Quotes about graduation (258 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Only few people, the leaders, have graduated from the school of religion. The others continue to swing back and forth like a pendulum. The lost sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

School , Religion , People

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain , People , Music , Feeling

“On graduating from the school, a studious young man who would withstand the tedium and monotony of his duties has no choice but to lose himself in some branch of science or literature completely irrelevant to his assignment.”

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) French physicist

as quoted by [C. Stewart Gillmor, Coulomb and the Evolution of Physics and Engineering in Eighteenth-century France, Princeton University Press, 1971, 069108095X, 255-261]

School , Literature , Science

“I'm a sinner so Jesus please, help me pass and graduate so I'd make it to hell, feel me?”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

Never Told Me (2018)

Feeling , Hell , Help

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain , People , Music , Feeling

“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Life , Dogs , Birthday , Wedding

“You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.”

Michael Dell (1965) Businessman, CEO

Entrepreneur: Michael Dell https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197566 (13 October 2012)

Motivational , Success , Dreams , Success

“I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

“My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war..”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

War , School , Religion , Color

“I've told my children that when I die, to release balloons in the sky to celebrate that I graduated. For me, death is a graduation.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

Death , Children

“Told 'em I finished school, and I started my own business
They say, 'Oh you graduated?'
No, I decided I was finished”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

"School Spirit"
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

School , Business

“As a graduate student I studied mathematics fairly broadly and I was fortunate enough, besides developing the idea which led to "Non-Cooperative Games," also to make a nice discovery relating to manifolds and real algebraic varieties. So I was prepared actually for the possibility that the game theory work would not be regarded as acceptable as a thesis in the mathematics department and then that I could realize the objective of a Ph. D. thesis with the other results.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

Autobiographical essay (1994)

Game , Mathematics , Idea , Study

“I think yet again of my father, who struggled to become a painter after he was forced into early and unwelcome retirement by the Great Depression. He has reason to be optimistic about his new career, since the early stages of his pictures, whether still or portraits or landscapes, were full of pow. Mother, meaning to be helpful, would say of each one: "That's really wonderful, Kurt. Now all you have to do is finish it." He would then ruin it. I remember a portrait he did of his only brother, Alex, who was an insurance salesman, which he called "Special Agent". When he roughed it in, his hand and eye conspired with a few bold strokes to capture several important truths about Alex, including a hint of disappointment. Uncle Alex was a proud graduate of Harvard, who would rather have been a scholar of literature than an insurance man.
When Father finished the portrait, made sure every square inch of masonite had its share of paint, Uncle Alex had disappeared entirely. We had a drunk and lustful Queen Victoria instead. This was terrible.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Fates Worse than Death (1991)

Truth , Disappointment , Literature , Thinking

“The most employment-intensive industry in the world is retail and our next generation needs these jobs. India has a strategy for the next generation of doctors, engineers and biotech graduates, etc. But for the country as a whole, what we need to resolve is how to create sensible jobs for undergraduates and or those even less educated”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

World , Education , Country

“Students are here not for service or for culture, but for the selfish end of preparing for salary to come. Constantly I hear them asking, 'If I change over to your course, what kind of a job will it help me to get when I graduate?' Students are weighing every subject they take on the scales of jobs to come.”

Hugo Diemer (1870–1937) American mechanical engineer

Hugo Diemer, cited in: Michael Bezilla (June 1985) [1986]. " Shaping a Modern College http://web.archive.org/web/20080104065415/http://www.libraries.psu.edu/speccolls/psua/psgeneralhistory/bezillapshistory/083s03.htm". Penn State: An Illustrated History. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Change , Help , Selfishness

“And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

Life , Drink , Thinking , Tree

“To Be or Not to Be: In Nature all life is a question of the minutest, but extremely precisely graduated differences in the particular thermal motion within every single body, which continually changes in rhythm with the processes of pulsation. This unique law, which manifests itself throughout Nature's vastness and unity and expresses itself in every creature and organism, is the ' law of ceaseless cycles' that in every organism is linked to a certain time span and a particular tempo. The slightest disturbance of this harmony can lead to the most disastrous consequences for the major life forms. In order to preserve this state of equilibrium, it is vital that the characteristic inner temperature of each of the millions of micro-organisms contained in the macro-organisms be maintained.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Callum Coats: Water Wizard
Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Life , Law , Question , Nature

“When I arrived at Harvard in 1969, my fellow first-year graduate students and I were taken up to the roof of the Widener Library by a well-known professor of classics. He told us how many Episcopal churches could be seen from that vantage point. As a Jew (in fact a convert from Episcopalian Christianity), I knew that my husband and I would have been forbidden to marry in Harvard's church, which had just refused to accept a Jewish wedding. As a woman I could not eat in the main dining room of the faculty club, even as a member's guest. Only a few years before, a woman would not have been able to use the undergraduate library. In 1972 I became the first female to hold the Junior Fellowship that relieved certain graduate students from teaching so that they could get on with their research. At that time I received a letter of congratulation from a prestigious classicist saying that it would be difficult to know what to call a female fellow, since "fellowess" was an awkward term. Perhaps the Greek language could solve the problem: since the masculine for "fellow" in Greek was hetairos, I could be called a hetaira. Hetaira, however, as I knew, is the ancient Greek word not for “fellowess” but for “courtesan.””

