Only yesterday she was five, and I was walking her home from school in her too-big dress, listening to her gorgeous sing-songy accent, so I’m not sure who this beautiful young woman is on my Facebook feed in a gown and mortarboard.

Hope is going to excel — not because she gained a degree in drama which makes her as clever as Shakespeare, but because she’s the only student in the history of the universe to remember anything from her graduation ceremony. Indeed, she’s stuck the quote from Maya Angelou, delivered by her university vice president, on the wall of her bedroom.

“Your destiny is to find the courage to flesh out the great dreams,” it says. “To dare to love, to dare to care, to dare to be significant and to admit it. Not by the things you own, or the positions you hold, but by the life you live.”

Ah, such wisdom. I’d planned to send Hope some jewellery — or a favourite book. Perhaps some cash she can put towards staging a fringe festival in Upper Cow’s Bottom or whichever British village she rocks up in. But instead I’m sending her this — a curation of the best graduation speeches ever delivered. I could come up with something original but Hope is gen Y so she’ll appreciate a deft upcycle of a preloved idea. Just look at the iPhone.

Let’s kick off with J.K. Rowling because it’s always smart to heed the advice of the impoverished-turned-squillionaire. In a world obsessed with success, her view that failure is more galvanising resonated as deeply as her literary brilliance. As she told Harvard graduates: “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.”

Actor and comedian Jim Carrey, meanwhile, used his father’s failure as a springboard for his own success. His dad could’ve been a comedian, he told Maharishi University earlier this year, but instead chose accountancy, going on to lose his job when Jim was 12. Carrey chose to focus on what he loved. “The effect you have on others,” he told graduates, “is the most valuable currency there is.”

While many commencement addresses peddle the predictable “potential” and “dreams”, one speech last year garnered attention because it asked students to consider who they are, not what they can be. “What I regret most in life,” author George Saunders told grads at Syracuse University, “are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering and I responded … sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.”

Saunders spoke about how, with age, people become less selfish and more loving, but he implored his young audience to speed it along. “Do all the other things, the ambitious things — travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) — but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.”

I could spend the rest of this page quoting Saunders but that would be plagiarism and thus the furthest thing from kind, so let’s follow the graduation trail to our own soil. Tim Minchin + University of Western Australia + 2013 = GOLD. The God of all things artistic delivered nine life lessons, the best of which was: “Define yourself by what you love.” Was there ever a better bon mot for life? “We have a tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff,” he said. “But try to also express your passion for things you love. Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire. Send thank you cards and give standing ovations. Be pro stuff not just anti stuff.” His other gem: “Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the veranda and hit them with a cricket bat.”

Moving along. Bono — poet, dreamer, philanthropist: “What’s your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing …. The world is more malleable than you think and it’s waiting for you to hammer it into shape.”

Entrepreneur Jeff Bezos: “Everything you are comes from your choices.” Amy Poehler: “Listen. Say ‘yes’.”

But the final word must go to the inimitable Steve Jobs. “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.” And, in closing: “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

So, sweet Hope, in lieu of a gift, some borrowed thoughts from a proud aunt. Listen to Jobs and the marvellous Ms Angelou, and dare to be significant. Because you are.

Email: angelamollard@gmail.com.au

Twitter: @angelamollard