cuellar, Ms. Aileen Roncal and Mrs.
Noemi Dela Cruz.
Pls. give a big round of applause to our dedicated and dynamic Principal none other than Mrs. Abigail
T. Mendoza.
I would like to acknowledge the presence of our beloved PSDS and our sorogate mother in Panipuan
HS ladies gentlemen pls. Welcome Mrs. Alona Balingit.
(We would like to acknowledge the presence of _______________________).
Ladies and gentlemen the entrance of colors!!!
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
A.
Before we begin the program, let us all stand as we show our spirit of Nationalism by singing
our National anthem to be lead by Ms. Shareena Marie Chu of 10 Obedience.
B.
Pls. remain standing for our opening prayer to be lead by Ms. Angelica Mae Cordero 10
Bravery.
C.
Once again, Welcome to the Panipuan High School 4th Moving Up for the school year 20182019. A pleasant morning to all of you. I am Mam Belle Pelayo your EMCEE for today’s program.
D.
The month of March is one of the most awaited months on the part of the students as well
of course those parents who are waiting to see their sons or daughters be one of those members
of the completion in Junior HS. I am pretty sure that it’s been already a month-long waiting and
preparation. Needless to say…what to wear and what to do. Those feelings come into reality this
day…on this 2nd day of April as we will witness the 4th Moving Up.Today, another history slowly
unfolds as we come to an end of the school year 2018-2019.
And now, For her welcome address pls. Give a big round of applause to Ms. Cheska Mae Cordero of
10 Generosity.
E.
Thank you Cheska for that wonderful message. To present the candidates for completion and
the confirmation of completers may I call on our diligent and energetic Principal of our beloved
school Mrs. Abigail Mendoza and our industrious and indefatigable PSDS Mrs. Alona Balingit to do
the honor.
F.
Thank you Mam Abigail and PSDS Mam Alona. And now let’s move on to the distribution of
certificates, to be led by the Grade 10 advisers. To present them may I call on our beloved Principal
Mam Abigail Mendoza and our PSDS Mam Alona Balingit to to the honor. To begin with, may I call
on Mrs. Gina V. Valencia Grade 10 Charity Adviser………
G.
And now the most awaited and most important part of the program is the presentation of
honors and awardees. To present them may I call on once again our beloved principal Mam Abigail
Mendoza and our PSDS Mam Alona Balingit to do the honor.
H.
Pls. give them a big round of applause!!!!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I.
Please give a big round of applause to our completers for the job well done, Congratulations!!!
J.
Classmates and teachers have made all the learning and fun. As you leave the school, join the
work force, bring all the memories and forget none, for they will always remind you that in school
these good things begun. Every life is a story, make yours a best seller. What we are is God’s gift to
us. What we become is our gift to God. For her closing remarks, may I call on Ms. Jhoane Norton
our PTA President. Pls. Give her a big round of applause.
K.
Thank you Ms. Norton for such an inspiring words. It is not possible that these students will
finish their junior high school course without their Parents... supporting, loving and standing by
them. Please give a big round of applause to our dear parents for the job well done. You are the
reason why all of these students keep dreaming and try harder to reached for their dreams.
Mabuhay po kayo aming mga magulang 
L.
Each of us has different talents, dreams and destinations, yet we all have the power to
make a new tomorrow. As the final year comes to an end we pause to reflect upon the many
memories which have brought you tears and joy. You came to this place together to learn, to grow
and to share. Time and space may separate you but whenever your pathways take you, you’ll always
be the Panipuan high school Class of 2018-2019. Ladies and gentlemen I am proud to present to you
to sing their Farewell song, “A Million Dreams” here are the batch 2018-2019 completers of Junior
HS., pls. give them a big round of applause.
M.
Thank you graduates for that wonderful song, Congratulations! Before we end I would like to
thank all the parents, students, teachers, PTA officers and other sponsors who have helped us to
have this memorable day. Maraming Maraming salamat po! See you again next year. God bless us all!
N.
We will now witness the Recessional…… Guest, school officials, parents, and grade 10
completers.
