Quotes about graduation (258 quotes, page 2)

“I graduated second to last in my class. I was a fat kid. I was bullied by others.”

Jimmy John Liautaud (1964) Jimmy John's Owner, Founder, & Chairman

“"I guess I want things to be like they were before. Hell, we're almost ready to graduate." "Tell you what, Carter," Archie said. "Let things stay the same as before, like you just said. Let the last days come and go. Graduation. But that's not the end of it, Carter. You were a traitor and you're going to pay for that. Some way, someday. Not tomorrow, not next month. Or even next year, maybe. But someday. And who knows? Maybe next month, after all. That's a promise, Carter. When you least expect it. When everything is rosy and beautiful. Then comes the payoff. Because you can't be allowed to get away clean, without paying for it, Carter."”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 208

Beauty , Way , Hell

“Progress in economics is said to take place through a cumulative process in which scholars build on the work of their predecessors. In an age when graduate syllabi contain few references to books and articles written as many as ten years ago, this is too infrequently the case.”

Barry Eichengreen (1952) Economist

Preface
Globalizing Capital (2008)

Books , Age

“It is amazing how stupid one can be in graduate school, because while I was puzzling through L1(Y) = Y/V = M1, the income velocity of money, I missed all the fun.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 1, Why Did The master Say "Game"?, p. 8

Money , Stupidity , School

“I began graduate work in the philosophy of sciences at the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 where I came under the influence of the “grand old man” of the department, the eminent philosopher E. A. Singer, Jr. Because of the informality of the department he created I began to collaborate with two younger members of the faculty, both of whom were former students of Singer, Thomas A. Cown and C. West Churchman.
Three aspects of Singer's philosophy had a particularly strong influence on me. First, that the practice of philosophy, its application, was necessary for the development of philosophy itself. Second, that effective work on “real” problems required an interdisciplinary approach. Third, that the social area needed more work than any of the other domains of science and that this was the most difficult.
We developed a concept of a research group that would enable us to practice philosophy in the social domain by dealing with real problems. The organization we designed was called “The Institute of Experimental Method.””

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

With the participation of a number of other graduate students in philosophy and a few other members of the faculty we started this institute on a completely informal basis.
Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xii
Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Problem , Strong , Universe , Science

“Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address of the graduating class at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

God , Law , Universe , Personality

“In a way, your law school becomes part of your extended family. I say this because once you graduate with your Juris Doctor degree you are essentially married to that particular institution. No matter what your experience or opinion of the place, your alma mater is a name you cannot escape. The individuals that attend law school with you will be your life-long partners as you progress from a common starting point. Understanding the basic principles of professional networking, and utilizing the knowledge while on your law school campus, will reap a lifetime of rewards and provide you with many genuinely enhancing relationships.”

Don West, Jr.

in [Ann K. Levine, Esq., The Law School Admission Game: Play Like An Expert http://www.lawschoolexpertbook.com/, Abraham Publishing, Inc, 2009, 978-0-615-27183-5, 148-149]

Life , School , Family , Law

“I see the Internet as society’s approach to graduation into the ultimate meaning of Conscience, i. e., "with knowing.””

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

State of the Art (2000)

“I had no idea in 1933 what economics was, but I did well in the subject from the start, and when I graduated in 1937 with first class honours LSE gave me a scholarship to do a PhD in industrial economics.”

W. Arthur Lewis (1915–1991) Saint Lucain economist

Lewis (1979). " Sir Arthur Lewis - Biographical http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1979/lewis-bio.html," cited in: Toporowski, Jan. "Sir William Arthur Lewis (1915–91)." Fifty Key Thinkers on Development (2006): 144.

Idea

“But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter IX: "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record", page 280 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=298&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

“I'm fortunate to know many of the trustees. Well, for example I'm good friends with the Chairman, Mike Boone. And there’s one trustee I know really well, a proud graduate of the SMU Class of 1968 who went on to become our nation’s greatest First Lady. Do me a favor and don’t tell Mother. I know how much the trustees love and care for this great university. I see it firsthand when I attend the Bring-Your-Spouse-Night Dinners. I also get to drop by classes on occasion. I am really impressed by the intelligence and energy of the SMU faculty. I want to thank you for your dedication and thank you for sharing your knowledge with your students. To reach this day, the graduates have had the support of loving families. Some of them love you so much they are watching from overflow sites across campus. I congratulate the parents who have sacrificed to make this moment possible. It is a glorious day when your child graduates from college — and a really great day for your bank account. I know the members of the Class of 2015 will join me in thanking you for your love and your support. Most of all, I congratulate the members of the Class of 2015. You worked hard to reach this milestone. You leave with lifelong friends and fond memories. You will always remember how much you enjoyed the right to buy a required campus meal plan. You'll remember your frequent battles with the Park ‘N’ Pony Office. And you may or may not remember those productive nights at the Barley House.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Love , Family , Intelligence , Support

