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
Your families are extremely proud of you. You can’t imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money. – Gary Bolding
The tassel’s worth the hassle! – Author Unknown
The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse. – Edward Koch
All that stands between the graduate and the top of the ladder is the ladder. – Author Unknown
Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you’ll make a difference. – Arie Pencovici
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 Freund
When you leave here, don’t forget why you came. – Adlai Stevenson, to college graduates
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed. – Erma Bombeck
You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. – Tom Brokaw
It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge. – Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun, 1951
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad. – Theodore Roosevelt
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
[I]t 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, "My Speech to the Graduates," Side Effects, 1980
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
Your schooling may be over, but remember that your education still continues. – Author Unknown
I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known. – Author Unknown
Hitch your wagon to a star. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors! – Louisa May Alcott
