Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

These are the closing words of Steve Jobs's now-famous commencement address to the Stanford University Class of 2005, delivered on June 12 of that year, and the exact wording is confirmed by Stanford's own official prepared text as well as independent transcripts of the recording archived by NPR and others. In the speech Jobs told graduates their time was limited and not to let the noise of others' opinions drown out their own inner voice, leading directly into these three sentences — a passage he wrote as he was living with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, which lends the "everything else is secondary" line its urgency. The address, which ends with the Whole Earth Catalog's farewell "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish," is among the most-recorded and most-documented public statements Jobs ever made, so the primary sourcing is unusually solid. The many books and websites crediting the quote to him are simply quoting this speech, and we found no credible competing author or earlier use. The attribution is genuine and fully verified.