Best Commencement Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Civilization depends not only upon the knowledge of the people, but upon the use they make of it. If knowledge be wrongfully used, civilization commits suicide. Broadly speaking, the college is not to educate the individual, but to educate society. The individual may be ignorant and vicious. If society have learning and virtue, that will sustain him. If society lacks learning and virtue, it perishes. Education must give not only power but direction. It must minister to the whole man or it fails.”

Science Freedom Education Commencement Amherst

Author:Calvin Coolidge

“If I show up at your house ten years from now and find nothing in your living room but The Readers Digest, nothing on your bedroom night table but the newest Dan Brown novel, and nothing in your bathroom but Jokes for the John, I’ll chase you down to the end of your driveway and back, screaming ‘Where are your books? You graduated college ten years ago, so how come there are no damn books in your house? Why are you living on the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?”

Books Intellect Stephen King Commencement

Author:Stephen King

“At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again...”

Friendship Nostalgia Commencement

Book:Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

Source: Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

“The beginning seems bitter to you, but the end is sweeter for you. However, you can’t get through to the end without having a beginning. You must begin by all means.”

Sweet Starting Food For Thought Israelmore Ayivor Bitter End Beginning Start Beginners Commencement Begin Commence Sweeter Starter

Book:Shaping the dream

Source: Shaping the dream

“It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms nearly always shoot themselves in...the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.”

Commencement Dfw This Is Water

Book:This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“Look beyond your tasseled caps And you will see injustice. At the end of your fingertips You will find cruelties, Irrational hate, bedrock sorrow And terrifying loneliness. There is your work.”

Hate Work Loneliness Sorrow Injustice Cruelty Graduation Commencement

Book:Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

“The year 1826 was remarkable for the commencement of one of those fearful droughts to which we have reason to believe the climate of New South Wales is periodically subject.”

Years Believe Reason Subjects South Climate Remarkable Fearful Drought Wales Commencement

Book:Two expeditions into the interior of Southern Australia: during the years 1828, 1829, 1830 and 1831 with observations on ... New South Wales

Source: Two expeditions into the interior of Southern Australia: during the years 1828, 1829, 1830 and 1831 with observations on ... New South Wales

“Commencement addresses are usually garbage. They're for colleges seeking publicity.”

College Seeking Addresses Garbage Publicity Commencement

Author:Greg Gutfeld

“From the very commencement the student should set out to witness the progress and effects of sickness and ought to persevere in the daily observation of disease during the whole period of his studies.”

Should Whole Study Progress Effects Students Ought Periods Disease Observation Witness Sickness Persevere Commencement

Author:Robert James Graves

“Education is the best provision for old age.”

Source: The Aristotle Collection [50 Books]

“They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther; one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than have incurred.”

Thinking Careers Crime Design Died Guilt Faults Depth Deceiving Begets Commencement

Author:Robert Southey

“The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.”

Thinking Culture Speech Manifestation Commencement Commencement Speech

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith

“Death is very likely the single best invention of life.”

“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.”

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

“Axiome: la haine du bourgeois est le commencement de la vertu. Axiom: Hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom.”

Hatred Bourgeois Axioms Commencement

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“We are masters of our actions from the beginning up to the very end. But, in the case of our habits, we are only masters of their commencement - each particular little increase being as imperceptible as in the case of bodily infirmities. But yet our habits are voluntary, in that it was once in our power to adopt or not to adopt such or such a course of conduct.”

Littles Ends Action Courses Cases Particular Masters Habit Increase Our Actions Infirmity Commencement

Book:The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

“Death is not "an eternal sleep!" Citizens! efface from the tomb that motto, graven by sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from oppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: "Death is the commencement of immortality!"”

Hands Sleep Support Citizens Eternal Spread Innocence Immortality Oppressed Motto Tombs Commencement Sacrilegious

Author:Maximilien Robespierre

“George W. Bush gave a commencement speech at Southern Methodist University this weekend. It was pretty inspirational. He said, 'As I like to tell the 'C' students, you too can be president.' Even George W. Bush has George W. Bush comedy material in his act.”

Said President Comedy Students Materials Speech University Southern Weekend Commencement Methodists Commencement Speech

Author:Jimmy Fallon

“Zealous in the commencement, careless in the end.”

Ends Careless Commencement Zealous

Author:Tacitus

“It is the beginning of the end. [Fr., C'est le commencement de al fin.]”

Ends Als Commencement Fins

Author:Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

“The beginning and the end of love are both marked by embarrassment when the two find themselves alone. [Fr., Le commencement et le declin de l'amour se font sentir par l'embarras ou l'on est de se trouver seuls.]”

Love Two Ends Embarrassment Amour Commencement Fonts L Amour

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth. [Fr., Ce chien est a moi, disaient ces pauvres enfants; c'est la ma place au soleil. Voila le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de toute la terre.]”

Children Said Earth Poor Sun Dog Mines Type Possession Commencement Usurpation Poor Children

Author:Blaise Pascal

“Play is a sacred thing, a divine ordinance, for developing in the child a harmonious and healthy organism, and preparing that organism for the commencement of the work of life.”

Children Play Divine Healthy Sacred Developing Organisms Preparing Harmonious Ordinances Commencement Sacred Things

Book:PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS

Source: PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS

“The commencement of coal mining at Parsa Kente is a milestone event in coal mining sector.”

Events Coal Mining Milestone Commencement Coal Mining

Author:Gautam Adani

“It took me a long time to be as brave in my personal life as I was in my professional life to be brave in love means opening yourself up to the possibility of heartbreak.”