“Economic analysis is the first principle of Marxism. Professors who were genuine leftists would have challenged the entire economics-driven machinery of American academe — the wasteful multidepartmental structure, the divisive pedantry of overspecialization, the cronyism and sycophancy in recruitment and promotion, the boondoggling ostentation of pointless conferences, the exploitation of graduate students and part-time teachers, the subservience of faculty to overpaid administrators, the mediocrity and folly of the ruling cliques of the Modern Language Association.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), p. xix

Teachers , Time , Parting

“By any yardstick, a higher percentage of New York City high school students are graduating now than at any time in decades. The rate has risen every year during this administration and is an important validation of our reforms, w:Chancellor Klein’s leadership, and the hard work of our students, principals, and teachers. The rate obviously remains far too low, but the gains demonstrate that our hard work to raise student achievement is paying off, and we are beginning to turn around a failing system.”

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

http://www.mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/education/mayor_bloomberg_announces_that_high_school_graduaton_rate_reaches_historic_high_of_60
Education

School , Teachers , Time

“The policy of affirmative action, however, was never able to distinguish someone like me (a graduate student of English, ambitious for a college teaching career) from a slightly educated Mexican-American who lived in a barrio and worked as a menial laborer, never expecting a future improved. Worse, affirmative action made me the beneficiary of his conditions.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

Education , Future

“Number theory is useful, since one can graduate with it.”

Edmund Landau (1877–1938) German Jewish mathematician

Die Zahlentheorie ist nützlich, weil man mit ihr promovieren kann.
Foreword to Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie (Lectures on Number Theory) (1927).

“The products of American high schools are illiterate; and a degree from a famous college or university is no guarantee that the graduate is in any better case. One of the most remarkable features of American society is that the difference between the "uneducated" and the "educated" is so slight.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Education , School , Universe

“Americans are well aware that there has been a revolution. In morals. In manners. In speech. In crime rates. In riots. In violence. In drugs. In sex. In pornography. In politics. In movies. In education. In music. What most of us failed to realize at the moment was how important the music revolution would become. It turned out to be the catalyst for all the rest. It became the prod to promote drugs, the advertiser of sex in the hedonism manner, the mind-conditioner for four-letter gutter speech, and eventually the blatant propaganda funnel for political subversion. It also became the seductive Jezebel for a modern philosophy of no God, of Man as merely a graduate beast of the jungle, of Jesus Christ as a phoney actor--a superstar, of peace and prosperity being possible only under communism, of America as the enemy of the world, of Russia as the hope of the world.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

Preface to Rock 'N' Reality: Mirrors of Rock Music--Its Relationship to Sex, Drugs, Family and Religion (1971)

God , World , Education , Peace

“At this point water-tight compartments of university specialization and theories founded on the selected isolation of facts easily break down. Specialized thinking is rarely a sufficient foundation for concrete decisions involving action. The social scientist cannot often form sound administrative judgments solely on the basis of elements which he has picked out simply because they relate directly to his particular specialty. The present emphasis on artificial subdivisions of knowledge and on specialized thinking and teaching in universities, technical schools, and colleges and the relative neglect of administrative problems involving action have a dangerously narrowing effect on graduates of these institutions. While we may and frequently do arouse the intellectual interest of students in a considerable variety of subjects intimately related to the civilization of which they are a part, we pay almost no attention to the web of cross ties among these subjects.”

Wallace Brett Donham (1877–1954) American academic

Source: "Training for Leadership in a Democracy", 1936, p. 65-70, as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 663

