Quotes about diploma (32 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Faith , Confidence , Boy , Business

“So tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

First address to Congress (24 February 2009)
2009

Education , School , Communication , Training

“The master was never impressed by diplomas or degrees. He scrutinized the person, not the certificate.
He was once heard to say, 'When you have ears to hear a bird in song, you don't need to look at its credentials.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: Anthony De Mello : Writings (1999), p. 76

Bird , Personality

“You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits, but I hope you don't. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although I believe you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, although I do believe you have that debt. It's because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Wesleyan Graduation Ceremony, Middletown, Connecticut (25 May 2008) http://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM42_remarks_of_obama.pdf
2008

Hope , Thinking , Help , Housing

“I have always advocated that a woman had as much sense as a man, or she would not have been called to be his help-meet and companion. A question: What man wants to spend his days with a woman fool? I think she is in as much danger of spending her days with a fool as he is. I opened wide the doors of my first school for ladies. Another and a much greater reason I will offer and emphasize. Why not elevate our sister’s mentality, qualify her to fill all places of trust and honor, place her hand and head with the skilled arts. I know no reason she should not study anatomy, physiology, chemistry and all the machinery and laws of life… I will say by way of encouragement that all ladies who have graduated from this school and gone out in the world, have done well financially, and are made the guests of the best society in the land. They are well received and honored as ladies, and well paid for their skill. Places are open and ready for all that have a diploma from this school. And for the first time I will say, come on and qualify yourselves to take your places of usefulness. Do your part well, and a feast awaits you.”

Andrew Taylor Still (1828–1917) Founder of Osteopathic Medicine

Still, A. T., Dr. A.T. Still's Department, Journal of Osteopathy, p. 413-414. https://www.atsu.edu/museum/subscription/pdfs/JournalofOsteopathyVol4No91898February.pdf/ Note: The first ASO class had 5 women members..

Life , World , School , Law

“I'll show you Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

School , Birth

“Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.”

Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) American writer

“A man's worth isn't measured by a bank register or diploma… It's about integrity”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Letter

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Faith , God

“When the ceremony was over, I found The Bear and handed him my diploma along with a ballpoint pen. "What's this for, lamb?" "I want you to sign it, Colonel. I want you to make it official," I answered. "I wan the name of a man I can respect on my diploma, Colonel." He handed me back the diploma without signing it. "There already is, Bubba," he answered. "There already is."”

Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline

And he pointed to my name.
Source: The Lords of Discipline (1980), p. 498

“The university system in 2014, it's like the Catholic Church circa 1514… You have this priestly class of professors that doesn't do very much work; people are buying indulgences in the form of amassing enormous debt for the sort of the secular salvation that a diploma represents. And what I think is also similar to the 16th century is that the Reformation will come largely from the outside.”

Peter Thiel (1967) American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager

In an episode http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/peter-thiel/ of "Conversations with Bill Kristol" (2014)

People , Thinking , Universe

“Anyway, that's what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you're through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die.”

Frederik Pohl book Gateway

Gateway (1978)

Life , Learning

“It is impossible to maintain civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, with 15-year-olds killing each other, with 17-year-olds dying of AIDS and with 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can’t even read.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Source: As quoted in Newsweek, ‘Spiro Agnew With Brains’ http://archive.is/QsR1g, (27 November 1994)

Reading , Baby

“But I don't know how I'll ever get a college degree and rise in the world with no high school diploma and eyes like piss holes in the snow, as everyone tells me.”

Frank McCourt book 'Tis

'Tis (2000)

World , School

“Graduation was nice. General Clark liked it. The Board of Visitors liked it. Moms and Dads liked it. And the Cadets hated it, for without a doubt it ranked as the most boring event of the year. Thus it was in 1964 that the Clarey twins pulled the graduation classic. When Colonel Hoy called the name of the first twin, instead of walking directly to General Clark to receive his diploma, he headed for the line of visiting dignitaries, generals, and members of the Board of Visitors who sat in a solemn semi-circle around the stage. He shook hands with the first startled general, then proceeded to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with every one on the stage. He did this so quickly that it took several moments for the whole act to catch on. When it finally did, the Corps went wild. General Clark, looking like he had just learned the Allies had surrendered to Germany, stood dumbfounded with Clarey number one's diploma hanging loosely from his hand; then Clarey number two started down the line, repeating the virtuoso performance of Clarey number one, as the Corps whooped and shouted their approval. The first Clarey grabbed his diploma from Clark and pumped his hand vigorously up and down. Meanwhile, his brother was breezing through the hand-shaking exercise. As both of them left the stage, they raised their diplomas above their heads and shook them like war tomahawks at the wildly applauding audience. No graduation is remembered so well.”

Pat Conroy book The Boo

Source: The Boo (1970), p. 33

Hate , War , Exercises , Moms

“I had my good looks, my blond hair, my height, build, and bullfighting school, I suppose I became one of the Village equivalents of an Eagle Scout badge for the girls. I was one of the credits needed for a diploma in the sexual humanities.”