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

[Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, https://books.google.com/books?id=V7QrAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6, 1 October 1998, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-73546-0, 6–7]

Problem , Wedding , Time

“What you have here is an example of that well known phenomenon, A Bookshop Assistant Who Knows Buggerall But Won't Admit It (probably some kind of arts graduate).”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

Art

“If graduates do not get relevant experience in their field of study after graduation, they will forget what they learned and, in a few years, their knowledge may be completely lost”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Quoted in Hong Kong's Career Times newspaper (February 6th 2004) http://www.ctgoodjobs.hk/english/article/show_article.asp?category_id=1070&article_id=12825&title=is-hong-kong-investing-enough-in-its-future&listby=date&listby_id=&page=4
Miscellaneous Quotes in the Press (2002-Present)

Knowledge , Study , Learning , Forgetting

“I know that millions of dollars have been spent to produce this splendid graduating class, and that the main hope of your teachers was, once they got through with you, that you would no longer be superstitious. I'm sorry — I have to undo that now. I beg you to believe in the most ridiculous superstition of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrator of the grandest dreams of God Almighty.
If you can believe that, and make others believe it, then there might be hope for us. Human beings might stop treating each other like garbage, might begin to treasure and protect each other instead. Then it might be all right to have babies again.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Bennington College address (1970)

God , Dreams , Hope , Teachers

“He was a graduate of West Point, a military academy which turned young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Men , War

“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

“What students know is no longer the most important measure of an education. The true test is the ability of students and graduates to engage with what they do not know, and to work out a solution.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Context: What students know is no longer the most important measure of an education. The true test is the ability of students and graduates to engage with what they do not know, and to work out a solution. They must also be able to reach conclusions that constitute the basis for informed judgements. The ability to make judgements that are grounded in solid information, and employ careful analysis, should be one of the most important goals for any educational endeavor. As students develop this capability, they can begin to grapple with the most important and difficult step: to learn to place such judgements in an ethical framework. For all these reasons, there is no better investment that individuals, parents and the nation can make than an investment in education of the highest possible quality. Such investments are reflected, and endure, in the formation of the kind of social conscience that our world so desperately needs.

Foreword to Excellence in Education (2003) http://www.agakhanacademies.org/general/vision

Education

“It's a good reminder of something that I've said over the last couple of weeks, which is our way of life -- our freedoms, our ability to go about our business every day, raising our kids and seeing them grow up and graduate from high school”

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

Remarks by the President at a Drop-By of 21st Century Policing Event https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/22/remarks-president-drop-21st-century-policing-event (22 July 2016). Quoted in: "Grinning Obama JOKES during statement on Munich carnage as he shifts gears to say he'll miss daughter Malia when she leaves the nest for college" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3703975/Grinning-Obama-JOKES-Munich-carnage-press-conference-shifts-gears-talk-daughter-Malia-leaving-nest-college.html by David Martosko, Daily Mail (22 July 2016).
2016
Context: Our hearts go out to those who may have been injured. It’s still an active situation. And Germany is one of our closest allies, so we are going to pledge all the support that they may need in dealing with these circumstances. It's a good reminder of something that I've said over the last couple of weeks, which is our way of life -- our freedoms, our ability to go about our business every day, raising our kids and seeing them grow up and graduate from high school -- and now about to leave their dad -- (laughter) -- I'm sorry, I'm getting a little too personal -- getting a little too personal there -- (laughter) -- that depends on law enforcement. It depends on the men and women in uniform every single day who are, under some of the most adverse circumstances imaginable at times, making sure to keep us safe.

Life , School , Way , Business

“I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered — not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective — a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

“A segregated school system produces children who, when they graduate, graduate with crippled minds.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: A segregated school system produces children who, when they graduate, graduate with crippled minds. But this does not mean that a school is segregated because it’s all black. A segregated school means a school that is controlled by people who have no real interest in it whatsoever. Let me explain what I mean. A segregated district or community is a community in which people live, but outsiders control the politics and the economy of that community. They never refer to the white section as a segregated community. It’s the all-Negro section that’s a segregated community. Why? The white man controls his own school, his own bank, his own economy, his own politics, his own everything, his own community; but he also controls yours. When you’re under someone else’s control, you’re segregated.

Children , School

“I am asking the same thing of you that President Bush did when he spoke at this commencement in 2002: “America needs more than taxpayers, spectators, and occasional voters,” he said. “America needs full-time citizens.”
And as graduates from a university whose motto is “Education for Citizenship,” that’s what your country expects of you. So briefly, I will ask you for two things: to participate, and to persevere.”

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

2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: I don’t pretend to have all the answers. And I’m not going to offer some grand theory – not when it’s a beautiful day and you’ve got some celebrating to do. I’m not going to get partisan, either, because that’s not what citizenship is about. In fact, I am asking the same thing of you that President Bush did when he spoke at this commencement in 2002: “America needs more than taxpayers, spectators, and occasional voters,” he said. “America needs full-time citizens.”
And as graduates from a university whose motto is “Education for Citizenship,” that’s what your country expects of you. So briefly, I will ask you for two things: to participate, and to persevere.
After all, your democracy does not function without your active participation. At a bare minimum, that means voting, eagerly and often. It means knowing who’s been elected to make decisions on your behalf, what they believe in, and whether or not they deliver. If they don’t represent you the way you want, or conduct themselves the way you expect – if they put special interests above your own – you’ve got to let them know that’s not okay. And if they let you down, there’s a built-in day in November where you can really let them know that’s not okay.

