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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:

A recurrent theme of this book is that luck plays a large role in every story of success; it is almost always easy to identify a small change in the story that would have turned a remarkable achievement into a mediocre outcome.

Daniel Kahneman Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

It has taken many years of education and much of my life to gain some insight into the geopolitical dynamics that propelled the United States to global hegemony and are... condemning it to decline.

Alfred W. McCoy

I don't feel special … I was just full of energy and loved to learn.

Alicia Witt

Everything was okay, as long as I could dream. Its amazing, really, the difference between having a dream and not having any left that can come true. It's the difference between living and dying.

Alicia Witt

The ending of the dream,
the beginning of the wide awake
something big is coming...

Alicia Witt

I'm of the opinion that science fiction writers suck at predicting the future. We mostly go around describing the present in futuristic clothes - (such as) Mary Shelley, Bill Gibson, and many others.

Cory Doctorow

No event, no matter how preposterous, will fail to find itself indispensable to some future happenstance.

Tony Vigorito Just a Couple of Days (2001)

I may be forgiven the assumption that my choice to the highest office is mainly, if not entirely, made on account of my long association with the education of my people.

Zakir Hussain Quest for Truth (1999)

A company's success no longer depends primarily on its ability to raise investment capital. Success depends on the ability of its people to learn together and produce new ideas

Arie de Geus

Teachers should be trained and retrained. This should be done regularly. If teachers who are key factors in schools are left out, then we should not expect that pupils would perform very well.

Oluwayemisi Oluremi Obilade

I learned to dream on the roof of the house

Raquel Jodorowsky

When you speak the future, you shape the future.

Naomi Novik Scholomance fantasy series (2020)

Only an inner education allows us to look at reality and distinguish what really matters.

Eugenio Borgna

The only possible education is aesthetic education.

Luigi Pareyson

We have failed to bring justice. We cannot build the future on injustice.

F. W. de Klerk The Last Trek: A New Beginning, C-Span (1999)

Education is something that affects the whole person, not bits and pieces of him. It doesn't just train the mind: it's a social and moral development too.

Northrop Frye The Educated Imagination (1963)

Never turn to the past unless to enlighten the future. Regrets are useless.

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot Posthumous Manuscripts (1878)

Those who trust us educate us.

George Eliot Daniel Deronda (1876)

Throughout Finnegans Wake Joyce specifies the Tower of Babel as the tower of Sleep, that is, the tower of the witless assumption, or what Bacon calls the reign of the Idols.

Marshall McLuhan The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

Teach him he must deny himself.

Robert E. Lee

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