Quotes & Sayings About High School Success

I'm gonna take all my sadness, frustration, anger and energy and channel it into becoming the best possible student.

I am going to become a learning machine...

Go ahead, go to all your parties. Go ahead and go home to your families and friends every weekend. You are probably smarter than me. But it doesn't matter. While you are goofing around, I'm gonna be studying, and I'm gonna catch you. — Peter Rogers

The formula for achieving middle-class success is simple: Finish high school; don't have a child before the age of 20; and get married before having the child. — Larry Elder

When young, we're anxious - understandably - to find out if we've got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you - in particular you, of this generation - may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can ...
And this is actually O.K. If we're going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously - as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.
Still, accomplishment is unreliable. "Succeeding," whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there's the very real danger that "succeeding" will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended. — George Saunders

I was never the cool kid, I was never hot in high school. I was never popular. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to be rich and you can still be successful. — Ke$ha

I was going to be a High School teacher. I was studying at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, up in Canada. I was also acting in a wonderfully supportive theatre community in Edmonton. There's a lot of support for theatre there. So, I was having a great time, but I didn't consider acting as a serious career initially, because even the most successful actors that I know in Edmonton are not super successful. Acting over there is just not a success-oriented career. — Nathan Fillion

Sports programs are an important part of young people's lives but should never over-shadow the true purpose of high school and that is to earn a diploma. So often today sports have become more important than an education. This must be remedied because the true focus must always be toward the student's academic development. — George M. Gilbert

You all know and lived the 'secrets' to De La Salle's success-love, brotherhood, sacrifice, discipline, heart, courage, passion, honesty. These are not just 'catch words' we throw around to impress others or justify our existence. We know what these mean because we created it and lived it. Understand that with that knowledge there is no turning back for us-ignorance is not an option. It is your future duty, no matter where you end up, to create the environment you have created here by bringing your best selves to the table. — Neil Hayes

From elementary school through high school, my siblings and I were hectored to excel in every class, to win medals in science fairs, to be chosen princess of the prom, to win election to student government. Thereby and only thereby, we learned, could we expect to gain admission to the right college, which in turn would get us into Harvard Medical School: life's one sure path to meaningful success and lasting happiness. — Jon Krakauer

Currently, only 70 percent of our high school students earn diplomas with their peers, and less than one-third of our high school students graduate prepared for success in a four-year college. — Ruben Hinojosa

College coaches measure success in championships. High School coaches measure success to titles. Youth coaches measure success in smiles. — Paul McAllister

In my last two years in high school, my face was pocked with pimples, I stammered when I spoke; if I made a mistake, I blushed furiously, and when nervous, as I was in the company of girls, I perspired freely. — Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Coaching is like riding a roller coaster with many ups and downs. The true test is weathering the storm. The average length of time anywhere in America that a man is a head high school football coach is three years. — George M. Gilbert

It's easier to get your high school diploma, become a police inspector, or get your master's degree in literature than to commit suicide. The success rate is less than eight percent. — Martin Page

Success will only happen with Afghans leading the charge, and it is far, far more important for Kabul to create and support a purpose-driven school of architecture than to invite a high profile designer to build. — Cameron Sinclair

I suppose I could have been nicer when I was at Columbia. I could have been polite, respectful, turned in my papers on time. Funny thing is, I knew a guy like that. English major. Loved to read. Never got in any trouble, just hung out in Butler Library reading poetry and English history. Ran into him the other day. Guy has three master's degrees, taught high school, even did a few years in the Marines. Know what he does today?
He makes $9.75 an hour as a librarian.
I was a jerk when I went to Columbia. But I was never a sucker. — Ted Rall

When I was in high school I experimented sexually. The experiment was to never have sex with anybody no matter how hard I tried. Success! Hypothesis confirmed. — Demetri Martin

The worst performers and the best performers are givers; takers and matchers are more likely to land in the middle. This pattern holds up across the board. The Belgian medical students with the lowest grades have unusually high giver scores, but so do the students with the highest grades. Over the course of medical school, being a giver accounts for 11 percent higher grades. Even in sales, I found that the least productive salespeople had 25 percent higher giver scores than average performers - but so did the most productive salespeople. The top performers were givers, and they averaged 50 percent more annual revenue than the takers and matchers. Givers dominate the bottom and the top of the success ladder. Across occupations, if you examine the link between reciprocity styles and success, the givers are more likely to become champs - not only chumps. — Adam M. Grant

Educated, well-to-do Baby Boomers are disciplined in their hedonism, careful that their peccadillos don't impede their scramble for success. For the most part, the rich have developed a relatively safe and moderate approach to drugs, and for the few who haven't, well, there's professional help. Decriminalization of marijuana won't hurt the strong. But what about the weak? Kids who use marijuana regularly get lower test scores, are more likely to drop out of high school, and are less likely to go to college. And who are they? A 2011 study reports that children of parents who have not completed high school are twice as likely to smoke marijuana as children of those who have completed college. Again, new freedoms harm the vulnerable. The — R. R. Reno