Education , Universe , Time , Perseverance

“To bringing about the scientific renaissance (In India) Sir Jagadish had influentially contributed. Indians are justly proud of the possession of a few men who have gained world-wide reputation in their particular fields of activity, and this pride reacts strongly on public opinion. At the Research Institute a group Indian post-graduate students devote their lives to research. The published Transactions of the Institute show that under the leadership of this eminent Bengali, Indian research is making substantial contribution to scientific knowledge, that in this field there is no fundamental difference between the Western and the Eastern mind, as was assumed when Sir Jagadish began his work.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

By Times after the inauguration of the his research institute on 23rd November 1917.
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

World , Making love , Knowledge , Men

“Good morning and look at the valedictorian
Scared of the future while I hop in the DeLorean
Scared to face the world, complacent career student
Some people graduate, but be still stupid”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Good Morning
Lyrics, Graduation (2007)

People , Stupidity , World , Future

“My first class is biology. I can't find it and get my first demerit for wandering the hall. It is 8:50 in the morning. Only 699 days and 7 class periods until graduation.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

“I understood what he was doing, that he had spent four years fulfilling the absurd and tedious duty of graduating from college and now he was emancipated from that world of abstraction, false security, parents, and material excess.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

World , Parent , Falseness

“Death is the Graduation of the Soul”

Sylvia Browne (1936–2013) American author

Source: The Other Side and Back

Death , Soul

“Life is like college; may I graduate and earn some honors.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist

Graduation , Life

“The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Books , Universe , Time , Reading

“I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled.”

Scott Westerfeld book The Last Days

Source: The Last Days

People , Home

“Maybe you're graduating from fireballs to lightning bolts," Adrian suggested. "I bet it'd be a lot like throwing ninja stars. Except, well, you could incinerate people.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

People , Star

“The first time I saw him again, it was another year, at my college graduation. And I just knew.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Time

“To those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, 'well done'. And as I like to tell the 'C' students: You, too, can be President”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)
Context: To those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, 'well done'. And as I like to tell the 'C' students: You, too, can be President.

Funny

“When you graduate from college, they tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first?”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Dreams

“I failed angst in high school. They let me graduate anyway.”

John Scalzi (1969) American science fiction writer

Source: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008

School

“Now… well, after what happened in Tartarus, it seemed like Percy had graduated to a totally different level of butt-kickery.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so? Support like, say, spending a day apiece watching twenty different jobs and then another week at their top three choices, with salary charts and projections and probabilities of graduating that subject given their test scores? The more so considering this is a central allocation question for the entire economy?”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

A comment on Memetic Hazards in Videogames (September 2010) http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pe/memetic_hazards_in_videogames/2l8y

School , Question , Support

“It had been different during his first year of graduate school, when he temporarily forsook physics to explore instead the realm of the senses. Applying logic to the late-blooming quandries of maturity, he had parsed the elements of encounter, banter, negotiation, and consummation, separating and solving the variables one by one until the problem—if not generally solved—did appear to have tractable special solutions.”

David Brin book Earth

Part V (p. 236)
Earth (1990)

School , Problem , Sense , Appearance

“Old-boy networks, alumni giving, affirmative action, sports, and diversity have pretty much put an end to classical meritocratic admissions. That decline of standards in admissions is perversely ironic, because at about the same time, a new campus ethos of grade inflation was predicated on the self-important notion that if you were smart enough to get into Princeton or Harvard, then Harvard and Princeton would make the necessary adjustments and concessions to make sure you graduated. The result of self-congratulation is that a Stanford graduate now usually knows less history than his Hillsdale counterpart. A successful self-made businessman can know a lot more about the economy than does a Harvard M. B. A.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, The Deflation of the Academic Brand (2018)

History , Boy , Sport , Time

“Harry Dresden: We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something. Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind-graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, White Night (2007), Chapter 31

Love , Life , Pain , Hope

“The effects of subunit power on organizational decision making and the bases of subunit power are examined in a large midwestern state university. It is hypothesized that subunits acquire power to the extent that they provide resources critical to the organization and that power affects resource allocations within organizations in so far as the resource is critical to the subunits and scarce within the organization. Departmental power is found to be most highly correlated with the department's ability to obtain outside grants and contracts, with national prestige and the relative size of the graduate program following closely in importance. Power is used most in the allocation of graduate university fellowships, the most critical and scarce resource, and is unrelated to the allocation of summer faculty fellowships, the least critical and scarce resource.”

Gerald R. Salancik (1943–1996) American organizational theorist

Gerald R. Salancik, and Jeffrey Pfeffer. "The bases and use of power in organizational decision making: The case of a university." Administrative Science Quarterly (1974): 453-473; p. 454; Abstract.

