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Tue, 09 Jun 2009

Best Commencement Speech Ever: Paul Hawken, U. Portland, 2009

I've read it several times, and IMHO Paul Hawken's is the best commencement speech ever. It's too long to reprint in full - but here are a few quotable quotes:

"Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades."

"This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them."

"There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring."

"What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world."

"Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider."

"The living world is not 'out there' somewhere, but in your heart."

"We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant."

"At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it."

"Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich."

Make your day! Read Paul Hawken's Entire Commencement Speech