159 College Graduation Quotes

Following is our list of college graduation quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about college graduates.

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Famous College Graduation Quotes

A college degree is not a sign that one is a finished product but an indication a person is prepared for life. — Edward Malloy

A college degree is the key to realizing the American dream, well worth the financial sacrifice because it is supposed to open the door to a world of opportunity. — Dan Rather

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

Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out. — Mark Twain

Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch

It is virtually impossible to compete in today's global economy without a college degree. — Bobby Scott

I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated. — Al McGuire

College is the reward for surviving high school. Most people have great fun stories from college and nightmare stories from high school. — Judd Apatow

Made it through high school, went to the University of Minnesota. — Dave Winfield

College inspired me to think differently. It's like no other time in your life. — Larisa Oleynik

I did graduate with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1948. — Daniel J. Evans

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

I tried to go to college, I barely got out of high school. — Dana White

We don't stop going to school when we graduate. — Carol Burnett

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

Short College Graduation Quotes

  • The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after. — Newton D. Baker
  • A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B. — Fats Domino
  • In Finland, getting a university degree is the first thing that you expect your kids to do. — Renny Harlin
  • So basically, I graduated high school a semester early. — Jessica Szohr
  • I went to college at the University of Kansas, where I got a degree in political science. — Sara Paretsky
  • Not all knowledge comes from college. — Mike Rowe
  • After graduating from high school, I worked at an advertising agency as a designer. — Akira Toriyama
  • A college education should equip one to entertain three things: a friend, an idea and oneself. — Thomas Ehrlich
  • Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars. — Richard Halliburton

College Graduates Quotes

One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates. — Fidel Castro

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place. — Nora Roberts

Go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. — Neil Gaiman

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. - C. S. Lewis

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. — C. S. Lewis

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

I attended the University of Louisville my freshman year, transferred to what was then Western Kentucky State Teachers College for my sophomore and junior years, and then graduated from the University of Louisville in the summer of 1961. — Sue Grafton

I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back. — Fred Allen

You cannot help but learn more as take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is and old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it. — John Updike

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. — Abbott Lawrence Lowell

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

Graduation Quotes

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

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined... — Henry David Thoreau

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. — Dr. Seuss

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. — Henry David Thoreau

Every person that you meet knows something you don't; learn from them. — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You have to go wholeheartedly into anything in order to achieve anything worth having. — Frank Lloyd Wright

Give me an Army of West Point graduates and I'll win a battle... Give me a handful of Texas Aggies and I'll win a war. — George S. Patton

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces. - Will Rogers

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces. — Will Rogers

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. — Steve Jobs

The most important day of a person's education is the first day of school, not Graduation Day. — Harry Wong

Graduation Ceremony Quotes

There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. — Oprah Winfrey

Openness isn't the end. It's the beginning. — Margaret Heffernan

Even though I disagree with many of the changes, when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day, when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony, they are still fine privates; outstanding, well motivated privates. — R. Lee Ermey

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying says that death is the graduation ceremony, while living is just a long course in learning and preparing for the next journey. If we acknowledge death as the beginning, then how can we fear it? — Nikki Sixx

Death is very likely the single best invention of life. — Steve Jobs

The truth is, I was afraid the day I walked into Stanford. And I was afraid the day I walked out. — Carly Fiorina

Harry taught me that death isn't the end, it's the beginning. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

People will frighten you about a graduation....They use words you don't hear often. — Bill Cosby

These are days you'll remember. If you recall nothing else from your graduation ceremony, remember you heard the New Jersey Governor quote from 10,000 Maniacs. — Bill Vaughan

Like a christening, a wedding, a graduation ceremony, a holy war, a revolutioneven?a fireworksdisplay, agaudy promise of what life ought to be, not life itself. — Alistair Cooke

University Graduation Quotes

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. — Steve Jobs

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. — Steve Jobs

Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. — Steve Jobs

I attended schools in Seattle through the University of Washington, from which I was graduated in 1931. I spent the next year at Northwestern University. — George Stigler

When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding. — Arsene Wenger

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. — Steve Jobs

A university is not about results in the next quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage of millennia; learning that shapes the future — Drew Gilpin Faust

I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years. — Ray Bradbury

I don't have my diploma from the University of Nebraska hanging on my office wall, and I don't have my diploma from Columbia up there either-but I do have my Dale Carnegie graduation certificate proudly displayed. — Warren Buffett

Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. — Steve Jobs

Great Graduation Quotes

Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it. — Mary Lou Retton

The essays in The Great Taos Bank Robbery were my project to win a Master of Arts degree in English when I quit being a newspaper editor and went back to college. — Tony Hillerman

Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential. — John C. Maxwell

It was the beginning of film for television. So we had all of these great opportunities. Northwestern was probably the only major film school of its kind at the time that was graduating anybody important. — Richard Donner

Do not follow where the path may lead. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love...the smaller the thing, the greater must be our love. — Mother Teresa

You're going to fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up. — Aaron Sorkin

Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift. — Robin Williams

I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which, was that you can fail at what you don't want so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love — Jim Carrey

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

High School Graduation Quotes

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. - Ella Fitzgerald

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. — Ella Fitzgerald

Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated. — Erma Bombeck

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 A. Freund

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. — Dr. Seuss

I thought I should go to New York because it was the place to go to study. I went and tried to get an application from the Juilliard School but they wouldn't even give me one because I didn't have my high school graduation. — Maureen Forrester

Success is the best revenge for anything. Keep ya head down and work hard to achieve. — Ed Sheeran

In fact, if they didn't let me commute, I would not have taken the role because I wanted to graduate high school with my classmates. I remember my agent's jaw dropping when I told him if I couldn't commute I didn't want the role. — Sarah Chalke

