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Graduation Quotes

Two of the most popular graduation lines are flagged. “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself” is a paraphrase of John Dewey, not a quotation. The one about education being what remains after you have forgotten what you learned in school is credited to Einstein and flagged as misattributed.

The page is assembled from the pages on education, success, the future, dreams and learning. It has no graduation speeches in it, but it does have a lot of quotes that get used in them. If you are writing a speech, use the sourced entries; the label will tell you which is which.

Random quote on Graduation

Most quoted on graduation:

I knew that it was only education that was to liberate me and my family from the grips of poverty.

Irene Tarimo

Secondly, we will build up a vision of what the future could be like if humanity so chooses — for “without vision the people perish”.

Vera Stanley Alder Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950)

Some men sicken, with wine and food;
I starved on dreams, and found them good.

Amy Levy A London Plane-tree, and Other Verse (1889)

Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

Yip Harburg

Maya was very insistent that they learn their math well. “You’re getting a horrible education,” she would say, shaking her head darkly. “But if you learn your math you can catch up later.”

Kim Stanley Robinson Green Mars (1993)

What I look for in a friend is someone who's different from me. The more different the person is, the more I'll learn from him. The more he'll come up with surprising takes on ideas and things and situations.

Samuel R. Delany The Mad Man (1994)

You must remember that we persecute nobody for religion. We regard religion as an error and fight it with education.

Mikhail Kalinin

There are two thoughts that will ensure success in all you do; (1) Don't tell everything you know, and (2) until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.

Jim Carrey Major in Success (2003)

Education means an assimilation of white American culture. It decreases the dissimilarity of the Negroes from other Americans.

Gunnar Myrdal An American Dilemma (1944)

My government has no intention to acquire large loans from any country in the near future.

Taneti Maamau Taneti Maamau (2021)

Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

Joseph Stalin

A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamed by artists.

L. Ron Hubbard Science of Survival (1951)

All men dream. But I know dreams for dreams. This is reality.

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt (1990)

Take hold of your future or the future will take hold of you - be futurewise.

Patrick Dixon Futurewise (1998)

Dreams haunted The Riverworld.

Philip José Farmer The Dark Design (1977)

Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing. T. S. Eliot writes in one of his poems, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” Reflection is about getting the meaning.

Henry Mintzberg Managers Not MBAs (2005)

Khadaji only nodded. It didn’t matter to him if he passed the test or not. He wasn’t here to get a degree; he was here to learn.

Steve Perry The Man Who Never Missed (1985)

Well, they’re Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you at golf.

Harper Lee

We've tried ignorance for a thousand years. It's time we try education.

Joycelyn Elders

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking. I never had any formal education—not even a nursery school certificate. But sometimes I know more than Ph.D.s because as a military man I know how to act. I am a man of action.

Idi Amin Appears in Barbet Schroeder (1974)

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