Thank You, Susan, for those very generous words, and thanks to everyone for a generous welcome.
Heartfelt congratulations to all our graduates and their families, for the hard work and many accomplishments that have brought you to this day, and I'm especially grateful to John Lewis, for sharing his inspiring words and presence with us.
There can be no finer example of how to live a life than that of John Lewis, whose courage, his courage and dedication, selflessness and moral clarity, have for more than half a century challenged this country, to realize its promise of liberty and justice for all.
It's an inexpressible honor and privilege to stand on this stage beside him.
Almost 11 years ago I stood on this platform, to deliver my inaugural address as Harvard's 28th president.
Today's remarks represent something of a bookend, a kind of valedictory- valedictory, literally, farewell words, when I spoke in 2007 I observed that, inaugural speeches are by definition pronouncements, by individuals who don't yet know what they're talking about.
By now I can no longer invoke that excuse.
I am close to knowing all I ever will about being Harvard's president.
But I then went on to say something else, about the peculiar genre of inaugural addresses, that we might dub them , as I put it then' expressions of hope', unchastened by the rod of experience.
By now I should know that rod.