Decision , Universe , Summer

“pinkish and bluish draperies on neutral grey grounds and black cypresses…… The red of Jeptha's dress…… some reddish brown, some slightly pinkish…… Graduated blue sky…… the ground at the front a grey violet shadow… Look for some turquoise in the blue.(Degas' working note about choosing colors for his future painting 'The Daughter of Jeptha')”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote from Degas' working notes; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
quotes, undated

Color , Future , Painting , Daughters

“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 (1928) American magician and writer

Pete Goering (May 20, 2007) "A few tips for the graduates", The Topeka Capital-Journal, p. 1.
Attributed

Graduation , Success

“It's a natural achievement,
Conquering my homework
With her image pounding in my brain.
She's an inspiration
For my graduation,
And she helps to keep the classroom sane.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Teacher I Need You
Song lyrics, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973)

Nature , Help

“When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

On Arsenal's famous back four, (1997)
Quotations from the Public Comments of Arsene Wenger: Manager, Arsenal Football Club (2005)

Art , Universe

“When I graduated, work was still hard to come by, and the nice bosses at Macy's took me on full time.”

Larry LeSueur (1909–2003) American journalist

Bliss, Edward. Now the News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism, ( Google Books link http://books.google.com/books?id=lAdv3youHkYC&pg=PA93&dq=Larry+LeSueur&hl=en&ei=ZCkATsnRGcOp0AGA85WTDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Larry%20LeSueur&f=false), Columbia University Press, 1991, p. 93, ISBN 0231044038.

Time

“We are living in 1937, and our universities, I suggest, are not half-way out of the fifteenth century. We have made hardly any changes in our conception of university organization, education, graduation, for a century - for several centuries. The three or four years' course of lectures, the bachelor who knows some, the master who knows most, the doctor who knows all, are ideas that have come down unimpaired from the Middle Ages. Nowadays no one should end his learning while he lives and these university degrees are preposterous. It is true that we have multiplied universities greatly in the past hundred years, but we seem to have multiplied them altogether too much upon the old pattern.. [A] new university is just another imitation of all the old universities that have ever been. Educationally we are still for all practical purposes in the coach and horse and galley stage.”

H. G. Wells book World Brain

World Brain (1938)

Age , Education , Way , Idea

“If we are to compete as a nation in the global economy, we need to upskill Scotland. That means more Scots in the workforce with higher vocational skills - and it means many more with graduate skills too.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

“I had this sense that ideas about democracy, theories of democracy which I had learned about of course from graduate school on, from Aristotle and Plato onward, that they were inadequate. I don’t want to diminish them; I have always retained a great respect for classical and medieval and eighteenth-century theory, but meanwhile a whole new kind of political system emerged to which the term democracy became attached, and for which democracy remained an ideal, even though classical democracy as an ideal was so far removed from reality. The gap between that ideal and the actual political institutions that had developed, particularly from about the sixteenth, seventeenth century on, was just enormous. And what we didn’t have enough of, had very little of, was an adequate description of what the actual institutions of so-called democracy, modern democracy, representative democracy, were.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

A Conversation with Robert A. Dahl (2009)

School , Democracy , Idea , Reality

“(Referring to the Kuomintang) There are many stubborn elements, graduates in the speciality schools of stubbornness. They are stubborn today, they will be stubborn tomorrow, and they will be stubborn the day after tomorrow. What is stubbornness (wan gu)? "Gu" is to be stiff. "Wan" is to not progress: not today, nor tomorrow, nor the day after tomorrow. People like that are called the "stubborn elements". It is not an easy thing to make the stubborn elements listen to our words.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Mao, 1967, as quoted by Jing Huang in The Role of Government Propaganda in the Educational System during the Cultural Revolution in China http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Cultural-Revolution-in-China-paper.pdf.

People , School

“The Citadel cherishes the belief that the more hardship endured by the young man, the higher the quality of the person who graduates from the system. The Citadel devised a formula years ago to improve the quality of men who walked through her gates. The formula begins with the plebe system. One thing is certain. The plebe system is calculated to be, and generally succeeds in being, a nine month journey through hell. The freshman is beaten, harassed, ridiculed, and humiliated by the upperclassmen who concur and believe in the traditions of the school. Under the pressure of this system, the freshman, in theory, becomes hardened to the savage hardships of the world. Life is tough, the system says, and we are going to make life so tough for you this year that when your marriage dissolves, your child dies unexpectedly, or your platoon is decimated in a surprise attack, you can never say The Citadel didn't prepare you for the worst in life.”

Pat Conroy book The Boo

Source: The Boo (1970), p. 6-7

Life , Men , Marriage , World

“I'll run just once — and just for the hell of it. I'll select the most qualified vice-presidential candidate possible just in case something strange happens and I win. After I'm sworn in I hang around long enough to sign an Executive Order requiring all airport screeners to have graduated in the top one-half of their high school class. Then I'll free all non-violent drug offenders, take a few spins on Air Force One and get to know the interns. Then I'll resign and let the vice president take the controls.”

