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The Case Against Cynicism,” Hilton Als RISD 2016 Commencement Address

[We] could hope because we’d seen what it had done for us. We were refugees from the world’s cyn­i­cism because we’d grown up in belief, and knew just as our moth­ers knew, that each act of mak­ing is born out of hope because there, in the rank earth where cyn­i­cism flow­ers, noth­ing grows.

John Waters RISD 2015 Commencement Keynote Address

But how can you be so dis­ci­plined?” friends always ask when I tell them my job is to get up every day at 6 AM Monday to Friday and think up insane stuff. Easy. If I did­n’t work this hard for myself, I’d have to go work for some­body else. Plus, I can go to my office one room away from my bed­room in my own house dressed in my under­pants if I want to.

Maira Kalman RISD 2013 Commencement Keynote Address

We live between despair and hope. No one knows why we are here, and noth­ing makes sense. Don’t for­get that. You could ask your­self, What is the point?” until you go crazy, lit­er­al­ly. So, the start­ing point is to not know. And then to proceed.

Bruce Mau RISD 2014 Commencement Keynote Address

Work on what you love. This is such an easy thing to say, and it seems so obvi­ous. What else should we work on? What else could we work on? And yet the prob­lem of align­ing our pas­sion and our pro­duc­tion, our love and our work, remains one of the great life chal­lenges that we face as artists, as design­ers, and as citizens.