Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch
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
Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars. — Richard Halliburton
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch
Nothing worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde
Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself. — Silas House
Be yourself, it's the best thing you can do. — Greyson Chance
Think of it as your ticket to change the world. — Tom Brokaw
Life has a very simple plot: first you're here and then you're not. — Eric Idle
Graduation Ceremony Quotes
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
There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. — Oprah Winfrey
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Graduation Day Quotes
The most important day of a person's education is the first day of school, not Graduation Day. — Harry Wong
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
I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back. — Fred Allen
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
High School Graduation Quotes
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
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
After graduating from high school, I worked at an advertising agency as a designer. — Akira Toriyama
I wanted to be a marine biologist my whole life until I graduated high school. — Cobie Smulders
So basically, I graduated high school a semester early. — Jessica Szohr
You just have to be yourself and go full with confidence and be courageous! — Gabby Douglas
Inspirational Graduation Quotes
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. — Steve Jobs
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. — Steve Jobs
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.
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. — C. S. Lewis
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. — Yoko Ono
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. — Steve Jobs
I did graduate with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1948. — Daniel J. Evans
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
College Graduation Quotes
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
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
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
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
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
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
Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. — Bill Nye
Continue to share your heart with people even if it's been broken. — Amy Poehler
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. — Albert Einstein
Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character. — Hosea Ballou
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
Hitler took the guns. Stalin took the guns. Mao took the guns. Fidel Castro took the guns. Hugo Chavez took the guns. And I'm here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms. — Alex Jones
Interviewing is tough, especially if you don't know what you're looking for. — Charlyne Yi
Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum. — John Kenneth Galbraith
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. — Henry David Thoreau
You might as well take a chance on doing what you love. — Jim Carrey
The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change. — Maya Angelou
Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along. — Stephen Colbert
A college education is not a quantitative body of memorized knowledge salted away in a card file. It is a taste for knowledge, a taste for philosophy, if you will; a capacity to explore, to question to perceive relationships, between fields of knowledge and experience. — Alfred Whitney Griswold
A modern school where football is taught. — Ambrose Bierce
I am terminally sentimental about graduations. They are more individual than weddings, more conscious than christenings, or bar mitzvahs or bat mitzvahs. They are almost as much a step into the unknown as funerals-though I assure you, there is life after graduation. — Gloria Steinem
I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.” I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume. — Bill Gates
Life is the most exciting opportunity we have. — Andrew Shue
Life is to be lived through action not by dreaming. — Kenneth G. Wilson
More Graduation Commencement Quotes
Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch
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
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
Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars. — Richard Halliburton
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
Interviewing is tough, especially if you don't know what you're looking for. — Charlyne Yi
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
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
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch
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
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
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
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
There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. — Oprah Winfrey
Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. — Steve Jobs
Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself. — Silas House
Openness isn't the end. It's the beginning. — Margaret Heffernan
Be yourself, it's the best thing you can do. — Greyson Chance
Think of it as your ticket to change the world. — Tom Brokaw
Life has a very simple plot: first you're here and then you're not. — Eric Idle
Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along. — Stephen Colbert
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may. — Jon Stewart
I’ve found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. — Denzel Washington
So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it. — Bill Watterson
In 1986, our commencement speaker was George Schultz, secretary of state, fourth in line to the president. You get me-basic cable's second most popular fake newsman. At this rate, the class of 2021 will be addressed by a zoo parrot in a mortar-board that has been trained to say "congratulations. — Stephen Colbert
The truth is, I was afraid the day I walked into Stanford. And I was afraid the day I walked out. — Carly Fiorina
People will frighten you about a graduation.... They use words you don't hear often: And we wish you Godspeed." It is a warning, Godspeed. It means you are no longer welcome here at these prices." — Bill Cosby
It is a warning, Godspeed. It means you are no longer welcome here at these prices. — Bill Cosby
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
Live all of your life. Understand it, see it, appreciate it. And have fun. — Joss Whedon
Now I usually try not to give advice. Information, yes, advice, no. But, what has worked for me may not work for you. Well, take for instance what has worked for me. Wigs. Tight clothes. Push up bras. — Dolly Parton
Sometimes you find out what you are supposed to be doing by doing the things you are not supposed to do. — Oprah Winfrey
The stunning part was that one time Neil McElroy the Secretary of Defense who was the father of one of our classmates spoke and basically at commencement, he told us all that our job after graduation was to get married and have interesting sons...and we all found that hard to believe. — Madeleine Albright
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
In Conclusion
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