Neal Boortz (1945) American author, journalist, and radio host

School , Hell

“You are graduating at a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason. Just log on to social media for 10 seconds. It will hit you right in the face. People denying science, concocting elaborate, hurtful conspiracies theories about child abuse rings operating out of pizza parlors. Drumming up rampant fear about undocumented immigrants, Muslims, minorities, the poor. Turning neighbor against neighbor and sowing division at a time when we desperately need unity. Some are even denying things we see with our own eyes. Like the size of crowds. And then defending themselves by talking about “alternative facts.””

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Post Presidential Election, Wellesley Commencement Speech (2017)

People , Truth , Fear , Science

“Once again, my family and I find ourselves being assaulted by the obscenity that is Mumia Abu-Jamal. On Sunday October 5th, my husband's killer will once again air his voice from what masquerades as a prison, and spew his thoughts and ideas at another college commencement. Mumia Abu-Jamal will be heard and honored as a victim and a hero by a pack of adolescent sycophants at Goddard College in Vermont. Despite the fact that 33 years ago, he loaded his gun with special high-velocity ammunition designed to kill in the most devastating fashion, then used that gun to rip my husband's freedom from him--today, Mumia Abu-Jamal will be lauded as a freedom fighter. Undoubtedly the administrators at Goddard who first accepted, then enthusiastically supported Abu-Jamal as their speaker will be moved by his "important message" when, if one distills that message to its basic meaning, it amounts to nothing more than the same worn out hatred for this country and everyone in law enforcement that Mumia Abu-Jamal has harbored his entire life. Many at Goddard College have said that this is a matter of Abu-Jamal's First Amendment right to speak and be heard. What a convenient way to dodge their responsibility to take a moral position on this situation. This is not a matter of First Amendment rights -- it's a matter of right and wrong. Across the country, people have been voicing their disgust with the wrong that the college is about to commit by allowing a convicted cop-killer to speak to them. Is this the message to be heard? How could they allow him to speak when Danny no longer has a voice? It is my opinion that all murderers should forfeit their right to free speech when they take the life of an innocent person. I have repeatedly seen college administrators deny conservative and religious speakers access to their campuses when even the tiniest minority feel their message is in some way offensive. What could be more offensive than having a person who violently took the life of another imparting his "unique perspective" on your students? Let's be honest. The instructors, administrators and graduates at Goddard College embrace having this killer as their commencement speaker not despite the fact that he brutally murdered a cop, but because he brutally murdered a cop. Otherwise, like so many other speakers that have been denied access to college campuses across the country, Goddard's administration would have lived up to their moral responsibility and pulled the plug on this travesty long ago. Shame on Goddard College and all associated with that school for choosing to honor an arrogant remorseless killer as their commencement speaker. Unfortunately, this is something that I am certain they will be proud of for the rest of their lives.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954) Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist

Statement http://6abc.com/news/mumia-abu-jamal-speech-met-with-vigil-for-slain-officer/337357/ by Maureen Faulkner, widow of Daniel Faulkner, upon Abu-Jamal's delivering the Commencement Address at Goddard College in 2014
About

Life , People , School , Family

“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

“Darling, you look like a religious icon there [in her high school graduation picture].”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment by Isaac, host of Style Network fashion program (December 15, 2006)
2007, 2008

School

“Give me an army of West Point graduates, I'll win a battle. Give me a handful of Texas Aggies and I'll win a war!”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Mike Province, founder and president of The Patton Society http://www.pattonhq.com/ calls this an urban legend and in the Texas A&M Battalion (2 October 2006) http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2006/10/02/Aggielife/Traditionally.Speaking-2319058.shtml?sourcedomain=www.thebatt.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com is quoted as saying "I've gotten e-mails and questions regarding that quote for several years... People will use it with Texas Aggies, The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute and even Clemson. All of these schools want to be linked to Patton... Anything is possible... I honestly don't believe he said it, because I've heard too many people say that he said it about their school. But if anyone out there can find proof that he said it, I'd love to hear about it and get it out there." If any school has a claim, it is the Virginia Military Institute; Patton's grandfather, grand-uncles, and his father all were VMI graduates. Patton himself spent a year at VMI before going to West Point. VMI has many George Patton relics donated by his family in its museum. Please also note that the photo of Patton as a cadet has him wearing a VMI coatee and cap.
Misattributed

War

“In organization it means the graduation of duties, not according to differentiated functions, for this involves another and distinct principle of organization, but simply according to degrees of authority and corresponding responsibility.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 31

“It seemed that the time would come evolutionarily when humans might have acquired enough knowledge of generalized principles to permit a graduation from class-two (entropically selfish) evolution into class-one (syntropically cooperative) evolution, thereafter making all the right moves for all the right reasons.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

Pg. 246
From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

Knowledge , Time , Selfishness

“I taught at a school in Cincinnati with a 0% graduation rate and that was also interesting so I updated from thinking school was beneficial for other people but not beneficial to me, to thinking school was beneficial for maybe some people around the middle – at least some of the better schools – but not beneficial for the vast majority of people, to then actually reading the literature on education and on intelligence and academic accomplishment and symbolic manipulation and concluding "no, school isn't good for anyone". There might be a few schools that are good for people, like there's Blair and there's Stuyvesant and these schools may actually teach people, but school can better be seen as a vaccination program against knowledge than a process for instilling knowledge in people, and of course when a vaccination program messes up, occasionally people get sick and die of the mumps or smallpox or whatever. And when school messes up occasionally people get sick and educated and they lose biological fitness. And in either case the people in charge revise the program and try to make sure that doesn't happen again, but in the case of school they also use that as part of their positive branding and you know maintain a not-very-plausible story about it being intended to cause that effect while also working hard to make sure that doesn't happen again.”