Mean Long Possibility Long Time Brave Opening Personal Life Be Brave Love Means Commencement Professional Life

Author:Mellody Hobson

“Nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

“I'm an artist. And I'm happy that I was there at the commencement of this music, this Jamaican music, to put my contribution and help to establish it.”

Helping Artist Contribution Commencement Jamaicans Jamaican Music

Author:Jimmy Cliff

“Donald Trump had a university. Well, the state attorney general decided that the Donald Trump University was an unlicensed sham. And I thought, you know you're at a bad university when your commencement speaker is Whitey Bulger.”

Knows Wells States Education Comedy Trump Decided University Speakers Attorney Commencement

Author:David Letterman

“Unusual commencement advice: Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.”

Ifs Would Be Class Advice Offers Gentleman If I Could Unusual Commencement Ladies And Gentlemen Sunscreen Wear Sunscreen

Author:Mary Schmich

“President Bush delivered a commencement speech at a university in Wisconsin. A very inspirational speech. Apparently Bush told the students, 'You can do anything in life if your parents work hard enough.'”

Ifs Hard Enough Parent President Can Do Students Hard Work Speech University President Bush Wisconsin Commencement Anything In Life Commencement Speech Very Inspirational Inspirational Speech

Author:Conan O'Brien

“Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.”

Next Easy Promise Summer Winter Caught Speakers June Public Speaking Commencement Keeping Promises Kept Promises Promises That Are Broken

Author:Sydney J. Harris

“As an innovation... the establishment of Free Schools was the boldest ever promulgated, since the commencement of the Christian era... Time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, as beneficient as it was disinterested. It was one of those grand mental and moral experiments... The sincerity of our gratitude must be tested by our efforts to perpetuate and improve what they established. The gratitude of the lips only is an unholy offering.”

“One may decide that the nipple most nearly resembles a newly ripened raspberry (never, be it noted, the plonk of water on a pond at the commencement of a drizzle, a simple bladder nozzle built on the suction principal gum bubble, mole, or birth ward, bumpy metal button, or the painful red eruption of a swelling), but does one care to see his breakfast fruit as a sweetened milky bowl of snipped nips? no.”

“Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the spider, trembling at every breeze, may in the end prove as links of tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or woe.”

May Ends Lines Habit Prove Eternal Links Steel Woe Breeze Spiders Trembling Binding Felicity Commencement Deathless

Author:Lydia Sigourney

“It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.”

May War Ends Enough Hands Easy Difficult Willing Arms Lays Coward Commencement Termination

Author:Sallust

“In love it is only the commencement that charms. I am not surprised that we find pleasure in frequently recommencing.”

Love Pleasure Charm Commencement

Author:Michel, 14th Prince of Ligne

“To make a commencement requires a mental effort.”

Effort Commencement

Author:Seneca the Younger

“Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.”

Age Interesting Existence Periods Flying Flight Aviation Commencement

Book:20 hrs. 40 min

Source: 20 hrs. 40 min

“[A]s a commencement the Lord appeared unto Joseph Smith, both the Father and the Son, the Father pointing to the Son said, "this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him" Here then, was a communication from the heavens made known unto man on the earth, and he at that time came into possession of a fact that no man knew in the world but he, and that is that God lived, for he had seen him, and that his Son Jesus Christ lived, for he also had seen him.”

Men World Wells Made Said Facts Earth Father Jesus Heaven Christ Known Lord Son Communication Jesus Christ Possession Beloved Pointing Commencement Joseph Smith Beloved Son

Author:John Taylor

“People will frighten you about a graduation....They use words you don't hear often.”

People Use Graduates Graduation Commencement Funny Graduation College Graduates Inspirational Graduation Funny Commencement Graduation Speech Good High School Graduation Graduation Card Graduation Ceremony

Author:Bill Cosby

“With whomsoever or wheresoever may rest the present causes of difficulty that apparently exist towards either the completion of the old engine, or the commencement of the new one, we trust they will not ultimately result in this generation's being acquainted with these inventions through the medium of pen, ink and paper merely; and still more do we hope, that for the honour of our country's reputation in the future pages of history, these causes will not lead to the completion of the undertaking by some other nation or government.”

“I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.”

Facts Certain Known Events Add Mysterious Realization Fixed Collections Precise Commencement

Author:Ken Burns

“There is a two-fold solemnity which belongs to the dying hour-it is the winding up of life, and it is the commencement of eternity.”

Two Hours Dying Eternity Folds Commencement Solemnity Winding Up

Book:The Human Race

Source: The Human Race

“At his Philadelphia alma mater, Temple University, Cosby gave commencement addresses and attended games. He served on the university`s board of trustees for more than three decades.”

Three Games University Decades Boards Addresses Temples Philadelphia Commencement Trustees Alma Mater

Author:Chaka Fattah

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Author:Steve Jobs

“The question I have is out of all these commencement speeches that are happening, what`s the really worthwhile advice that a 21, 22 year old person will walk away from the speech and say, I can apply this maybe five years, 10 years later. How many speeches actually push the button like that, other than yours?”

Years Persons I Can Walks Five Advice Speech Happenings Five Years Worthwhile Buttons Commencement Old Person Commencement Speech

Author:David Corn

“What kind of a world are we going to leave the next generation? I, at least, want my children to look back and say, "My daddy was being arrested at the White House fence and booed off commencement stages. He was trying."”

World Want Trying Looks Kind Children Next House White Generations Stage My Children White House Fence Daddy Next Generation Arrested Commencement

Author:Chris Hedges

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”

“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.”

Believe Hard Jobs Found Father Interesting Son Married Defense Spokes One Time Secretary Stunning Hard To Believe Commencement Classmates

Author:Madeleine Albright

Commencement Quotes

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Commencement Quotes