"'Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."

　　This address at Kenyon was vintage Wallace: a smart, occasionally meandering discussion of the issues that consumed him, from the banality of life to the meaning of consciousness. "I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy and grandly inspirational," he concluded. "What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth ... The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head." All the reasons Wallace didn't make it to 50 are apparent here; in hindsight, the speech reads like the first draft of a suicide note for an author who took his own life last year at age 46. While it's a macabre read, there's tons that's worthwhile here: the speech crackles with wit and intelligence — and offers tricks for escaping the depression to which Wallace ultimately succumbed。

　　David Foster Wallace，美国著名小说作家、评论家、幽默作家，代表作《无尽的玩笑》，入选《时代周刊》“百部最佳英文小说”。David Foster Wallace2008年9月13日患抑郁症自杀家中，享年46岁。

　　Words of Wisdom:

　　"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 ... Stay hungry, Stay foolish."

　　"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick," said Jobs. "Don't lose faith." Despite his prickly reputation, this heartfelt commencement address is about as good as the genre gets: short, smart, poignant and uplifting. Discussing life, love and loss, the Apple co-founder hit all the right notes。

　　Steve Jobs，苹果电脑创始人，声名显赫的“计算机狂人”。

　　Words of Wisdom:

　　"I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way。

　　"I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good。

　　"So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over."

　　When Conan O'Brien spoke at Harvard University's 2000 Class Day, he had a lot of things to say — many of them about Harvard. O'Brien graduated from the prestigious university in 1985, and he took at few shots at his alma mater's expense. "The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000," he said, "so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious."

　　O'Brien also spoke about the difficulties of trying to make it in comedy — first as a writer for Saturday Night Live, then for The Simpsons, and then finally as a late-night talk-show host — and all of the setbacks and failures he endured along the way. He discussed his bombed television pilot, embarrassingly bad reviews and what it was like to be 28 and unemployed in New York City, proving that no one, not even the man who would one day take over the Tonight Show, escapes disappointment and self-doubt. But despite his stumbles, O'Brien kept going. And he told Harvard's class of 2000 that they should too。

　　Conan O'Brien，美国著名脱口秀主持人。

　　Words of Wisdom:

　　"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. In a real old-fashioned parlor silence so deep you can hear the dust settling on the velveteen settee, you might hear the footsteps of something sinister gaining on you, or a heart-stoppingly beautiful phrase from Mozart you haven't heard since childhood, or the voice of somebody — now gone — whom you loved. Or sometime 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 shamelessly foolishly。

　　Baker, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and columnist, knows how to reach college kids. He's funny and engaging ("The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this: Don't do it") without being cynical, and lands enough light jabs to remind his audience that his advice — from "get married" to "sleep in the nude" — is worth heeding。

　　Russell Baker，《纽约时报》专栏作家，1982年普利策奖获得者。成名作为个人自传《成长》。