Portman: I, too, battled self-doubt (Harvard Gazette, 27 May 2015, quoting her Harvard College Class Day address)

Natalie Portman · 27 May 2015

Natalie Portman did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Seriousness for its own sake is a dubious kind of trophy

Their wordsI realized that seriousness for seriousness’ sake was its own kind of trophy, and a dubious one, a pose I sought to counter some half-imagined argument about who I was.
Our reading
Inexperience can be harnessed to carve out a path of your own, free of how things are supposed to be

Their wordsBut you can harness that inexperience to carve out your own path, one that is free of the burden of knowing how things are supposed to be, a path that is defined by its own particular set of reasons.
Our reading
Achievement is wonderful when you know why you pursue it, and a trap when you do not

Their wordsAchievement is wonderful when you know why you’re doing it. And when you don’t know, it can be a terrible trap,

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