JK Rowling at Harvard Commencement
June 7, 2008 – 8:15 am by Nick
During her speech on Thursday, J.K. Rowling urged advised students on the benefits of imagination and failure at Harvard University’s spring commencement.
“We do not need magic to transform our world,” she said. “We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already; we have the power to imagine better.”
Rowling spoke to the graduates candidly of the humiliations during her time in poverty. Several years after graduating college, the “Harry Potter” author faced and overcame clinical depression, poverty, single motherhood, and the loss of her mother. Her imagination enabled her to progress from living on welfare to amassing a $1.1 billion fortune.
“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation,” Rowling said. “In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity; it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.”
“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are ever after secure in your ability to survive,” Rowling said. “You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.”
Rowling also received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Harvard University. Here are videos of the speech:
