Culture

Life Lessons To Graduates As Told By Obama, Oprah And Others

From President Obama to Oprah, commencement speakers shared words of wisdom with some of the nation's graduates.

Life Lessons To Graduates As Told By Obama, Oprah And Others
Getty Images / Josh Brasted
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New graduates across the country heard lots of words of wisdom this weekend. Some speeches were encouraging.

"People are going to tell you to plan, to focus. They will tell you that if you want to succeed, you have to stubbornly stay on your path, no matter what. They will be right. They will also be wrong ... Don't be so focused in your plans that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected," Sen. Elizabeth Warren told graduates at Bridgewater State University.

"You need support. You need people who want you to win. You need people who are in your corner. You need people who care about you, who want your success, who are not jealous of your success, who have no envy about you moving forward," Oprah Winfrey said at Johnson C. Smith University.

Some were reflective.

"Dave's death changed me in very profound ways. I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, find the surface and breathe again," Sheryl Sandberg told graduates at the University of California, Berkeley.

Others were more pointed.

"Father, you said that politics is a full-contact sport; I agree. But, Father, to the detriment of the nation in my view, and I think John would agree with me, it has recently become a blood sport," Joe Biden said at the University of Notre Dame.

"In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you're talking about," President Obama said to the 2016 graduates of Rutgers University.

This video includes an image from Getty Images and music from Little Glass Men / CC BY 3.0.