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Graduation speakers share inspiring words

"The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference...The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, but indifference. The opposite of life is not death, but indifference." Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor, delivered a succinct and powerful message at a 1997 commencement at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. "Be passionately involved in whatever you are doing," he told students. "When you see someone who needs you, be passionately there. Your presence must be an expression of passion." Lynn Laurenti, an associate vice president at FAU at the time, recalls: "it was an incredible speech about the power of the human spirit to overcome the most terrible things and to make things better on this planet."

“The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference...The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, but indifference. The opposite of life is not death, but indifference.” Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor, delivered a succinct and powerful message at a 1997 commencement at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. “Be passionately involved in whatever you are doing,” he told students. “When you see someone who needs you, be passionately there. Your presence must be an expression of passion.” Lynn Laurenti, an associate vice president at FAU at the time, recalls: “it was an incredible speech about the power of the human spirit to overcome the most terrible things and to make things better on this planet.”   ( MARIO TAMA/AFP/Getty Images)

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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It’s a time of pomp, circumstance and usually some great advice.With commencement season upon us, it¿s time to share some of the best of those words of wisdom. And thanks to the growth of webcasts, podcasts and social media, many of these messages are available any time you need a lift.

Compiled by Staff Writer Scott Travis

There is power in one

“Tell me, how do you plan to spend your one wild and precious life?” opens a YouTube video in which anthropologist and filmmaker Elizabeth Lindsey speaks at NSU’s 2010 graduation. “You are embarking on the greatest expedition there is. It requires the best map possible and experts who have already blazed the trail.” For graduates starting to look at their future professional life and goals, “this was a very meaningful way to pinpoint what so many were thinking,” said Don Rosenblum, dean of NSU’s Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences. Lindsey urged students to look to the wisdom of sages, mystics, visionaries and ancient spiritual practices to experience true joy, love and wealth. “This message is deceptively simple,” she said. “The greatest power in the world cannot be found in the halls of politics or big business. The greatest power in the world is the power of one.”   (enry S. Dziekan III/Getty Images)

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