Norman Mailer book Advertisements for Myself

Sergius O'Shaugnessy, in "The Time of Her Time"
Advertisements for Myself (1959)

School , Girl , Scouting

“I have Attention Deficit Disorder. I have learning disabilities. I don't even have a high school diploma. I'm smart, but you can't prove it on paper. I do have a GED, and if you don't know what GED stands for…you probably got one, too.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

A Little Unprofessional

School , Learning

“We condemn those who affirm that a man once justified cannot sin. … As to the special privilege of the Virgin Mary, when they produce the celestial diploma we shall believe what they say.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

John Calvin, Antidote to the Canons of the Council of Trent, Canon 23. (1547)

“Socrates gave no diplomas or degrees, and would have subjected any disciple who demanded one to a disconcerting catechism on the nature of true knowledge.”

George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876–1962) Historian

History of England http://books.google.com/books?id=6hUTAQAAIAAJ&q="Socrates+gave+no+diplomas+or+degrees+and+would+have+subjected+any+disciple+who+demanded+one+to+a+disconcerting+catechism+on+the+nature+of+true+knowledge" (1960).

Nature , Knowledge

“I graduated on June 13, number 4 in a class of 102. General MacArthur gave me my diploma and his "Congratulations, Mr. Taylor" was the last time I heard his voice until, as the new Chief of Staff of the Army, I called on him in the Waldorf Towers in 1956. Although he had done much for the Corps of Cadets during his superintendency, oddly enough he had never made an effort to impress his personality on the cadets through direct communication with them. I do not ever recall his having made a speech to us and only a few cadets were ever asked to his house. Certainly no graduate has left greater evidence of deep affection for West Point and the Corps than MacArthur, but the cadets saw little of this during his superintendency. Upon graduation I had my choice of branch of service, and I took the engineers for two unrelated but, for me, compelling reasons. The first was that Robert E. Lee had been an engineer, and the second was that the Engineer School at Camp Humphreys, Virginia, now Fort Belvoir, was conveniently near Washington where Miss Happer lived. It became the first of the long list of Army stations at which I was to serve.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 28

School , Communication , Effort , Time

“Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won't mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.”

Toni Morrison book Paradise

Paradise (1997)

Love , Life , God , Marriage

“On Wednesday, June 2, 1976, I graduated and my father commissioned me as a second lieutenant. Our graduation ceremony was where we'd begun our cadet experience, at Michie Stadium. As I sat with 834 other members of my class, out of an original 1,378, waiting to receive our diplomas, I realized I was very different from the seventeen-year-old boy whose friend had dropped him off a few years earlier. I wondered if I could, or would, be the kind of military leader I admired, and I was eager to try. When the ceremony ended, in accordance with tradition, we launched our hats into the air and congratulated one another. I rapidly looked for Annie- and the exit. As quickly as possible, I threw everything I owned into the used Chevy Vega I'd bought and set course with Annie down the hill away from campus. As we neared the last bend before the academy gates, I turned to her. "Hey, look back at West Point." "Why?"”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

she asked, twisting in her seat to look at the tips of the parapets getting smaller behind the hills. "Because that's the last time we'll ever see it."
Source: My Share Of The Task (2013), p. 22

Boy , Time , Waiting

“We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia’s father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers’ training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him… The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve.”

Lindsey Davis book Shadows in Bronze

Shadows in Bronze

Youth , Fear , School , Girl

“History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the commonsense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality.”

Warren E. Burger (1907–1995) Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986

Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 432 (1971).

Women , Men , History , Reality

“Paul Valéry has no hesitation in saying that the greatest evils today are elections and diplomas.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

Evil

“I have known far too many university graduates, in this country and in my own, who, as soon as they have received the diploma which declares them to be of Certified Intelligence, put their brains in cold storage and never use them again until they are hauled away to the mortuary.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Reading (1990)

Intelligence , Universe , Country

“The atheists aren't the problem here. For example, atheists would not take sequestered school children and force them to recite the daily mantra that there is no god, because atheists aren't the ones imposing religious views onto other people's children, and thus denying their rights. It's not the atheists who impede medical research either; we're usually not the ones against free or affordable healthcare, and we're not the ones minimizing or criminalizing women healthcare either. We're not the ones proudly perpetuating prejudice, be it racism, sexism or homophobia (among others). We're not the ones prohibiting or punishing partnerships between consenting adults, and we were not the ones who argued that persecution against gays (for example) should be somehow excusable or not considered a hate crime if it's done in the spirit or inspired by religion. Atheists don't want religion to have exemptions under the law, and why should we? It's not our demographic that has the most divorces, that has the most chemical dependencies, domestic violence, criminal convictions or even abortions. The only thing we might have more of are diplomas.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Don't Blame the Atheists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Ca88xNw_w (October 21, 2012)

Women , God , Hate , Children

“You know what GED stands for? Good Enough Diploma.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Bring the Pain (HBO, 1996)

“A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

"The Other Two," ch. 1, from The Descent of Man and Other Stories http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/tdmos10.txt (1904)

“There’s no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist. It’s not like becoming a doctor or something. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.”

Kara Walker (1969) African American artist

On becoming an artist in “‘There’s No Diploma in the World That Declares You an Artist’: Watch Kara Walker Lay Out Her Advice for Art Students” https://news.artnet.com/art-world/watch-kara-walker-art-21-1316030 in artnetnews (2018 Jul 12)

World

“It's not surprising that we are all craving for the diplomas, degrees and masters. I strongly believe that journey began with your birth certificate. Which is safely kept inside the house, where it belongs!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Housing , Birth

“I feel very sorry for whoever you blackmailed, bribed, or slept with to get that diploma.”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

Source: Quotes From Judge Judy Cases, Being Cocky

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