Thanks to NPR, Cristina Negrut (author of graduationwisdom.com where many of these speeches were first collected) and a team of 7, The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever, a site devoted exclusively to collect, organize and give access to the most inspiring addresses ever given, has been born.
This curated collection contains over 300 speeches which go back all the way to 1774, and it is fully searchable both by name and by specific themes.
This work is a great example of how the essential work of simply organizing and presenting, even something that already exists, carries so much value. As a matter of fact, the collection does not contain any of the original speeches, but it links to the source where the speech was originally published or archived, while highlighting a key passage from it, providing key meta-data and making all speeches organized and searchable in one place.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Great for analyzing history, current events and rhetoric! See my post for more options: http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2014/05/22/commencement-etc/
Great collection of speeches. Enjoy and be inspired.
Quotes and links to 300+ graduation speeches, some include videos