Quotes From Toni Morrison Commencement Address

Quotes from Toni Morrison's Commencement Address to Rutgers Class of 2011:

"I have often wished that Jefferson had not used that phrase 'the pursuit of happiness' as the third right ... I would rather he had written, 'life, liberty and the pursuit of meaningfulness' or 'integrity' or 'truth.' I know that happiness has been the real, if covert, goal of your labors here. I know that it informs your choice of companions, the profession you will enter. But I urge you, please do not settle for happiness. It's not good enough. Personal success devoid of meaningfulness, free of a steady commitment to social justice -- that's more than a barren life; it's a trivial one. It's looking good instead of doing good.''

“Although you will never fully know or successfully manipulate all the characters who surface, or disrupt your plot, you can respect the ones you can’t avoid by paying them close attention and doing them justice. The plot you choose may change or even elude you, but being your own story means you can control the theme.”

“We’ve left you a world in which the earth itself seems to be literally breaking apart. Weather, dancing to music none of us can hear…. Employment is strangely scarce, while money rushes as no river does, up, against gravity.”

“I know you’ve been blasted with media designed to change you … from a community of engaged civic life, to individuals with hundreds of electronic friends.”

“To commence is to begin, to start something new, to enter new terrain, to launch a career begun here, at Rutgers.”
“Perhaps by that time, generations descended from you, taught by you, inspired by you, will have imagined and forged a world worthy of you.”

“But I tell you, no generation, least of all mine, has a complete grip on the imagination and goals of subsequent generations. Not if you refuse to let it be so. You don’t have to accept media, or even scholarly labels for yourself—Generation A, B, C, X, Y, majority, minority, Red State, Blue State, this social caste or that one. Every true heroine breaks free from his or her class—upper, middle, and lower—in order to serve a wider world.”

Take that, Snooki.