Michael Vassar (1979) President of the Singularity Institute

In an interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cSG0p-uflA with Adam Ford, December 2012

People , Education , School , Intelligence

“Lookie here, your compiler does some absolutely insane things with the spilling, including spilling a *constant*. For chrissake, that compiler shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten. We're talking "sloth that was dropped on the head as a baby" level retardation levels here.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

<nowiki>LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: Random panic in load_balance() with 3.16-rc</nowiki>, Torvalds, Linus, 2014-07-24, 2014-08-10 https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/7/24/584,
2010s, 2014

Baby

“I did not teach painting but seeing. I concentrated on the basic courses for beginners. I taught drawing (purposely without nudes), color (without any painting as such) and design (as 'structural organization'). And so the graduate students came 'down' to the basic courses for beginners.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Source: Homage to the square' (1964), A conversation with Josef Albers' (1970), p. 459

Color , Drawing , Painting

“The little girl's creative, a repertoire that rings,
And Hollywood is waiting, to see the way she swings.
She'll be graduating, goin' on to higher things,
The little girl from Central is gonna take on wings.”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Little Girl from Central" (1964)
Song lyrics

Way , Girl , Waiting

“I have no problems with private schools. I graduated from one and so did my mother.”

Jim Clyburn (1940) American politician

[27 February 2005, http://clyburn.house.gov/statements/050227voucherplan.html, "Governor's Plan Seems Unconstitutional and Unconscionable", Representative Jim Clyburn, United States House of Representatives, 2007-07-24]

School , Problem

“Among the roles the Budget Bureau (now OMB) was that of constant critic and improver of administration in the federal executive branch. In my day this work had fallen to the products of graduate schools in civil administration. Their ideas…seemed to me theoretical nonsense.”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), State Department Management, Leadership Perspectives

School , Idea

“In high school the approaching graduation was stirring up excitement among the seniors. I didn't care much for any of it since I couldn't afford any of the mementoes or activities offered for completing the four years. I had not attended the prom or the senior trip, had not purchased a class ring or letterman's jacket or the yearbook—had not even taken my senior portrait—and I wasn't about to attend the ceremony we had been rehearsing all week.”

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

School

“Secondly, the student is trained to accept historical mis-statements on the authority of the book. If education is a pre- paration for adult life, he learns first to accept without question, and later to make his own contribution to the creation of historical fallacies, and still later to perpetuate what he has learnt. In this way, ignorant authors are leading innocent students to hysterical conclusions. The process of the writers' mind provides excellent material for a manual on logical fallacies. Thirdly, the student is told nothing about the relationship between evidence and truth. The truth is what the book ordains and the teacher repeats. No source is cited. No proof is offered. No argument is presented. The authors play a dangerous game of winks and nods and faints and gestures with evidence. The art is taught well through precept and example. The student grows into a young man eager to deal in assumptions but inapt in handling inquiries. Those who become historians produce narratives patterned on the textbooks on which they were brought up. Fourthly, the student is compelled to face a galling situation in his later years when he comes to realize that what he had learnt at school and college was not the truth. Imagine a graduate of one of our best colleges at the start of his studies in history in a university in Europe. Every lecture he attends and every book he reads drive him mad with exasperation, anger and frustration. He makes several grim discoveries. Most of the "facts", interpretations and theories on which he had been fostered in Pakistan now turn out to have been a fata morgana, an extravaganza of fantasies and reveries, myths and visions, whims and utopias, chimeras and fantasies.”

Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927–2009) historian

The Murder of History, critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, 1993

Life , Truth , Books , Education

“Well, what is essential about you? And who are those who have helped you become the person that you are? Anyone who has ever graduated from a college, anyone who has ever been able to sustain a good work, has had at least one person and often many who have believed in him or her. We just don't get to be competent human beings without a lot of different investments from others.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Commencement Address at Dartmouth College June 9th, 2002 http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2002/june/060902c.html and Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

Help , Personality

“Since the word "knowledge" occurs in my general title… I am going to be talking about epistemology, although I prefer to use the eighteenth-century, indeed, medieval phrase, "natural philosophy."… that enterprise of the human mind which attempts to trace lawfulness to nature, dead and living, but which is not directed to specific inquiries into how this or that law works. Philosophy in the sense in which I practice it, natural philosophy, is concerned with lawfulness rather than with laws and the general nature of laws rather than with the specific structure of this or that law. Natural philosophy was one of the three topics (moral philosophy and metaphysical philosophy were the others) to which one graduated in medieval universities after having studied the seven liberal arts.
I believe that we need to review the whole of our natural philosophy in the light of scientific knowledge that has arisen in the last fifty years.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978)

Law , Art , Nature , Knowledge

“Environmentalists are a self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots who are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans.”

Don Young

The 10 Worst Congressmen, 2007-06-07, Dickinson, Tim, 2006-10-17, Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12054520/the_10_worst_congressmen/3,

“For most of the 20th century, small radical groups were seen as social change incubators. The various socialist and communist parties, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and a thousand local or regional variants were where it was at. … But we live in a knowledge society now – a world that depends increasingly on professional expertise and special skills. If we want to change that world, we'll need to be even more expert and skilled than those who'd defend the status quo. That's why professional schools, not radical groups, are our social change incubators now. And radical middle social change agents know it. Many of the most idealistic and dedicated of them have been pouring into our graduate schools, including our great medical, business, and law schools.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Source: Radical Middle (2004), Chapter 16, "You Can Have a Career and Be Political, Too," pp. 176–77.

World , School , Law , Business

“The whole purpose of college is to learn how to deal with difficult situations, not to run away from them. A micro-aggression is exactly that : micro. But in a macro sense, one of the most dangerous places on a college campus is the so-called 'safe space', because it creates a false impression that we can isolate ourselves from those who hold different views. We can't, and we shouldn't try—not in politics or in the workplace. Graduates, in the global economy, and in a democratic society, an open mind is the most valuable asset you can possess.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

Commencement Address given at the Universiy of Michigan, Ann Arbor (30 April 2016), as recorded on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE0VYRPTUrc
Education

Sense , Learning , Falseness

“I became a member of the RSS in my childhood days then joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (The BJP’s student’s wing). I am a science graduate. Till I was elected as an MLA I was a businessman. After getting into politics, I gave away my business and factory to my partners. After becoming an MLA, I am not doing any business. I have my savings and investments. I have inherited some investments in stocks and shares and I earn my living out of it.”

Amit Shah (1964) Indian politician

"Exclusive Amit Shah Interview: People are waiting to vote for Modi," 2013

Business , Science , Childhood

“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

“One of the crucial problems we have as a party is that we have brought our leadership in from much too narrow a group. Basically Oxbridge graduates, in particular economics graduates, politics graduates, social scientists and lawyers. We need to reconnect to working-class communities, we have to reconnect to ethnic minority communities and bring up real leaders from within the people we represent.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Daily Mail, 30th December 2011 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080445/Oxbridge-Labour-elitist-fails-connect-working-classes-says-Miliband-aide.html#ixzz1icmLbpsx

People , Communication , Problem

“Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair" will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865)
1860s

Wisdom , Girl

“Hymns should have unity, graduation and mutual dependence in the thoughts, a conscious progress, a sense of completeness.. and be easily understood.”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

Introductory Essay-Christian Psalmist,or Hymns Selected & Original (1825).
Other

Sense , Dependency

“I personally believe that economics is fun and valuable. People who say they found it a nightmare in college just didn't have a good teacher-professor. I became a good teacher-professor as a result of tenacious mentors during my graduate study at UCLA. Professor Armen Alchian, a very distinguished economist, used to give me a hard time in class. But one day, we were having a friendly chat during our department's weekly faculty/graduate student coffee hour, and he said, "Williams, the true test of whether someone understands his subject is whether he can explain it to someone who doesn't know a darn thing about it."”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

That's a challenge I love: making economics fun and understandable.
1970s, Economics for the Citizen (1978)

Love , People , Coffee , Understanding

“[As graduates with] all the status and connections that degree confers, you don’t get to have no hands. No, you don’t get to be precious or cautious or cynical. No, not when the earth is warming and the oceans are rising. You don’t get to be cynical. Not when too many young people still languish in communities ripped apart by violence and despair. Not when women still make less than men for the same work. Not when millions of girls across the globe never set foot inside a school. (Applause.) No, not when many young people just like you — the men and women we honor this Memorial Day—have sacrificed their lives for your freedom to make your voice heard. You don’t get to have no hands.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Commencement speech for Oberlin College Prep graduates (2015)

Women , Men , People , School

“In such times as this, we look for sources of strength to sustain us. And in this moment of loss, you're finding these sources everywhere around you. These sources of strength are in this community, this college community. You have a compassionate and resilient community here at Virginia Tech. Even as yesterday's events were still unfolding, members of this community found each other; you came together in dorm rooms and dining halls and on blogs. One recent graduate wrote this: "I don't know most of you guys, but we're all Hokies, which means we're family. To all of you who are okay, I'm happy for that. For those of you who are in pain or have lost someone close to you, I'm sure you can call on anyone of us and have help any time you need it."”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2007, Virginia Tech Prayer Vigil (April 2007)

Pain , Family , Guy , Communication

“One of the most curious of these cases [geometrical paradoxers] was that of a student, I am not sure but a graduate, of the University of Virginia, who claimed that geometers were in error in assuming that a line had no thickness. He published a school geometry based on his views, which received the endorsement of a well-known New York school official and, on the basis of this, was actually endorsed, or came very near being endorsed, as a text-book hi the public schools of New York.”

Simon Newcomb (1835–1909) American astronomer

Simon Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, (Boston and New York, 1903), p. 388. Reported in Robert Edouard Moritz. Memorabilia mathematica; or, The philomath's quotation-book https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/81/mode/2up, (1914), p. 368

Books , School , Error , Universe

“I first read his book Orthodoxy at a time when I was living on a sailboat in a quiet creek off the Potomac River right after college graduation. He seemed to view faith as a romantic adventure and the universe as a wild fairy tale. Chesterton looks at the world in the most beautiful way. He was also a journalist and philosopher who wrote an essay on “The Tyranny of Bad Journalism.” He died long before online video, but I think he would advocate new, creative methods to revolutionize the practice of journalism.”

