hiphopfoxtrot:

President Ruth J. Simmons 2012 Brown Baccalaureate Address

“…As John Lennon said, ‘Life happens when you’re making other plans.’ It will almost certainly be the same for all of you. I know that you have certain hopes and plans and that you have the intelligence and determination to make them materialize. 

“I also know that life happens. I hope that your studies and experiences at Brown will have given you the wherewithal to live with the uncertainty that life inevitably brings. At the same time, I trust that you will grow in ability to be impatient for positive change, to discern the good from the merely adequate, to embrace the challenge of fighting for those who are less fortunate, to insist that your choices measure up to your values, and, in all things, to allow for the fact that change will come.

“Hope not for what is feasible but for what is needed. Work not for the best that you think you can do but for all that should be done. Fight, fight, fight for the rights of the many over the privilege of the few. Be what your education tells you that you can be: the best.”

(via fuckyeahbrownuniversity)