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President Trump shared some wise words of advice on life with the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Graduates on May 19, 2026
You are a very special group of people. As you begin your important new missions and your mission in life. Today, let me leave you with a few words of advice to maybe help you a little bit on your way. First, most important, never, ever give up. Never give up. They asked me, how do you be successful, sir? Starts with never give up. I've learned a lot about life, but the one thing I've really learned is that perseverance, never quitting, never giving up is a big deal. You'll be right there, right at the gate. And you've seen it. You've seen it in sports. You've seen it there, right there at the gate. And they give up. Never give up. And whatever happens, no matter where you are in life or what situation you find yourself in and the seas or anywhere else that you may be, keep pushing forward. Always push forward. Never stop pushing forward, no matter how terrible the storm, no matter how difficult the mission. Never surrender. Keep going. Keep fighting and make the adversary quit first. Let them quit. They're going to quit if you keep going.
Second, at this pivotal time of transformation for our armed forces, you have to think big. It's much better thinking. Big, small solutions yield small results. Only big ideas will yield to tremendous change and greatness. Americans do not want to live in a world ruled by someone else's big ideas, live in a future and shape your future, and you want to dominate your future. And you want to dominate it for your great military and for your country. Think big.
During the course of your Coast Guard careers, it will be time for incredible change. And change is going to happen. Change that we can't even think of right now. The things will happen and I believe for the best, hopefully for the best, but I believe for the best. But things will happen that you can't even imagine. And it's going to be very exciting, but the way that's going to happen is through thinking big.
Nothing great was ever built. Think of that. Nothing great was ever built without the word momentum at your side. In times of your life, you'll have momentum. That's the time you go for it. I tell stories about people that lost their momentum and they went and it didn't work out well. You know, when you're doing well, you know, when you have that positive momentum. So take that momentum and go for it. So many people, they wait. They wait the wrong time. You know when it's right. Go with the momentum.
The towering men and women of history have always been people of action. You answered the call to serve, and now you need to make sure that most of your time is spent on very important roles in life. You've done a lot and you've had a lot of relaxation. Frankly, if you enjoy what you're doing, there's no such thing as work. It's not work. What you're doing.
I would say with most of you, it's not work. What you've done is a lot of work, but it's not work. It really isn't. It's it's a great pleasure. I find myself, I work a lot. They say he's a workaholic. I'm not a workaholic. It would be tough if I didn't do things. If I didn't do things, I don't know what I'd be doing. It probably wouldn't be good. But you got to love it. And if you love it, it's never considered work. There will always be time for taking the easy path, and there'll be times when you want to do that or to settle for maybe a short term fix, but for the best results, it'll always be a product of unbelievably hard work.
That's why I always sign something. They say, oh, could you put something on? I say, work hard to a young person. Work hard because you have to work hard. It's so competitive. Life is so competitive. You have to work hard. It's never going to come easy. You have to work hard. A lot of great athletes, they say the harder at work. I remember Gary Player, great golfer. He was somewhat smaller than other great athletes and he said, the harder I work, the luckier I get. That was the first time I heard. I've heard that expression a lot. But the first time it was from the great Gary Player, one of the top three golfers of all time. And he said, the harder I work, the luckier I get. It's a great expression forth as you go and go into life.
And right here at the Coast Guard, you want to keep your eyes in the boat. You want to have your eyes in the boat. You know what that expression means better than anybody. Do not be distracted by what's outside. You just want to look back and you want to just see what's happening. But keep your eyes in the boat. A Coast Guard expression. Focus on the task before you and move forward. Always, always move forward. Never move back. Remember what actually matters and pursuit of success is it really has to be relentless. You've got to be relentless and many of you are relentless. You wouldn't be here if you weren't, because there are ten people for every seat that I'm looking at, ten people. And I think even more than that, that wanted that seat and you made it.
So finally, you have to be strong. You have to be really strong. And I don't mean just with muscle strength, I mean with mental strength. And you have to be brave. Your profession, you have a level of bravery that has to supersede a normal person's bravery. But that's why you're here. America was not founded by weak and timid men or women who cowered in the face of evil or sat by as danger loomed. As President Theodore Roosevelt said, freedom is not a gift that lasts long in the hands of cowards and weak people. Today, our country faces the threats that are very strong.
But we have a much stronger country today than we had two years ago. Today, the threats that looked really bad two years ago. Three years ago, we had a country that was rudderless, just like that ship that had its rudder shot off. We have a country now with very strong, powerful rudders, but every one of you has your soul. The strength and courage to face whatever comes before you. You're going to do unbelievably well. I just have no idea what I'm looking at. I look at audiences all the time, but I'm looking at this audience. It's just an incredible group of people. A beautiful, beautiful, brilliant group of people. So you're brave and you're bold and you're always ready to go, and you inherit the legacy of some of the most daring and intrepid Americans ever to live. You are inheriting the mantle of some of the bravest people, some of the most incredible warriors ever, right here.
A tradition of pride and glory and greatness passed down from one generation to the Coast Guard, heroes to the next. You had great heroes in World War Two. The Coast Guard was the first branch of the military to seize a Nazi vessel and take enemy prisoners. The first one to do it was the Coast Guard, the first branch to traverse the Northwest Passage, and the first to sail a ship right up the middle of the frigid seas to the North Pole. You were the first. You were the first to do so much. And that's not going to change.
And now you have equipment. I think we can say definitely when that all that new equipment comes in. Admiral, you have equipment the likes of which the Coast Guard has never had before. So you'll have many ships sailing up instead of one. You're going to be doing things that nobody even thought possible. You have, you are you have on order. Some of it's already delivered, but you have on order the best equipment anywhere in the world. There's no other Coast Guard, there's no other, frankly, Navy that has anything like what's coming your way.
On September 11th, 2001, amid the rubble, dust and debris, it was the Coast Guard that organized the largest boat lift in all of history, evacuating half a million people from lower Manhattan. That was a terrible day. The gleaming white hulls and the blazing red stripes of your cutters have sliced through the horizon of nearly every major waterway on earth. Every day, Coast Guard members plunge into pitch black oceans, rush onto roaring surfs and do battle with Mother Nature at her absolute worst, mother nature, like few can imagine. It even exists. And I've seen it. I've seen things that I said, nobody's going into that storm, and you guys go into it like it's just another day of work. You fly into gale force winds, smash into 50 foot waves, storm into floods of fire and shrapnel, and swarm through water so cold that it will snap a ship in half with just the wrong hit of a wave.
There's nothing, absolutely nothing that a Coast Guardsman cannot do. There really isn't. I've seen so much. I mean, as president, I've just seen so much. I've seen people that were going to be decimated, that were going to be destroyed. And see, I told you about some of the hurricanes. They were out at sea, they were boating and they got caught. They wanted to go a little closer, a little closer, a little closer. And then they got gobbled up by nature. And the only way they could have survived was what you people were able to do. You went in there and you got them. It wasn't easy. It was very dangerous, no matter how perilous the task. You're unafraid and you're= just an unstoppable force. And you want to stay that way.
The US Coast Guard has never, ever let us down. And with men and women like the great class of 2026, I know that will never happen. You're going to go on to greatness, the likes of which even the Coast Guard has not seen. So wherever the duty calls, whatever danger comes our way, you will fight, fight, fight, and you will win, win, win. I want to just say a very strong God bless the Coast Guard Academy, the class of 2026. God bless the United States military and God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. Have a great, great and stellar career. Thank you very much, everybody.
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