Graduation quotes
page 2
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says: «I'm possible!»”
Source: yt
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
“The opportunity of your life, it's you.”
Original: (it) L'occasione della tua vita, sei tu.
Source: prevale.net
“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys.
Make your lives extraordinary”
“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.”
“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.”
Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay
“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.”
As quoted in Diamond Power : Gems of Wisdom from America's Greatest Marketer (2003) by Barry Farber, p. 53
“The highest result of education is tolerance”
“Act as if it were impossible to fail.”
“Life is like college; may I graduate and earn some honors.”
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”
“The road to success is always under construction”
“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.”
“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.”
Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Variant: Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
“Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.”
“But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you.”
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.”
Optimism (1903)
Variant: Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement
Original from Zig Ziglar https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zig_Ziglar
Misattributed
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”
Interview http://books.google.com/books?id=r03gAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+have+found+the+best+way+to+give+advice+to+your+children+is+to+find+out+what+they+want+and+then+advise+them+to+do+it%22&pg=PA104#v=onepage with Margaret Truman, sitting in for host Edward R. Murrow, on Person to Person, CBS Television ( 27 May 1955 http://www.tv.com/shows/person-to-person/may-27-1955-1040725/)
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”
“Make the most of yourself…. for that is all there is of you.”
“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door”
Variant: If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
Speech at the Democratic National Convention (26 August 1996) http://www.chrisreevehomepage.com/sp-dnc1996.html
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”
“Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!”
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!
“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.”
“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it.”
“Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.”
Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
This quote is widely attributed to Margaret Thatcher on various websites, and also appears in a number of books, including The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Columbia University Press (1989), ed. Robert Andrews, p. 320 : ISBN 0231069901. 9780231069908 , but without any further source information such as date, location or any other context.
One valid Thatcher quote which may be the basis for the version above appears in the Second Carlton Lecture http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105799 (‘Why Democracy Will Last’), delivered at the Carlton Club, London (November 26, 1984) : Mr. Chairman, each generation has to stand up for democracy. It can’t take anything for granted and may have to fight fundamental battles anew. You know that marvellous quotation from Goethe : ‘That which thy fathers bequeathed thee / Earn it anew if thou would possess it.’
Thatcher also expressed this thought in a Speech to Atlantic Bridge (May 14, 2003) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/111266, delivered at the St. Regis Hotel, New York City : My friends, every generation has to fight anew the battle for liberty.
Disputed
“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”
Source: Music is My Mistress
“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste”
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer.”
“The best way to predict your future is to create it”
“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”
“You never know what's coming for you.”
Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay
“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore”
Pete Goering (May 20, 2007) "A few tips for the graduates", The Topeka Capital-Journal, p. 1.
Attributed
“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”
The Life of Pope http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5101
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
Managing, Chapter Three (Experience and Cash), p. 39.
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
As quoted in Become a Conscious Creator: A Return to Self-Empowerment (2007) by Lisa Ford, p. 44
“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”
In Ethical Religion, (Madras: S. Ganesan, 1922), p. 62 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002732066?urlappend=%3Bseq=66
1920s
Variant: A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
“What does not change / is the will to change”
Part I, 1
The Kingfishers (1950)
“The future was not what it used to be.”
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 13 (p. 156)
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Variant on aphorism "Study as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow" pre-dating Gandhi, variously attributed to Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636), in FPA Book of Quotations (1952) by Franklin Pierce Adams, to Edmund Rich (1175–1240) in American Journal of Education (1877), or to Alain de Lille in Samuel Smiles's Duty https://books.google.com/books?id=33UzAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA363&dq=live+die+tomorrow+learn+forever&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd3s_2m57MAhWFMGMKHe-sAl8Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=live%20die%20tomorrow%20learn%20forever&f=false (1881).
The 1995 book "The good boatman: a portrait of Gandhi," states that Gandhi subscribed "to the view that a man should live thinking he might die tomorrow but learn as if he would live forever."
In his 2010 Boyer lecture Glyn Davis (Professor of Political Science and Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University) attributes the quote to Desiderius Erasmus. "He [Erasmus] reworked Pliny to urge 'live as if you are to die tomorrow, study as if you were to live forever'. Many students obey the first clause - the best heed both."
There is a similar quote by Johann Gottfried Herder: "Mensch, genieße dein Leben, als müssest morgen du weggehn; Schone dein Leben, als ob ewig du weiletest hier." ["Man, enjoy your life as if you were to depart tomorrow; spare your life as if you were to linger here forever."] (Zerstreute Blätter, 1785).
Disputed
Attributed to Zig Ziglar
Misattributed
“If you believe that you will believe anything.”
In reply to a man who greeted him in the street with the words "Mr. Jones, I believe?", as quoted in Wellington — The Years of the Sword (1969) by Elizabeth Longford.
“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”
A favourite comment, inscribed on his memorial at Ealing, quoted in Nature Vol. XLVI (30 October 1902), p. 658
1890s
“All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Source: How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 3 : Imagination Unlimited, p. 63; Unsourced variant: All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.
“Men are what their mothers made them.”
Fate
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 131
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.”
No. 215 (6 November 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“There is no knowledge that is not power.”
Old Age
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870)
“You can never plan the future by the past.”
Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)
A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)
“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.”
Jim
Jackson
Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies, Then and Now
2004
31 &32
Sports Publishing L.L.C.
1-58261-389-3
“Dream by making and make by dreaming.”
Seagull from Afar http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21382/Seagull_from_Afar_
From the poems written in English
“Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”
They Call Me Coach (1972)
“A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for.”
Taken from a quote of Grace Hopper. [Tropp, Henry S., Fall 1984, Grace Hopper: The Youthful Teacher of Us All, Abacus, 2, 1, p. 18, 0724-6722]
Invoked by Palin at her introduction by Senator John McCain as his choice for the Republican Vice Presidential nomination on .
2014
“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 15 “To the Ice” (p. 220)
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
As quoted in An Enemy Called Average (1990) by John L. Mason, p. 55.
Date unknown
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
From "Self-Portrait" (1972)
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)
“I have no plans, and no plans to plan.”
On his presidential plans New York Times (14 September 1986)
“A champion is someone who gets up when he can't.”
Dempsey's definition of a champion. http://www.hennessysports.com/Article.asp?art=214
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
Though widely attributed to Hillary on the internet and in several Books (e.g. That's Life : Wild Wit & Wisdom (2003) by Bonnie Louise Kuchler, p. 20), this appears to have originated from George Mallory. Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/08/18/conquer/
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Edmund Hillary / Disputed
“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”
" Lighting your way to a better future : Speech delivered by Mr N R Mandela at launch of Mindset Network http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=NMS909&txtstr=education%20is%20the%20most%20powerful," July 16, 2003 at db.nelsonmandela.org. ; Cited in: Nelson Mandela, S. K. Hatang, Sahm Venter (2012) Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom. p. 101.
2000s
Context: Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world and is a powerful part of that world changing arsenal.
“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
“If you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. ”
“You educate a man; you educate a Man. You educate a woman; you educate a Generation. ”
“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”