If you believe hope springs eternal, this is one of the best times of the year to find renewed motivation from the greatest minds around the world. In the form of commencement speeches. At least, in the before times..

Actors, musicians, poets, comics, executives, politicians and more generate soundbites and video clips each spring that cascade across the Internet right around this time. Their performances are logged, debated, ranked, and celebrated (mostly). Not this year. Sure, President Obama just delivered two online. But it’s not the same! What about the live reactions of an audience??

Commencement speeches are awesome. There are so many lessons to be learned and inspiration to be internalized. All packaged in a perfectly bite sized message from top performers across a myriad of disciplines. Way more efficient than navigating a 300 page memoir.

So, with a hat tip to a lost season of new commencement knowledge, here is a short summer reading list of memorable lessons from 10 notable commencement speeches of years past:

Jim Carrey, Maharashi University ’14:
“My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant, and when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job, and our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father. Not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Stephen Colbert, Northwestern ’11:
“After I graduated from here, I moved down to Chicago and did Improv. Now there are very few rules to improvisation, but one of the things that I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the good news is you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most important person, and they will serve you. No one is leading, you’re all following the follower, serving the servant. You cannot win Improv.”

Charlie Day, Merrimack College ’14:
“I don’t think you should just do what makes you happy. Do what makes you great. Do what’s uncomfortable and scary and hard but pays off in the long run. Be willing to fail. Let yourself fail. Fail in the way and place where you would be proud to fail. Fail and pick yourself up and fail again. Without that struggle, what is your success anyway?”

Steve Jobs, Stanford ’05:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Mindy Kaling, Dartmouth ’18:
“So, I’m giving you permission to root for yourself. And while you’re at it, root for those around you, too. It took me a long time to realize that success isn’t a zero-sum game. Which leads me to the next part of my remarks.”

Admiral William McRaven, University of Texas ’14:
“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”

Conan O’Brien, Dartmouth ’11:
“But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.”

Shonda Rhimes, Dartmouth ’14:
“So, Lesson One, I guess is: Ditch the dream and be a doer, not a dreamer. Maybe you know exactly what it is you dream of being, or maybe you’re paralyzed because you have no idea what your passion is. The truth is, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to know. You just have to keep moving forward. You just have to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity, staying open to trying something new. It doesn’t have to fit your vision of the perfect job or the perfect life. Perfect is boring and dreams are not real. Just … do.”

J.K. Rowling, Harvard ’08:
“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

Oprah Winfrey, Stanford ’08:
“If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. That’s the lesson. And that lesson alone will save you, my friends, a lot of grief. Even doubt means don’t. This is what I’ve learned. There are many times when you don’t know what to do. When you don’t know what to do, get still, get very still, until you do know what to do.”

Facing failure, overcoming adversity, being courageous & bold, getting stuff done, trusting your gut, doing the little things, embracing originality, loving what you do, and more.

Great lessons for leaders on the way up. Is there anything more useful than taking the best ideas of those that have come before us and incorporating them into our own? Standing on the shoulders of giants. That’s got upper management written all over it.