James O'Keefe (1984) American conservative filmmaker

Changing the World by the Time He’s 30 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/changing_the_world_by_the_time_hes_30 (March 31, 2010)

Books , World , Faith , Beauty

“The small triumph of "The Graduate" was to have domesticated alienation and the difficulty of communication, by making what Benjamin is alienated from a middle-class comic strip and making it absurdly evident that he has nothing to communicate — which is just what makes him an acceptable hero for the large movie audience. If he said anything or had any ideas, the audience would probably hate him.”

Pauline Kael book Going Steady

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Hate , Communication , Idea

“I've played every beer joint tavern from New York City out to Pasadena
Every corn dog fair and rodeo
And sold out every basketball arena
I like to get down with my boys in Afghanistan and Baghdad city too
I am a red, white and blue blood graduate of Honkytonk U.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Honkytonk U.
Song lyrics, Honkytonk University (2005)

Dogs , Boy , Beer

“People could no longer learn hacking the way I did, by starting to work on a real operating system, making real improvements. In fact, in the 1980s I often came across newly graduated computer science majors who had never seen a real program in their lives. They had only seen toy exercises, school exercises, because every real program was a trade secret. They never had the experience of writing features for users to really use, and fixing the bugs that real users came across. The things you need to know to do real work.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

"MEME 2.04", an interview with David S. Bennahum (1996)
1990s

People , Secret , School , Way

“First of all,” said Dr. Nacozi to me, “I want you to know that I realize you have a brilliant mind.” “Me?” I said, feeling shocked. “Yes, you,” he said. “And maybe you haven’t done that well in school in the past, but this is all about to change very rapidly for you, because the further you go in university life, the more apt you are to find minds like your own. I never had many friends until I got into graduate school. Before that … well, I always felt confused and lost,” he said, laughing. “And not very capable with the girls and in my social life, either.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Life , School , Feeling , Girl

“…my advice to every student who is trying to make a decision for the years immediately after graduation: take the opportunity that in your mind is the most rewarding, that you are most passionate about and that you find most interesting and save the rest of your life for being risk averse. Whatever you want to do, this is the time to pursue it. Twenty years from now, your freedom to take risks will be limited.”

Kenneth Griffin (1968) American hedge fund manager

Interview with Harvard Investment Magazine (Winter 2005) http://www.harvardinvestmentmagazine.org/current/griffin.htm

Life , Decision , Freedom , Passion

“Since you are advising high school students and undergrads, I suggest that you mention to them that they can start being independent researchers before they graduate from college. For example I came up with my b-money idea (a precursor to Bitcoin) as an undergrad, and was also already thinking about some of the questions that would eventually lead to [updateless decision theory].”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/x2fkoZMuMNhBashH4/academia-as-a-career-option-its-social-value-and#AZCrzTMa4yvywgahE on LessWrong, March 2014

Money , School , Way , Idea

“I was born in the richest, most technologically advanced (and consequently the most powerful) country in the world. We were the leaders in science, so of course we had a better economy, and we had a higher standard of living than anyone else at that time. The rest of the globe sent their best and brightest to enroll in our schools because our students were among the most inventive, innovative and involved. Some of the greatest American scientists were the immigrants who stayed and enabled the United States to achieve more than anyone else had in the history of mankind. That's when our secular government still cared about better education. Sadly, that is not the country I still live in. America was number one, but saying that now reminds me of Aesop's fable where the hare is still resting on its laurels long after the tortoise has passed. In the fifty years since I was born, America's rating in science has fallen from number one to number thirty-seven. We have one of the lowest science scores of all countries in the developed world (or first world). Foreign scholars and foreign scientists don't stay here long after graduation (if they come at all), because what sort of environment do we offer intellectuals now? Our own scientists, our own graduate scholars are leaving as well, moving to Europe or Asia where they're more welcome, although an American going abroad now means that he will have to try to live down new stereotype instead of living up to the old one.”

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)

World , Education , School , History

“I had started to become interested in the punk scene and started to dress differently than a lot of the kids in Grand Rapids, Michigan were dressing. And I got my nose pierced and I started to shave my head and dye my hair and wear a lot of black. And so I looked like somebody that might be arrested… I was a bit of a class clown, usually the one that people would get to do the things that they were afraid to get in trouble for… On graduation night, I was arrested… I had a boyfriend at the time who was a couple centuries older than I was and I'd convinced him that we should go and glue the locks of the school so that people couldn't get in the morning. And lo and behold, they had a security guard because it was graduation night and they were concerned that idiots like me might try and do something like that.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

On her teenage punk years and being arrested on graduation night — NPR "Gillian Anderson On 'The Fall' And Getting Arrested In High School" http://www.npr.org/2013/12/07/249240231/gillian-anderson-on-the-fall-and-getting-arrested-in-high-school/ (December 7, 2013)
2010s

People , School , Time , Night