A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns
that "individuality" is the key to success. ~Robert Orben
Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars. ~Richard Halliburton
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies "commencement exercises." Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. ~Orrin
Hatch
Your families are extremely proud of you. You can't imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune
time to ask for money. ~Gary Bolding
The tassel's worth the hassle! ~Author Unknown
The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse. ~Edward Koch
All that stands between the graduate and the top of the ladder is the ladder. ~Author Unknown
Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If
you can grasp that, you'll make a difference. ~Arie Pencovici
At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and
wear sombreros. ~Paul Freund
When you leave here, don't forget why you came. ~Adlai Stevenson, to college graduates
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years
of child-raising, they are unemployed. ~Erma Bombeck
You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an
alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. ~Tom Brokaw
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. ~Aristotle
It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge. ~Brooks
Atkinson, Once Around the Sun, 1951
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
~Theodore Roosevelt
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. ~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin
Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world
until they have been properly sedated. ~Garry Trudeau
[I]t is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and
get back home by six o'clock. ~Woody Allen, "My Speech to the Graduates," Side Effects, 1980
People will frighten you about a graduation.... They use words you don't hear often: "And we wish you Godspeed." It is a warning,
Godspeed. It means you are no longer welcome here at these prices. ~Bill Cosby
The future lies before you
Like a field of driven snow,
Be careful how you tread it,
For every step will show.
~Author Unknown
Your schooling may be over, but remember that your education still continues. ~Author Unknown
Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable. ~Wendy Wasserstein
I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the
most special places your heart has ever known. ~Author Unknown
Hitch your wagon to a star. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wherever you go, go with all your heart. ~Confucius
Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors! ~Louisa May Alcott
It is indeed ironic that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school
days. ~Isabel Waxman
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. ~Harold
Geneen
Put your future in good hands - your own. ~Author Unknown
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after. ~Newton D. Baker
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
~Dr. Seuss
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. ~B.F. Skinner
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught. ~Oscar Wilde,
"The Critic as Artist," 1890
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. ~Les Brown
The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines,
sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~Attributed to Mark Twain,
unconfirmed
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. ~Albert Einstein
If at first you don't succeed, do it like your mother told you. ~Author Unknown
Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort
of accumulates. ~A. Lawrence Lowell
If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you. ~Robert Goheen, Time, 23 June 1961
Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book
The truth is, I was afraid the day I walked into Stanford. And I was afraid the day I walked out. ~Carly Fiorina
Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life's Little Instruction Book
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. ~Vince Lombardi
I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back. ~Fred Allen
You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions
of thumbprints on it. ~John Updike
We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. ~Author Unknown
Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. ~Art Linkletter
Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude. ~Ralph Marston
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~e.e. cummings
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone. ~Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel
There is just one life for each of us: our own. ~Euripides
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
The purpose of a liberal education is to make you philosophical enough to accept the fact that you will never make much money.
~Author Unknown
A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep. ~W.H. Auden
The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving. ~Russell Green
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. ~Henry Ford
Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority. ~William Arthur Ward
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can
give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. ~Henry Ford
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. ~Edmund Hillary
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our
darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to
be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that
is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Marianne Williamson,
A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles," 1992 (commonly misattributed to Nelson Mandela, 1994
inauguration speech)
The important thing is not to stop questioning. ~Albert Einstein
The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate. ~Doug Larson
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. ~Ralph W. Sockman
The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions. ~Bishop Mandell Creighton
The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. ~Sydney J. Harris
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance! ~Andy McIntyre
To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks. ~A.A. Milne
The best helping hand that you will ever receive is the one at the end of your own arm. ~Fred Dehner
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ~Henry Ford
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the
weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced,
stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these. ~Susan B. Anthony
Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. ~Roger Babson
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. ~Milton Berle
Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. ~Arnold H. Glasow
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. ~Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625
Education is the best provision for old age. ~Aristotle
Don't waste time learning the "tricks of the trade." Instead, learn the trade. ~Attributed to both James Charlton and H. Jackson
Brown, Jr.
