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J.K. Rowling Harvard CommencementSpeech 2008
'The Fringe Benefits ofFailure, and the Importance of Imagination'


Text of J.K. Rowling’s speech

President Faust,members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers,members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to sayis ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but theweeks of fear and nausea I have endured at thethought of giving this commencement address havemade me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deepbreaths, squint at the red banners and convincemyself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindorreunion.

Delivering a commencement addressis a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my owngraduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished Britishphilosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting onher speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns outthat I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberatingdiscovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promisingcareers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delightsof becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember inyears to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’vecome out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say toyou today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation,and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expiredbetween that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. Onthis wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academicsuccess, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And asyou stand on the threshold of what is sometimescalled ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucialimportance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxicalchoices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-oldthat I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasybalance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to meexpected of me.

I was convinced that the only thingI wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whomcame from impoverished backgrounds and neitherof whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination wasan amusing personal quirk that would never pay amortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force ofa cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take avocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise wasreached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, andI went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded thecorner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling myparents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for thefirst time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think theywould have been hard put to name one less useful thanGreek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for theirpoint of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment youare old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, Icannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty.They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agreewith them that it is not an ennoblingexperience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; itmeans a thousand petty humiliations andhardships. Climbing out of poverty by your

Leonardodelivers landmark speech at the United Nations climate summit

On September 23, 2014 LeonardoDiCaprio addressed one of the largest gatherings of government, business andcivil society leaders in history, at the United Nations Climate Summit. UNSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Leonardo to serve as a United NationsMessenger of Peace for Climate, calling the actor a “new voice for climateadvocacy.”

The Sunday, both both BanKi-moon and Leonardo participated in the 400,000-strong People’s Climate Marchthrough the streets of New York City, drawing renewed public attention to theescalating climate crisis.

The speech garnered a record-breaking 1.6million views on the United Nations channel and was echoed in over 45,000 newsarticles across the globe.

Below is the full text of the speech:

Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General, yourexcellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished guests. I’m honored to behere today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned citizen, oneof the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and thebillions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis.

As an actor I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems.

I believe mankind has looked at climatechange in that same way: as if it were a fiction, as if pretending that climatechange wasn’t real would somehow make it go away.

But I think we know better than that. Everyweek , we’re seeing new and undeniable climateevents, evidence that accelerated climate changeis here right now. Droughts are intensifying, our oceans are acidifying, with methaneplumes rising up from the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events,and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheetsmelting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead ofscientific projections.

None of this isrhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. Itis fact. The scientific community knows it, industry knows it, governments knowit, even the United States military knows it. The Chief of the U.S. Navy’sPacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear,recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat.

My Friends, this body – perhaps more thanany other gathering in human history – now faces this difficult, but achievabletask. You can make history… or be vilified byit.

To be clear, this is not about tellingpeople to change their light bulbs or buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choicesthat individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments aroundthe world taking decisive, large-scale action.

Now must be our moment for action.

We need to put a pricetag on carbonemissions, and eliminate government subsidiesfor oil, coal and gas companies. We need to end the free ride that industrialpolluters have been given in the name of a free-market economy, they do notdeserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny.For the economy itself will die if our eco-systems collapse.

The good news is that renewable energy isnot only achievable but good economic policy.

This is not apartisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and a livable climate areinalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question ofpolitics, it is a question of our own survival.

This is the most urgent of times, and themost urgent of messages.

Honored delegates, leaders of the world, Ipretend for a living. But you do not.

The people made their voices heard onSunday around the world and the momentum willnot stop. But now it is YOUR turn, the time to answer humankind’s greatestchallenge is now.

We beg of you to face it with courage. And honesty. Thank you.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II delivers a special broadcast to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth in relation to the coronavirus outbreak.The Queen has promised the nation that better days are ahead, during a special address on Sunday.In a rare speech, she acknowledged the grief and financial hardships Britons are facing during the coronavirus pandemic.Echoing the words of the Vera Lynn wartime song, she said that “we will meet again”.





I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasinglychallenging time. A time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruptionthat has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormouschanges to the daily lives of us all.

I want to thank everyone on the NHS front line, aswell as care workers and those carrying out essential roles, who selflesslycontinue their day-to-day duties outside the home in support of us all.

I am sure the nation will join me in assuring you thatwhat you do is appreciated and every hour of your hard work brings us closer toa return to more normal times.

I also want to thank those of you who are staying athome, thereby helping to protect the vulnerable and sparing many families thepain already felt by those who have lost loved ones.

Together we are tackling this disease, and I want toreassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it.

I hope in the years to come everyone will be able totake pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after uswill say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any.

That the attributes of self-discipline, of quietgood-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country.The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present andour future.

The moments when the United Kingdom has come togetherto applaud its care and essential workers will be remembered as an expressionof our national spirit; and its symbol will be the rainbows drawn by children.

Across the Commonwealth and around the world, we haveseen heart-warming stories of people coming together to help others, be itthrough delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbours, orconverting businesses to help the relief effort.

And though self-isolating may at times be hard, manypeople of all faiths, and of none, are discovering that it presents anopportunity to slow down, pause and reflect, in prayer or meditation.

It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made, in1940, helped by my sister. We, as children, spoke from here at Windsor tochildren who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their ownsafety.

Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense ofseparation from their loved ones.
But now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is theright thing to do.
While we have faced challenges before, this one isdifferent. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a commonendeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassionto heal.

We will succeed — and that success will belong toevery one of us.

We should take comfort that while we may have morestill to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; wewill be with our families again; we will meet again.

But for now, I send my thanks and warmest good wishesto you all.