Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling encouraged graduates to "imagine better" in a commencement speech at Harvard University Thursday.

"We do not need magic to transform our world," she said. "We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.

"Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation," Rowling said. "In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity; it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared."

She also told the graduates about the benefits on failure, reflecting on a period seven years ago when she was a broke single mother.

"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are ever after secure in your ability to survive," she said. "You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity."

She said that knowledge is "a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned."

http://www.usmagazine.com/jk-rowling-urges-harvard-grads-to-imagine-bett...