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. ~Beverly Sills
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. ~David Lloyd George
What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. ~Eleanor Powell
Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money. ~William Lyon
Phelps
My father always told me, "Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." ~Jim Fox
During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What
is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how
would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last
question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are
significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also
learned her name was Dorothy. ~Joann C. Jones
You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. ~John Wooden
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson
Most of us would agree that the days we spent in high school were certainly the best days of our lives. It was in
school that we made our first friends, competed to excel, hoped for places in the sports teams, and learned our first
lessons about life. Memories come flooding back when you read each high school graduation quote on this page. If
you want to wish your friends on their graduation day, you can make a special greeting with one of these high school
graduation quotes.
Anonymous
Your schooling may be over, but remember that your education still continues
Richard Bach
Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after
moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
**************
Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority.
**************
You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of
thumbprints on it.
**************
You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
**************
Your families are extremely proud of you. You can't imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask
for money.
**************
I hope your dreams take you.
to the corners of your smiles
to the highest of your hopes
to the windows of your opportunities
and to the most special places your heart has ever known.
***************
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
***************
If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.
***************
The tassel's worth the hassle! .
***************
Hitch your wagon to a star.
***************
If you can find a path with no obstacles it probably doesn't lead anywhere.
***************
The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet.
***************
A graduation ceremony iz an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of
students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality iz the key to success..
***************
Be who u are & say what u feel, bec0c those who mind don't matter & those who matter don't mind.
***************
Education iz da most powerful weapon which u can use 2 change da world..
***************
What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God
***************
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail
***************
Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine
***************
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad
***************
Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final
***************
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined
***************
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant
***************
Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors
***************
The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate
***************
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are
***************
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams
***************
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies commencement exercises. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning.
***************
Life is my college. May I graduate well, & earn some honors.
***************
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future.
***************
Go confidently in the direction of ur dreams. Live the life u have imagined.
***************
The future belongs 2 those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
***************
The things taught in schools & colleges are not an education, bt the means of education.
***************
Graduation day is tough for adults.They go to the ceremony as parents.They come home as contemporaries. After 22 years of child-raising, they
are unemployed.
***************
The man who graduates today & stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after.
***************
Graduation is a time of completion, of finishing, of an ending,however, its also a time of celebration of achievement & a beginning for the new
graduate.
***************
The direction in which education starts a man ll determine his future.
***************
The things taught in schools & colleges r not an education, bt the means of education.
***************
The man who graduates today & stops learning tomorrow iz uneducated the day after.
***************
All that stands between the graduate & the top of the ladder iz the ladder.
***************
The man who graduates today & stops learning tomorrow iz uneducated the day after.
Life is my college. May I graduate well & earn some honors.
A graduation ceremony iz an event where da commencement speaker tellz thousandz of studentz dressed in identical capz & gownz dat
"individuality" iz da key 2 success.
Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day u graduate. Graduation iz a process dat goes on until da last day of ur life. If u can grasp dat, u'll
make a difference.
Having sat through two dozen or so graduation speeches, I have naturally wondered why they are so often so bad.
One reason, of course, is that the speakers are chosen for their eminence in some field, and not because they are
either competent speakers or gifted writers. Another reason is that the audience is eager to be done with all
ceremony so that it can proceed to some serious reveling. Thus any speech longer than, say, fifteen minutes will
seem tedious, if not entirely pointless. There are other reasons as well, including the difficulty of saying something
inspirational without being banal. Here I try my hand at writing a graduation speech, and not merely to discover if I
can conquer the form. This is precisely what I would like to say to young people if I had their attention for a few
minutes.
If you think my graduation speech is good, I hereby grant you permission to use it, without further approval from or
credit to me, should you be in an appropriate situation.