Growing up in a group home, and with an undiagnosed learning disability to boot, the odds of success were not on my side. But when I joined the high school football team, I learned the value of discipline, focus, persistence, and teamwork - all skills that have proven vital to my career as a C.E.O. and social entrepreneur. — Darell Hammond

Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was saying, "something that has never before been done, will be done. NASA will be sending men to the moon. Think of that. Men who were once in classrooms like this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface." He paused. I leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him. "That is why you are sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead. You come to dream dreams. You come to build fantastic castles up in the air. And you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real. When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew. But in a few months, that's what will happen. So, twenty years from now, what will people say of you? 'No one knew then that this kid Washington Irving High School would grow up to do' ... what? What castle will you build? — Gary D. Schmidt

Community. A friend started a real estate brokerage a few years ago. By the time she'd added her second employee, she was a pillar of her 35,000-person community. No rule says that only the local banker or car dealer can organize the program to raise supplemental funds for the public library or send the high school band on a well-earned special trip. Participating in community affairs, with time more than dollars, is good business from day one. It gets your name around, adds to your distinctiveness, and, best of all, makes you an attractive employer (which is the key to sustained success). — Tom Peters

What drives intellectuals and professors crazy is somebody with a high school diploma who made a fortune in business. They agree with Lenin, who thought success in business was a matter of luck, when in reality it is a matter of genius. — James Cook

One thing I more and this is all I have to say...High School is not a separate unit from you. We are apart of you. Every man, woman, and child in this community is a part...Your ways of life in your homes and your town reflect here in the school. You can help us or you can hurt us. Our success depends largely on you. I used to think when I first started teaching school that it was all up to the teachers and the pupils. I have changed my mind. The little island of humanity that is each one of you must unite with other islands and become a mainland if we are to have a successful school. — Jesse Stuart

In societies that worship money and success, the losers become objects of scorn. Those who work the hardest for the least are called lazy. Those forced to live in substandard housing are thought to be the authors of substandard lives. Those who do not finish high school or cannot afford to go to college are considered deficient or inept. — Michael Parenti

My childhood, adolescence and high school days are unusually important. If there has ever been a time that I developed a uniqueness and sense of humor and the ability to organize, it was then. In those early days, I developed the skills that gave me a certain degree of success in American politics. — Lee Atwater

The thing is that my first novel, which was basically a mystery adventure story, won quite an important award in Spain for young adult fiction, and because of this it became a very successful book, and right now it's some sort of a standard title, it's read widely in many high schools in Spain, so I think, in a way, I was a victim of my own success in the field of young adult fiction, because it was never my own natural register. I never intended to write that kind of fiction, but I became very successful at it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There is no more important homework than reading. Research shows that the highest achieving students are those who devote leisure time to reading, even when the school day and year are only mid-length and homework isn't excessive. Recently, the largest-ever international study of reading found that the single most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time children spend reading books, more important even than economic or social status. And one of the few predictors of high achievement in math and science is the amount of time children devote to pleasure reading. — Nancie Atwell

The road to success is under construction. (I came up with this in 1969 while a Jr. in high school.) — F.C. Etier

Zip codes might be great for sorting mail, but they should not determine the quality of a child s education or success in the future workforce," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. "With common standards and assessments, students, parents, and teachers will have a clear, consistent understanding of the skills necessary for students to succeed after high school and compete with peers across the state line and across the ocean. — Bob Wise

My high school career was undistinguished except for math and science. However, having barely been admitted to Rice University, I found that I enjoyed the courses and the elation of success and graduated with honors in physics. I did a senior thesis with C.F. Squire, building a regulator for a magnet for use in low-temperature physics. — Robert Woodrow Wilson

For the first ten years after I got out of graduate school, I studied success. I read every book I could get my hands on and took every training I could find, and that allowed me to become an expert in this area. I learned how to create high self-esteem and success in my own life and in the lives of others. — Jack Canfield

When I was a model - and I was all during high school and college - you always wanted to be on the cover of a magazine. That's how your success was judged. The more cover, the better. — Martha Stewart

His attitude and behaviour was no different from any other Australian high school student and being in the teaching profession she was not entirely unfamiliar with the student culture and their perceptions that academic excellence was not the only gateway to success. — Neetha Joseph

In the United States the legacy of settler colonialism can be seen in the endless wars of aggression and occupations; the trillions spent on war machinery, military bases, and personnel instead of social services and quality public education; the gross profits of corporations, each of which has greater resources and funds than more than half the countries in the world yet pay minimal taxes and provide few jobs for US citizens; the repression of generation after generation of activists who seek to change the system; the incarceration of the poor, particularly descendants of enslaved Africans; the individualism, carefully inculcated, that on the one hand produces self-blame for personal failure and on the other exalts ruthless dog-eat-dog competition for possible success, even though it rarely results; and high rates of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual violence against women and children, homelessness, dropping out of school, and gun violence. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz