Following is our list of inspirational high school graduation quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about high school graduation.
Famous Inspirational High School Graduation Quotes
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
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. — Orrin Hatch
But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: “This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life. — Nikolai Gogol
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
Young people need to be inspired, told they can achieve anything they set their minds to. — Jim Stynes
The importance of Dream School is monumental. Helping to inspire these students to reach their potential is personally gratifying. — 50 Cent
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
The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration. — Cornel West
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. — William Arthur Ward
The most important day of a person's education is the first day of school, not Graduation Day. — Harry Wong
The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse. — Ed Koch
The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do. — Kobe Bryant
When people are inspired, they achieve more than they ever thought possible. — Michael Abrashoff
A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning. — Brad Henry
Inspirational 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
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
I knew when I met you an adventure is going to happen.
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.
Just because my path is different doesn't mean I'm lost.
You have to go wholeheartedly into anything in order to achieve anything worth having. — Frank Lloyd Wright
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
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. — Steve Jobs
High School Graduation Quotes
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
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
Fear has two meanings - Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise. The choice is yours.
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
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
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
Good High School Graduation Quotes
Your education is a dress rehearsal for a life that is yours to lead. — Nora Ephron
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
People will frighten you about a graduation....They use words you don't hear often. — Bill Cosby
Your dynamic with everyone will change when you graduate high school. High school is a pit of despair. It's a swirling tornado of insecurities and there's really nothing good about it. — Kristen Bell
I've always been a creative speller and never achieved good grades in school. I graduated from high school but didn't have the opportunity to attend college, so I did what young women my age did at the time - I married. — Debbie Macomber
For people who aren't familiar with my background, I didn't graduate high school. My career high salary was about $200,000. My last position was about $122,000. For a guy without a high school diploma, that's pretty good. — Edward Snowden
Trust me, high school ends. You graduate and get away from all the people you never want to see again-it's all good. — Chad Michael Murray
I was an educated girl. I'd done very well in school. I had a good point average and graduated from USC as an English teacher. My dad didn't even finish high school. — Marlo Thomas
High School Commencement Quotes
Nothing worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde
Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself. — Silas House
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
Always be a first-rate version of yourself. — Audrey Hepburn
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change. — Maya Angelou
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
The truth is, I was afraid the day I walked into Stanford. And I was afraid the day I walked out. — Carly Fiorina
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
There is no spark like the one ignited under the aspirations of a new graduate. — Henny Youngman
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
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
People Writing About Inspirational High School Graduation
Just the example Delaware State University graduates set by the way they live their lives, should be an inspiration to other high school students to go to Delaware State. — Michael N. Castle
In the world of entrepreneurs, you don't need a college education. You need a proper education. — Robert Kiyosaki
Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom. — Oprah Winfrey
You will make a lousy anybody else, but you will be the best "you" in existence. — Zig Ziglar
Humor can be a great way to lift spirits and relate with soon-to-be high school grads. Whether you're in need of a funny senior year quote for a card, your yearbook, or a gift, you can use this list of funny graduation quotes by famous leaders and comedians to get inspired. To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you too may one day be president of the United States. — George W. Bush
In Conclusion
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