Speeches by Topic Topics | Values
Your excellencies, presidents and vice presidents, and graduates and your families, I stand humble to become one of the newest alumni of one of the most prestigious universities in the globe. I follow in the eminent steps of President Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Dick Cheney and other eminent people.
Our university—and I can call it that now—is widely known and internationally renowned for the breadth and depth of its study. It is globally respected, for it produces graduates, such as yourselves, who are tolerant yet critical in thinking, who respect and honor the other while respecting an
I am humbled by the opportunity to speak to each of you this evening. Thank you for your righteousness, for your valiant stand against the forces that would pull you under, and for your desire to be the person our Father in Heaven would have you be. I believe you are some of the most outstanding young people who have ever lived on this earth. You were truly sent “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). I love you and pray for you and have confidence in you.
I have a good friend whose car was vandalized just a few days before Christmas. Among other things, the thieves took her attaché
Let me begin with a couple of personal observations. The first concerns my health. I get enough inquiries from time to time that I know many of you are interested. I appreciate that interest. As confirmed by my principal oncologist in my most recent visit last month, my health is as good right now as it has been in several years. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father and to my wife and my doctors for this favorable circumstance—and grateful to so many of you for the prayers that have been offered in my behalf.
Now the other personal report concerns my effort over the past year to impro
It is such an honor for me to be with you today—you who have come to this campus seeking a better life, a life of self-improvement. I’m sure there are many of you who have come with much sacrifice, which, in and of itself, is part of that better life.
Life’s Most Important Decisions
At this time in your life, you enjoy a wide variety of activities—sometimes too many all at once. In addition to class attendance and study time, many of you have jobs. There are important social activities and service groups, athletic and physical fitness activities—the list goes on. At t
As Sister Derrick and I came onto your campus this morning, I was reminded of Dr. Sidney Sperry, your former Dean of the School of Religious Studies, under whom we had the opportunity of studying monthly for some twenty to twenty-five years. As he stood on the foothills of these mountains to the east and looked over what at that time was a relatively small school, the Lord showed him a vision of what the school would become. As Brigham Young University has developed into the great school that it is, the visions, dreams, and faith of many have been realized. I am sure that all of us thrill i
David O. McKay
Graduates, fellow students, patrons of the Brigham Young University: It has been my privilege to introduce a number of great men to audiences, but I can say truly that I have never felt the joy in introducing a speaker to an audience that I experience at this moment in announcing to you, as the commencement speaker, Mr. Cecil B. DeMille.
Thomas Carlyle, in his Heroes and Hero Worshippers, expressed this thought:
Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining
