Best Graduation Quotes & Sayings

We are all in the process of becoming. — Audre Lorde

Graduation is a big deal-bigger than getting a hole-in-one while golfing. People might think you're lying about the hole-in-one, but when you graduate, you get a diploma. — Anderson Cooper

Be careful who you call crazy. Some of us think it's a compliment. — Marilynn Dawson

Be bold, be courageous, be your best. — Gabrielle Giffords

When you work for other people you'll find ... that they do know what's best for them, and for the company. And you should listen to them and be respectful, but they don't know what's best for you. — Mike Judge

Upon graduation, go out into the world and try to find yourself. What do I mean by that? Read Socrates, no. Get a job? Not yet. Go out and do some crazy stuff. Don't hurt anybody including yourself, but take some risks. Travel a little bit. Make big mistakes that you have to apologize for. Do stuff that will make you relatable to the world. And whatever jobs you settle into, you will be better at it, for it. — Megyn Kelly

Most of us won't see one another after graduation, and even if we do it will be different. We'll be different. We'll be adults
cured, tagged and labeled and paired and identified and placed neatly on our life path, perfectly round marbles set to roll down even, well-defined slopes. — Lauren Oliver

It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree. — John F. Kennedy

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement. — J.K. Rowling

I snicker, but the idea is momentarily appealing. Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension of opposites. — Mitch Albom

We do believe in setting goals. We live by goals. In athletics we always have a goal. When we go to school, we have the goal of graduation and degrees. Our total existence is goal-oriented. We must have goals to make progress, encouraged by keeping records ... as the swimmer or the jumper or the runner does ... Progress is easier when it is timed, checked, and measured ... Goals are good. Laboring with a distant aim sets the mind in a higher key and puts us at our best. Goals should always be made to a point that will make us reach and strain. — Spencer W. Kimball

Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him; if he is a walking university. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch

From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art. — Toni Morrison

At 20, I realized that I could not possibly adjust to a feminine role as conceived by my father and asked him permission to engage in a professional career. In eight months I filled my gaps in Latin, Greek and mathematics, graduated from high school, and entered medical school in Turin. — Rita Levi-Montalcini

From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world. — Dick Cheney

The longer our graduation lines are today, the shorter our unemployment lines will be tomorrow. — George H. W. Bush

When we are fully mindful of the transience of things - an impending return home from an overseas adventure, a graduation, our child boarding the school bus for the first day of kindergarten, a close colleague changing jobs, a move to a new city - we are more likely to appreciate [be grateful for] and savor the remaining time that we do have. Although bittersweet experiences also make us sad, it is this sadness that prompts us, instead of taking it for granted, to come to appreciate the positive aspects of our vacation, colleague, or hometown; it's 'now or never.' — Sonja Lyubomirsky

You are the guy who'll decide where to go. — Dr. Seuss

They said, we have education, but what about jobs? So I started telling them, you should be taking a pledge, and the pledge should be: 'I'm not a job seeker; I'm a job giver.' Prepare yourself to be a job giver. — Muhammad Yunus

I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. — Denzel Washington

Without ambition no conquests are made, and no business created. Ambition is the root of all achievement. — James A. Champy

I had received a t-shirt from my best friend Veronica at my police academy graduation. It reads, 'Throw your donut in the opposite direction and the cops won't get you.' I love wearing that t-shirt. — Suzie Ivy

Real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing. — Madeleine Albright

I decided to move out of the apartment I was sharing with my best friend before graduation and move back home. My parents had recently separated, and I wanted to move back home with my mom and my siblings. — Katherine Schwarzenegger

If you're picking your best friend based on what kind of clothes she wears or how popular she is, chances are you aren't going to stay in touch after graduation. — Renee Olstead

We're so distracted, we're missing out own lives. The parent who records his kid's dance recital or first steps or graduation is so busy trying to capture the moment--to create a thing that proves that they were there--they miss out on actually living and enjoying the moment.
I've done this before with my camera. I have jockeyed for position, bumping elbows with other parents so I could get into the best spot to look through the viewfinder of my SLR to capture the moment of my daughter's dance recital. Five-year-old Phoebe was so cute in her little sailor outfit, tapping away. And I got some great pictures. It's just that while I remember getting the pictures, I do not recall the moment. So much of the time we don't trust ourselves to experience our world without stuff. Things so often don't enhance our lives, but are barriers to fully living our lives. — Dave Bruno

The best advice I can give to any young man or young woman upon graduation from school can be summed up in exactly eight words, and they are-be honest with yourself and tell the truth. — James Farley

Rosenfeld went to work for the Herald Tribune after his graduation from Syracuse University and has always been an editor, never a reporter. He was inclined to worry that too many reporters on the metropolitan staff were incompetent, and thought even the best reporters could be saved from self-destruction only by the skills of an editor. His natural distrust of reporters was particularly acute on the Watergate story, where the risks were very great, and he was in the uncomfortable position of having to trust Bernstein and Woodward more than he had ever trusted any reporters.

-- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

Living well is the best revenge.If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. — Max Eastman

Karate is the best thing you can do for your child. — Chuck Norris

Now they were lawyers and investment bankers, with faces creased and drawn by the skirmish of daily life. Others I'd known well, and as we inched perilously closer to the casket, our talk evidenced a shared fondness for Rob but also something else shared in our own receding dreams. There was Ty and his dermatology career, me and my struggles to publish a second novel, former history majors who were doing their best to remain in school forever. Nobody, it seemed, was making the money he'd thought he would make, inhabiting the home he'd thought he would inhabit, doing the thing he'd thought he would do in life. Nobody was fulfilling the dreams harbored on graduation day almost ten years earlier. — Jeff Hobbs

Don't be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self. — Ed Helms

People are the stocks into which we are to invest our time ... the best of all investments you can make is to help people come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. You can make a commitment right here and now ... I'm asking you today not to graduate but commence a new life for God every step of the way. — Billy Graham

I grew up very differently than a lot of other people in my hometown in Mississippi. But I can't imagine my life any other way. I flew home and surprised my best friend at his graduation, and I remember turning to my mom and saying, 'My graduation was so much cooler than this.' I had Melissa Joan Hart give my commencement speech. — Taylor Spreitler

Hey Kid
so proud of you. so is emily. we wish we could be there, but here's a fat check to make up for it but dont go spending it all out on booze. call you soon.
Love, the best big brother ever
and Emily and Marie, too.
I smiled. It was a mark of how much I loved my big brother that I found his lack of punctuation and proper grammar endearing. — Kody Keplinger

I was raped, too
sexually assaulted in seventh grade,
tenth grade. the summer after graduation,
at a party
i was 16
i was 14
i was 5 and he did it for three years
i loved him
i didn't even know him
he was my best friend's brother,
my grandfather, father, mommy's boyfriend, my date, my cousin, my coach
i met him for the first time that night and-
4 guys took turns, and-
i'm a boy and this happened to me, and-
... i got pregnant i gave up my daughter for adoption ... did it happen to you, too? — Laurie Halse Anderson

After graduation in June of 1984, I moved to Manhattan. My first stop was a psychiatrist, who in less than our first fifty-minute session again diagnosed me with depression. — Andy Behrman

I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing]. — Sarah Dessen

You're not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You're going to advance in life by what you're going to learn after you leave here. — Charlie Munger

Every in group distinguishes itself from the outgroup by some process of "going through the mill" or enduring sufferings which are subsequently worn as the proud badge of graduation — Alan W. Watts

Death is a graduation. When we're taught all the things we came to teach, learned all the things we came to learn, then we're allowed to graduate. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Whenever humans come together for any reason, music is there: weddings, funerals, graduation from college, men marching off to war, stadium sporting events, a night on the town, prayer, a romantic dinner, mothers rocking their infants to sleep ... music is a part of the fabric of everyday life. — Daniel Levitin

I had never really given any thought to working for the CIA, but graduation was upon me; I was getting married just a week or two after graduation; I had no job, no prospects for a job. And so I said sure, I'd be interested in working for the CIA. — John Kiriakou

Yale places great stress on undergraduate and graduate teaching. I like teaching, and I do a lot of it. — James Tobin

I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. — Olivia Wilde

You're never too old or too busy to continue your educatioan! — Eva Longoria

Americans in particular are myopic. They're not traveling as much. When you were a college student, the next thing you would do on graduation was to take a year off and travel. That's what I did. I went to Indonesia. — Julie Taymor

After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people. — Ernesto Che Guevara

Following graduation from Amherst, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled me to test the depth of my interest in literary scholarship by beginning graduate studies at Harvard University. — Harold E. Varmus

College atheletes used to get a degree in bringing your pencil. — Ruby Wax

When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thick-skinned, to learn that not every project will survive. — Neil Gaiman

After graduating in the summer of 1980, I knew I wanted my life to count. — Donna Rice

My daughter finished high school the same month I got my master's degree. I'm glad I didn't know when I gave birth to her at 21 what it would cost in terms of time, money and sacrifice to bring her to that graduation day. — Regina Brett

CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal. — Ambrose Bierce

The great thing about taking big chances when you're younger is you have less to lose, and you don't know as much. So you take big swings. — Amy Poehler

So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened. — Ted Nelson

Sometimes the 'day' you're dreaming for never comes. Take control of your future and start now. — Auliq Ice

College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life. — Paul Ryan

Success is the end product. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The secretary of education recently unveiled an initiative for curriculums to place more emphasis on history and language. Within the decade, proficiency in at least three languages will be required of all American schoolchildren by graduation. And along with its other recommendations, the CDC has issued a promulgation that every U.S. citizen "unplug" for at least two hours each day.
location 6374 — Alena Graedon

Students and invited speakers do not shed their constitutional rights when they step up to the graduation podium. Expressing faith in God does not disqualify a student from delivering a graduation message. Being designated as valedictorian or salutatorian is an honor, and students chosen for that honor should be free to share their gratitude to God with their fellow students and family members. — Mathew Staver

Like many people, I consider myself an incurable romantic, and there is a part of me that will always believe in walking off into the sunset to live happily ever after. When I was younger, like many children, I assumed I would get married, live in a nice house, and have a couple of kids. I also assumed this very traditional achievement would bring me endless happiness and romance. So much so, that during my college years I considered girls engaged by graduation to be the epitome of success. Perhaps needless to say, I was not one of those girls. — Robi Ludwig

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences ... — John Adams

It's harder to build than destroy. To build is to engage and change. In jazz, we call progressing harmonies changes. Changes are like obstacles on a speed course. They demand your attention and require you to be present. They are coming ... they are here ... and then they are gone. It's how life comes. Each moment is a procession from the future into the past and the sweet spot is always the present. Live in that sweet spot. Be present. — Wynton Marsalis

But where was he going to go, exactly? It was not considered the thing to look panicked or even especially concerned about graduation, but everything about the world after Brakebills felt dangerously vague and under-thought to Quentin. What was he going to do? What exactly? Every ambition he'd ever had in his life had been realized the day he was admitted to Brakebills, and he was struggling to formulate a new one with any kind of practical specificity. This wasn't Fillory, where there was some magical war to be fought. There was no Watcherwoman to be rooted out, no great evil to be vanquished, and without that everything else seemed so mundane and penny-ante. No one would come right out and say it, but the worldwide magical ecology was suffering from a serious imbalance: too many magicians, not enough monsters. — Lev Grossman