This link has been bookmarked by 158 people . It was first bookmarked on 06 Jun 2008, by ezuk -.
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dolors reigJ.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.
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So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised,
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Cindy Frewenfailure - learn from - and imagination - use it to imagine others, ideas, things you have not experienced personally.
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22 Sep 08
Patrick ScheuererJ.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.
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04 Sep 08
Sacha Arozarena"The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination"
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Di ScanlonThe Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
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Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
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Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.
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It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.
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Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
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That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
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That is your privilege, and your burden.
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We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
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17 Jun 08
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16 Jun 08
Stephen BleakleyI was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
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david stongSmart, creative, pretty. I want her for the symposium instead of the boring parade of old white guys.
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11 Jun 08
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement on the fringe benefits of failure (Harvard Magazine, June 5 2008).
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Tama LeaverRowling gives a really delightful and heartfelt commencement talk at Harvard, rather frankly talking about the importance and benefits of failure, hitting rock bottom, and working out what's really important in life.
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10 Jun 08
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Ex3 oPCommencement speech at Harvard, very good, i enjoyed it. Think about that
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Austin T“The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”
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09 Jun 08
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Rhea Myers"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default."
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Donna Baumbach“The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”
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08 Jun 08
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Katie DayThe Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination -- her words of wisdom to the graduating class of 2008
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So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
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You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.
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Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
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Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
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