Some Famous Graduation Quotes
A business that makes nothing but
money is a poor business.
~ Henry Ford
A graduation ceremony is an event
where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical
caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success.
~ Robert Orben
A man who has never gone to school
may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal
the whole railroad.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
A professor is someone who talks in
someone else's sleep.
~ W.H. Auden
A wise man will make more
opportunities than he finds.
~ Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625
Always be a first-rate version of
yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
~ Judy Garland
An ancient school where morality and
philosophy were taught.
Academy, n.:
A modern school where football is taught.
~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
At commencement you wear your
square-shaped mortarboards.
My hope is that from time to time you will
let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.
~ Paul Freund
Be who you are and say what you
feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
~ Dr. Seuss
Commencement speeches were invented
largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released
into the world until they have been properly sedated.
~ Garry Trudeau
Do not follow where the path may
lead.
Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a
trail.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't be afraid to take a big step
if one is indicated; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
~ David Lloyd George
Don't live down to expectations.
Go out there and do something remarkable.
~ Wendy Wasserstein
Don't waste time learning the
"tricks of the trade."
Instead, learn the trade.
~ Attributed to both James Charlton and H.
Jackson Brown, Jr.
During my second year of nursing
school our professor gave us a quiz.
I breezed through the questions until I
read the last one:
"What is the first name of the woman who
cleans the school?"
Surely this was a joke.
I had seen the cleaning woman several
times, but how would I know her name?
I handed in my paper, leaving the last
question blank.
Before the class ended, one student asked
if the last question would count toward our grade.
"Absolutely," the professor said.
"In your careers, you will meet many
people.
All are significant.
They deserve your attention and care, even
if all you do is smile and say hello."
I've never forgotten that lesson.
I also learned her name was Dorothy.
~ Joann C. Jones
Education is an admirable thing, but
it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be
taught.
~ Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist,"
1890
Education is what survives when what
has been learned has been forgotten.
~ B.F. Skinner
Excellence is not a skill.
It is an attitude.
~ Ralph Marston
How many cares one loses when one
decides not to be something but to be someone.
~ Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel
I hope that my achievements in life
shall be these - that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I
will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to
those who were in need that I will have left the earth a better place for what
I've done and who I've been.
~
C. Hoppe
If at first you don't succeed, do it
like your mother told you.
~ Author Unknown
If opportunity doesn't knock, build
a door.
~ Milton Berle
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm,
you will be fired with enthusiasm.
~V ince Lombardi
If you feel that you have both feet
planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.
~R obert Goheen, Time, 23 June 1961
If you think education is expensive,
try ignorance!
~ Andy McIntyre
In the business world, everyone is
paid in two coins:
cash and experience.
Take the experience first; the cash will
come later.
~ Harold Geneen
It is clear the future holds great
opportunities.
It also holds pitfalls.
The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls,
seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o'clock.
~ Woody Allen, "My Speech to the
Graduates," Side Effects, 1980
It is not the mountain we conquer
but ourselves.
~ Edmund Hillary
It takes courage to grow up and
become who you really are.
~ E E Cummings
It takes most men five years to
recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to
thinking as knowledge.
~ Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun,
1951
Just about a month from now I'm set
adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.
~ Richard Halliburton
Make the most of yourself, for that
is all there is of you.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
My alphabet starts with this letter
called yuzz.
It's the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz.
You'll be sort of surprised what there is
to be found once you go beyond 'Z' and start poking around!
~ Dr. Seuss
My father always told me, "Find a
job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
~ Jim Fox
Obstacles are those frightful things
you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
~ Henry Ford
Of course there's a lot of knowledge
in universities:
the freshmen bring a little in; the
seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.
~ A. Lawrence Lowell
Our deepest fear is not that we are
inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that
most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the
world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so
that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in
everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.
~Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love:
Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles," 1992 (commonly
misattributed to Nelson Mandela, 1994 inauguration speech)
Put your future in good hands - your
own.
~ Author Unknown
Shoot for the moon.
Even if you miss, you'll land among the
stars.
~ Les Brown
Success isn't a result of
spontaneous combustion.
You must set yourself on fire.
~ Arnold H. Glasow
The advantage of a classical
education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from
achieving.
~ Russell Green
The best helping hand that you will
ever receive is the one at the end of your own arm.
~ Fred Dehner
The important thing is not to stop
questioning.
~ Albert Einstein
The larger the island of knowledge,
the longer the shoreline of wonder.
~ Ralph W. Sockman
The man who will use his skill and
constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of
how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
~ Henry Ford
The one real object of education is
to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions.
~ Bishop Mandell Creighton
The purpose of a liberal education
is to make you philosophical enough to accept the fact that you will never make
much money.
~ Author Unknown
The true meaning of life is to plant
trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
~ Nelson Henderson
The whole purpose of education is to
turn mirrors into windows.
~ ydney J. Harris
There are no shortcuts to any place
worth going.
~ Beverly Sills
There are so many men who can figure
costs, and so few who can measure values.
~ Author Unknown
There is a good reason they call
these ceremonies "commencement exercises."
Graduation is not the end; it's the
beginning.
~ Orrin Hatch
There is a great deal of difference
between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book
to read.
~ G.K. Chesterton
There is just one life for each of
us:
our own.
~ Euripides
There is no need to reach high for
the stars.
They are already within you - just reach
deep into yourself!
~The Quote Garden
Things turn out best for the people
who make the best out of the way things turn out.
~ Art Linkletter
Think big thoughts but relish small
pleasures.
~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life's Little
Instruction Book
To be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to
fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop
fighting.
~ E E Cummings, 1955
To the uneducated, an A is just
three sticks.
~ A.A. Milne
Try not to become a man of success,
but rather try to become a man of value.
~ Albert Einstein
Try not.
Do or do not.
There is no try.
~Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back
We cannot direct the wind but we can
adjust the sails.
~A uthor Unknown
What lies behind us and what lies
before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
What we are is God's gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God.
~ Eleanor Powell
Whenever it is possible, a boy
should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the
money.
~ William Lyon Phelps
Wherever you go, go with all your
heart.
~ Confucius
Wherever you go, no matter what the
weather, always bring your own sunshine.
~ Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue
Book
Wise are those who learn that the
bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority.
~ William Arthur Ward
You are educated.
Your certification is in your degree.
You may think of it as the ticket to the
good life.
Let me ask you to think of an alternative.
Think of it as your ticket to change the
world.
~Tom Brokaw
You cannot help but learn more as
you take the world into your hands.
Take it up reverently, for it is an old
piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.
~ John Updike
You can't live a perfect day without
doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
~ John Wooden
Your families are extremely proud of
you.
You can't imagine the sense of relief they are
experiencing.
This would be a most opportune time to ask
for money.
~ Gary Bolding
Your schooling may be over, but
remember that your education still continues.
~ Unknown
