English Speeches with Audio & Transcripts | Books & Articles
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang delivers an inspiring commencement speech to Carnegie Mellon University’s Class of 2026, sharing his immigrant journey, NVIDIA startup story, AI revolution insights, and vision for the future of technology and work.
In her 2011 Barnard College commencement speech, Sheryl Sandberg focuses on women’s leadership, ambition, and equality. She highlights the gap between educational progress and representation in leadership roles, urging graduates to “lean in,” believe in themselves, and pursue ambitious goals. Emphasizing the importance of confidence, honest choices, and meaningful work, she calls on young women to take responsibility for shaping a more equal world.
In Sheryl Sandberg’s 2014 Harvard commencement speech, she reflects on career paths, honesty, and social responsibility. She describes careers as “jungle gyms” rather than linear ladders, encouraging graduates to stay open to opportunity. Emphasizing the importance of honest feedback and self-awareness, she also urges the audience to confront inequality and speak up to create a more equal world.
Sheryl Sandberg reflects on the sudden loss of her husband and the lessons she learned from grief. Introducing ideas like “Option B” and the “three P’s” of resilience, she encourages graduates to face adversity with strength, gratitude, and a commitment to growth and connection.
Sheryl Sandberg’s 2017 Virginia Tech commencement speech is a powerful reflection on resilience, loss, and rebuilding life. This page provides the full transcript and audio of her inspiring address.
We just wanted to get together and celebrate a little today. We introduced our iBook and everybody loved it and the show was amazing.
When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
The greatest thing you build in your life will be yourself, and trust me on this you are not done yet, I know I’m not. But what you will be building is not just a toolkit. You will be building a person, and you will be doing it for people.
Run, don’t walk. Remember, either you’re running for food, or you are running from becoming food. And often times you can’t tell which. Either way, run! And for your journey, take along some of my learnings, that you will have the humility to confront failure, admit a mistake, and ask for help.
Well starting tomorrow, work is the rest of your life.That’s right. Ouch! Exactly!So my first wish is for you to find joy in work, find work that gives you great joy, or just fall in love with whatever work you do.
I hope you will see setbacks as new opportunities. Your pain and suffering will strengthen your character, your resilience and agility, and they are the ultimate superpowers. Of all of the things that I value most about my abilities, intelligence is not top of that list.
And when you wake up tomorrow, no longer the person you were today and not yet the person you will become next, I hope you will draw courage and confidence from knowing that you, graduates, are water – the force that shapes the shore.
You can learn how something can be done and then go back to first principles and ask yourself, ‘Given the conditions today, given my motivation, given the instruments, the tools, given how things have changed, how would I redo this? How would I reinvent this whole thing?’
I wish four things:1. That you are bold and have good fortune. Fortune favors the bold. 2. That you give and get the feedback you need. Feedback is a gift. 3. That you empower everyone. Nothing is somebody else’s problem. 4. That you support equality. Lean In!
I hope you will carry with you MIT’s tradition of taking – and making – moonshots. Be ambitious in every facet of your life. And don’t ever let something stop you because people say it’s impossible. Let those words inspire you.
It’s not enough to be technologists — we have to make sure that technology serves people. It’s not enough or even possible to be neutral — tools are shaped by the minds that make them and by the hands that use them. And it’s not enough to have a good idea — you have to know when to stop a bad one.
I think the collective conversation and progress we’re making on the power of inclusion, is a huge cause for hope. And you, the next generation of leaders, are driving that. You’re challenging assumptions and pushing us all to be better. I hope you never, never stop.
I believe we are finally creating the scientific and technological tools to turn the world into a neighborhood. And that gives you an amazing ethical opportunity no one has ever had before. I hope you will use to the tool of technology to do what you already had it in your heart to do. To connect. To make of this world a brotherhood and a sisterhood.
As you go forward today, use your minds and hands and your hearts to build something bigger than yourselves. Always remember, there is no idea bigger than this. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “All life is interrelated. We are all bound together into a single garment of destiny.”
I hope you will hold tightly to the community you’ve built here because whatever life brings, your success will be sweetened and your setbacks softened if you can share them together. Most of all, I hope you will find happiness and joy, meaning and fulfillment, and a life that gives to you all that you ask of it.