I wanted to be a marine biologist my whole life until I graduated high school. — Cobie Smulders

You just have to be yourself and go full with confidence and be courageous! — Gabby Douglas

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

Graduation Commencement Quotes

Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success. — Denzel Washington

Never follow anyone else's path, unless you're in the woods and you're lost. — Ellen DeGeneres

Interviewing is tough, especially if you don't know what you're looking for. — Charlyne Yi

God wants us to know that life is a series of beginnings not endings. Just as graduations are not terminations but commencements. Creation is an ongoing process and when we create a perfect world where love and compassion are shared by all suffering will cease. — Bernie Siegel

Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women. — Nora Ephron

You might as well take a chance on doing what you love. — Jim Carrey

Nothing worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde

Spread joy. Chase your wildest dreams. — Patch Adams

So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. — Jim Carrey

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

Graduation Day Quotes

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. — Ralph Washington Sockman

It is soooooo necessary to get the basic skills, because by the time you graduate, undergraduate or graduate, that field would have totally changed from your first day of school. — Leigh Steinberg

When people go through something rough in life, they say, "I'm taking it one day at a time." Yes, so is everybody. Because that's how time works. — Hannibal Buress

If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place. — Nora Roberts

Work hard but work smart. Always. Every day. Nothing is handed to you and nothing is easy. You're not owed anything... No job or task is too small or beneath you. If you want to get ahead, volunteer to do the things no one else wants to do, and do it better. Be a sponge. Be open and learn. — Bobbi Brown

We cannot lead a choiceless life. Every day, every moment, every second, there is a choice. If it were not so, we would not be individuals. — Ernest Holmes

In the school of the woods, there is no graduation day. — Horace Kephart

You can't make a cloudy day a sunny day, but can embrace it and decide it's going to be a good day after all. — Jane Lynch

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. — David Foster Wallace

I don't fear death; I welcome it with open arms and a smirk. But until that wondrous day, I will continue to savor and celebrate all those who have graduated before me. — Nikki Sixx

Inspirational Graduation Quotes

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. — John Hughes

You will be wounded many times in your life. You'll make mistakes. Some people will call them failures but I have learned that failure is really God's way of saying, "Excuse me, you're moving in the wrong direction." It's just an experience, just an experience. — Oprah Winfrey

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. — Yoko Ono

If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito. — Anita Roddick

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it. - Yann Martel

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it. — Yann Martel

The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well. - John D. Rockefeller

The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well. — John D. Rockefeller

No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try. — George Lucas

When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important. — Ellen DeGeneres

Be present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future. — Jessica Lange

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More College Graduation Quotes

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning. — Mahatma Gandhi

If you're graduating from high school, and you come from a lower-income family, you're effectively given two options. One is to get a four-year college degree; two is to work at a low-wage job, potentially for the rest of your life. We've got to do better on that front. We have to provide more options. — James David Vance

I want to go to college, definitely. If it’s possible, I want to. — Sadie Sink

I could be happy doing something like architecture. It would involve another couple of years of graduate school, but that's what I studied in college. That's what I always wanted to do. — Parker Stevenson

Current condition of the BYU football program? I think it's in good shape. We've got some good young players. We've had two or three pretty good recruiting years. We lost some players, obviously, that hurt us, but you always have turnover in college through attrition (graduation, transfers). That's the nature of the game. — LaVell Edwards

I'm not afraid of who I am. I'm not afraid to tell the world who I am. I'm Michael Sam, I'm a college graduate, I'm African-American and I'm gay. — Michael Sam

The things taught in schools & colleges are not an education but the means of education. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

One half who graduate from college never read another book. — Herbert True

You'll never know what you're capable of if you don't try. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

When I was in school, my mother stressed education. I am so glad she did. I graduated from Yale College and Yale University with my master's and I didn't do it by missing school. — Angela Bassett

You are graduating from college. That means that this is the first day of the last day of your life. No, that's wrong. This is the last day of the first day of school. Nope, that's worse. This is a day. — Andy Samberg

If knowledge is power and power is knowledge, then how so many idiots be graduating from college? — Coolio

Since 1994, unemployment rates are lower. Median household income is higher. A greater percentage of Americans are graduating from college. Home ownership rates are higher. And the violent crime rate has decreased. — Cliff Stearns

Many of the most successful men and women in the world never graduated from college. They attended the school of life instead. — Brian Tracy

One half who graduate from college never read another book. — G. M. Trevelyan

You know, I come from six generations of college graduates. — Julian Bond

My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out. — Ruth Westheimer

When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios. — Sasha Alexander

Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. — Neil Gaiman

In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months. In 2009, bound to a wheelchair, he watched his daughter graduate from college. The wheelchair had nothing to do with his cancer. The man had fallen down while coaching his youngest son's baseball team. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms - Truman's and Eisenhower's. — Alex Karras

Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you. — John Green

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

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

Both of my parents graduated from high school, both attended college, both have government jobs now. They've always been very adamant about me finishing high school and finishing college. — Chance the Rapper

I went to my dad when I was 17 and said, 'I want to be a country music star.' Which every dad loves to hear. And he said, 'I want you to go to college.' So we had a discussion. And I'm pretty stubborn. I'm a lot like him. And he said, 'If you go to college and graduate, I'll pay your first six months of rent in Nashville.' So he bribed me. — Eric Church

I graduated from Bowdoin College and went to the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Then I left and took a job teaching really poor inner-city white kids in Boston. It was interesting to me because I'd never been around poor whites before. — Geoffrey Canada

Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors. — Louisa May Alcott

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