Members of the faculty, parents, guests, and graduates, have no fear. I am well aware that on a day of such high
excitement, what you require, first and foremost, of any speaker is brevity. I shall not fail you in this respect. There
are exactly eighty-five sentences in my speech, four of which you have just heard. It will take me about twelve
minutes to speak all of them and I must tell you that such economy was not easy for me to arrange, because I have
chosen as my topic the complex subject of your ancestors. Not, of course, your biological ancestors, about whom I
know nothing, but your spiritual ancestors, about whom I know a little. To be specific, I want to tell you about two
groups of people who lived many years ago but whose influence is still with us. They were very different from each
other, representing opposite values and traditions. I think it is appropriate for you to be reminded of them on this day
because, sooner than you know, you must align yourself with the spirit of one or the spirit of the other.
The first group lived about 2,500 years ago in the place which we now call Greece, in a city they called Athens. We do
not know as much about their origins as we would like. But we do know a great deal about their accomplishments.
They were, for example, the first people to develop a complete alphabet, and therefore they became the first truly
literate population on earth. They invented the idea of political democracy, which they practiced with a vigor that puts
us to shame. They invented what we call philosophy. And they also invented what we call logic and rhetoric. They
came very close to inventing what we call science, and one of them-Democritus by name-conceived of the atomic
theory of matter 2,300 years before it occurred to any modern scientist. They composed and sang epic poems of
unsurpassed beauty and insight. And they wrote and performed plays that, almost three millennia later, still have the
power to make audiences laugh and weep. They even invented what, today, we call the Olympics, and among their
values none stood higher than that in all things one should strive for excellence. They believed in reason. They
believed in beauty. They believed in moderation. And they invented the word and the idea which we know today as
ecology.
About 2,000 years ago, the vitality of their culture declined and these people began to disappear. But not what they
had created. Their imagination, art, politics, literature, and language spread all over the world so that, today, it is
hardly possible to speak on any subject without repeating what some Athenian said on the matter 2,500 years ago.
The second group of people lived in the place we now call Germany, and flourished about 1,700 years ago. We call
them the Visigoths, and you may remember that your sixth or seventh-grade teacher mentioned them. They were
spectacularly good horsemen, which is about the only pleasant thing history can say of them. They were maraudersruthless and brutal. Their language lacked subtlety and depth. Their art was crude and even grotesque. They swept
down through Europe destroying everything in their path, and they overran the Roman Empire. There was nothing a
Visigoth liked better than to burn a book, desecrate a building, or smash a work of art. From the Visigoths, we have
no poetry, no theater, no logic, no science, no humane politics.
Like the Athenians, the Visigoths also disappeared, but not before they had ushered in the period known as the Dark
Ages. It took Europe almost a thousand years to recover from the Visigoths.
Now, the point I want to make is that the Athenians and the Visigoths still survive, and they do so through us and the
ways in which we conduct our lives. All around us-in this hall, in this community, in our city-there are people whose
way of looking at the world reflects the way of the Athenians, and there are people whose way is the way of the
Visigoths. I do not mean, of course, that our modern-day Athenians roam abstractedly through the streets reciting
poetry and philosophy, or that the modern-day Visigoths are killers. I mean that to be an Athenian or a Visigoth is to
organize your life around a set of values. An Athenian is an idea. And a Visigoth is an idea. Let me tell you briefly
what these ideas consist of.
To be an Athenian is to hold knowledge and, especially the quest for knowledge in high esteem. To contemplate, to
reason, to experiment, to question-these are, to an Athenian, the most exalted activities a person can perform. To a
Visigoth, the quest for knowledge is useless unless it can help you to earn money or to gain power over other people.
To be an Athenian is to cherish language because you believe it to be humankind's most precious gift. In their use of
language, Athenians strive for grace, precision, and variety. And they admire those who can achieve such skill. To a
Visigoth, one word is as good as another, one sentence in distinguishable from another. A Visigoth's language aspires
to nothing higher than the cliché.
To be an Athenian is to understand that the thread which holds civilized society together is thin and vulnerable;
therefore, Athenians place great value on tradition, social restraint, and continuity. To an Athenian, bad manners are
acts of violence against the social order. The modern Visigoth cares very little about any of this. The Visigoths think of
themselves as the center of the universe. Tradition exists for their own convenience, good manners are an affectation
and a burden, and history is merely what is in yesterday's newspaper.
To be an Athenian is to take an interest in public affairs and the improvement of public behavior. Indeed, the ancient
Athenians had a word for people who did not. The word was idiotes, from which we get our word "idiot." A modern
Visigoth is interested only in his own affairs and has no sense of the meaning of community. And, finally, to be an
Athenian is to esteem the discipline, skill, and taste that are required to produce enduring art. Therefore, in
approaching a work of art, Athenians prepare their imagination through learning and experience. To a Visigoth, there
is no measure of artistic excellence except popularity. What catches the fancy of the multitude is good. No other
standard is respected or even acknowledged by the Visigoth.
Now, it must be obvious what all of this has to do with you. Eventually, like the rest of us, you must be on one side or
the other. You must be an Athenian or a Visigoth. Of course, it is much harder to be an Athenian, for you must learn
how to be one, you must work at being one, whereas we are all, in a way, natural-born Visigoths. That is why there
are so many more Visigoths than Athenians. And I must tell you that you do not become an Athenian merely by
attending school or accumulating academic degrees. My father-in-law was one of the most committed Athenians I
have ever known, and he spent his entire adult life working as a dress cutter on Seventh Avenue in New York City. On
the other hand, I know physicians, lawyers, and engineers who are Visigoths of unmistakable persuasion. And I must
also tell you, as much in sorrow as in shame, that at some of our great universities, perhaps even this one, there are
professors of whom we may fairly say they are closet Visigoths. And yet, you must not doubt for a moment that a
school, after all, is essentially an Athenian idea. There is a direct link between the cultural achievements of Athens
and what the faculty at this university is all about. I have no difficulty imagining that Plato, Aristotle, or Democritus
would be quite at home in our class rooms. A Visigoth would merely scrawl obscenities on the wall.
And so, whether you were aware of it or not, the purpose of your having been at this university was to give you a
glimpse of the Athenian way, to interest you in the Athenian way. We cannot know on this day how many of you will
choose that way and how many will not. You are young and it is not given to us to see your future. But I will tell you
this, with which I will close: I can wish for you no higher compliment than that in the future it will be reported that
among your graduating class the Athenians mightily outnumbered the Visigoths. Thank you, and congratulations.
----------------------------------------------------------Neil Postman, a critic, writer, communications theorist, and
professor of communication arts and sciences at New York University. Educated at the State University of New York
and Columbia University, he holds the Christian Lindback Award for Excellence in Teaching and in 1987 was given the
George Orwell Award for Clarity in Language by the National Council of Teachers of English. He was for ten years
editor of Et Cetera, the journal of general semantics. His sixteen previous books include Amusing Ourselves to Death,
Teaching as a Subversive Activity, The Soft Revolution, and The Disappearance of Childhood.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, text of commencement address delivered on June
12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never
graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell
you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or
so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed
college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted
by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that
when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a
waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They
said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my
father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few
months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.And 17 years later I did go to college.
But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings
were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to
do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money
my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty
scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could
stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for
the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal
a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and
intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:Reed College at that time offered perhaps
the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was
beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take
a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of
space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical,
artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the
first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with
beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had
multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal
computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and
personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the
dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to
trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life,
karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.My second story
is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20.
We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with
over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just
turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired
someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.
But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of
Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life
was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to
apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the
valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not
changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened
to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about
everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years, I started a
company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become
my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most
successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and
the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a
wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but
I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the
only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for
your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly
satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you
haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like
any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't
settle.My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll
most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the
mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to
do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices
in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these
things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die
is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no
reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning,
and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was
almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.
My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to
try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means
to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your
goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat,
through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was
sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started
crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the
surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived
through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual
concept:No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is
the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the
single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the
new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be
so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the
results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most
important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth
Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from
here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal
computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of
like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools
and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run
its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue
was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so
adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed
off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I
wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.