They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big. As a matter of fact, dream and don't stop dreaming until all of your dreams come true. I think that's crap.

Shonda Rhimes

Shonda Rhimes on Following Your Dreams

February 25, 2015

Source: Dartmouth University, 2014

Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

Denzel Washington

The only freedom you will probably ever know, you have begun to know now, here, the freedom to think, to imagine, to reform, to change—to start by changing yourselves and those areas around you with which you do not agree.

Maya Angelou

When you come from where we come from, it is set up for you to fail.

Isiah Thomas

I have found that when preparation meets opportunity, nothing is out of reach.

Star Jones

So we mustn't run out of steam. Sometimes young women think ‘Dammnnn, I’ve been doing this nine years and I don’t think anything has budged.' But keep plugging away. Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success and then just get a little more.

Maya Angelou

Don’t get in the habit of saying no.

Robin Roberts

I’m going to speak to you about love and the courage to love, indeed, about courage itself. It is the most important of all the virtues because without courage you cannot be sure that you can practice any other virtue with consistency. So it is important to develop courage, the courage to love in an era, in a time, when love is almost synonymous with distrust, abuse, misuse and, in fact, negligence. In order to love, I mean erotic love, agape love, familial love, platonic love, consistently, you must care first about yourselves because in order to say one loves someone else and act upon that love, one must really love one’s self.

Maya Angelou

I’ve come to learn in my life that failure’s a wonderful teacher. I’ve scooped a lot of the dog poop off the sidewalk so you wouldn’t have to step in it.

Steve Harvey

I don’t want to be good at it, I don’t want to be pretty good at it, I want to be world class at it.

Chris Gardner

Please reject the slander that says a black child with a book is trying to act white. In short, be an example of excellence for the next generation.

Michelle Obama

We thought we could just throw people at it, throw money at advertising, [but it] didn't move the needle. It was just us lying to ourselves.

Daymond John

With physical failures like liver, kidneys, heart, something else has to be done, something fixable that’s not in one’s own hands. But if it’s in your hands, then you have to pay very close attention to it, rather than get depressed or unnerved or feel ashamed. None of that is useful.

Toni Morrison

Dream on baby, don't dream on what you can have, dream about what the devil says you can't have. Dream for the best. Dream for the best healing. Dream for the best deliverance, dream for the best house. Dream for the best car, just 'cause the world don't have it doesn't mean you can't have it.

Creflo Dollar

Because here’s the thing -- the road ahead is not going to be easy. It never is, especially for folks like you and me. Because while we’ve come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn and they haven’t fully gone away.

First Lady Michelle Obama

With Obama, the glass ceiling has been broken with what men can aspire to, and now we need to do the same for women and what women can aspire to.

Octavia Spencer

I believe that a world of greater freedom and tolerance is not only a moral imperative; it also helps keep us safe.

President Barack Obama

Dreams do come true, but not without the help of others, a good education, a strong work ethic, and the courage to lean in.

Ursula Burns

In general, I do not like giving speeches. Giving a speech requires standing in front of large groups of people while they look at you and it also requires talking. I can do the standing part OK. But the you looking and the me talking ... I am not a fan.

Shonda Rhimes

I recognize failure—which is important; some people don’t—and fix it, because it is data, it is information, knowledge of what does not work.

Toni Morrison

One thing I learned at school was the value of failure, because once you fail you can get up and do it again.

Lupita Nyong’o

I’m sure in your experiences—in school…in applying to college…in picking your major…in deciding what you want to do with life—people have told you to make sure you have something to “fall back on.” But I’ve never understood that concept, having something to fall back on. If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything, except my faith. I want to fall… forward. At least I figure that way I’ll see what I’m about to hit.

Denzel Washington

Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It's hard work that makes things happen. It's hard work that creates change.

Shonda Rhimes

There will be times you are challenged and tested. Understand and try to find the meaning of why you were placed in that situation. The situation is not the tragedy; the tragedy is not finding the time to face the meaning.

Robin Roberts

I had a mom who told me from the very beginning that you can do or be anything you dream to and I believed it.

Chris Gardner

You cannot stop me from dreaming. I'm gon' dream until Jesus comes.

Creflo Dollar

You can dream your life away or actually do what you dream of doing.

Shonda Rhimes

I want people to remember me the way they know Nike, that level of impact.

Kanye West

Anyway, the point is. I do not like to give speeches. I'm a writer.

Shonda Rhimes

First… you will fail at some point in your life. Accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There is no doubt about it. That’s probably not a traditional message for a graduation ceremony. But, hey, I’m telling you—embrace it. Because it’s inevitable.

Denzel Washington

You need to have tunnel vision when chasing your goal.

Star Jones