School , Knowledge , Problem , Thinking

“Chairman White, and the other Trustees that are present today, faculty and staff and alumni, distinguished guests, cadets, and friends of Hargrave: It's been a great run. It really has. I look out over the congregation gathered here today, and I see faculty, staff, cadets, parents, members of the Parent Council that we work closely with, other colleagues in the same business- and it makes me reflect on on fifteen years here, what all we've accomplished. I can also state that we wouldn't have accomplished much without the leadership of the Board of Trustees. And I'd like to thank all of the Board that's here- the Chairman, past Chairmen, and other members of the Board- that've A, put their trust in my leadership, put up with me at times, and set the guidance and the tone to keep the school on a straight path. Not an easy task. And the Board has done a magnificent job. I would also be remiss if I didn't recognize- I wish I could recognize every member of our faculty and staff, which is the heart and soul of an independent school. Our faculty is the best- best in the nation- very dedication people, that work constant hours with the cadets here, proven by our great success we've had over the past, what… hundred and- we graduated 102nd class last May. It's been really an honor for me to be part of Hargrave's history. But we're not done. We've completed 102 years, and now we've hired Brigadier General Broome, who's the right person to take the helm at Hargrave. And I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that General Broome is ready, willing, and dedicated to take Hargrave to the next level. It's a great school- I would tell you, in my mind, it's the best school in the country, because of the cadets and the folks we have here. I've been spending a lot of time with General Broome and his wife, and they are really gonna be a great fit for Hargrave, and I think Hargrave's gonna have a super next one hundred years. I wish we could all be here a hundred years from now to open our time capsule, but unfortunately, I don't think anybody in this room is gonna see what's in the time capsule… Anyhow, thank you for coming, it's been an honor to be part of this, and I will sincerely miss it. I'm not the type to watch things from the sidelines, but, in this case, I will. Thank you very much.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Baker's speech at the change-of-command ceremony in Hargrave's chapel on June 24, 2011.

People , School , Soul , History

“We have a crisis in higher education today. Too many of our young people cannot afford a college education and those who are leaving college are faced with crushing debt. It is a national disgrace that hundreds of thousands of young Americans today do not go to college, not because they are unqualified, but because they cannot afford it. This is absolutely counterproductive to our efforts to create a strong competitive economy and a vibrant middle class. This disgrace has got to end. In a global economy, when our young people are competing with workers from around the world, we have got to have the best educated workforce possible. And, that means that we have got to make college affordable. We have got to make sure that every qualified American in this country who wants to go to college can go to college -- regardless of income. Further, it is unacceptable that 40 million Americans are drowning in more than $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. It is unacceptable that millions of college graduates cannot afford to buy their first home or their first new car because of the high interest rates they are paying on student debt. It is unacceptable that, in many instances, interest rates on student loans are two to three times higher than on auto loans.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders Statement by Senator Bernard Sanders on the College for All Act http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/051915-highered/?inline=file (19 May 2015)
2010s, 2015

People , World , Education , Cars

“After graduation I was offered a post as Vice-Principal at the Jat High School but in that there was the name of a caste and I could not accept that. I have always been opposed to this social system since my childhood.”

Charan Singh (1902–1987) prime minister of India

Stig Toft Madsen, et al, in: Trysts with Democracy: Political Practice in South Asia http://books.google.co.in/books?id=6w7JVOlDIokC&pg=PA80, Anthem Press, 2011, P.80

School , Childhood

“It is growing harder and harder to equate elite university branding with proof of knowledge. Barack Obama, another Harvard Law graduate, proved this depressing fact a number of times when he asserted that the Maldives were the Falklands, "corpsmen" was pronounced with a hard p, Austrians spoke a language called Austrian, there were 57 states, and Hawaii was in Asia.”

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

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

Law , Knowledge , Universe , Time

“Macaulay's policy was implemented and became a resounding success. The pre-Macaulayan vernacular system of education was destroyed, even though British surveys had found it more effective and more democratic than the then-existing education system in Britain. The rivalling educationist party, the so-called Orientalists, had proposed a Sanskrit-based system of education, in which Indian graduates would not have been as estranged from their mother civilization as they became through English education, and in which they could have selectively adopted the useful elements of Western modernity, more or less the way Japan modernized itself.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001)

Education , Way , Success

“Effective retention is heavily dependent on recruiting students with the potential to graduate.”

Richard Cyert (1921–1998) American economist

Richard Cyert, cited in: National Academies (1979), Building the Multiplier Effect: Summary of a National Symposium, September 14-16, 1978. p. 9

Dependency

“Julie won a scholarship to Harvard. Graduated with honors and received another scholarship to Boston University Medical School. Julie became a medical doctor, alas, losing her medical license to a terrible addiction to heroin. As an ex-addict, she now manages Autoworld Go Carts in West Covina, California. She has the highest score on PacMan… Go Julie!!!”

Deborah Foreman (1962) American actress

When asked by SportsHollywood "What is valley girl Julie Richman doing today? http://www.sportshollywood.com/askforeman.html

School , Universe

“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

“One of the great strengths of America is our active public square. Issues are influenced by the will of the people. That is why an educated citizenry is so important to the success of our country. As SMU graduates, you are well-equipped to participate in these vital debates. My hope is that you speak out on the issues that matter to you. Participate in your Nation’s civic life as citizens, not spectators. You’ll come to learn that who you are is more important than what you have—and that you have responsibilities to your fellow citizens, your country, and your family. By taking part in American democracy, you will make our country stronger.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Life , People , Education , Family

“"Any graduate of the ___ Business School should be able to beat an index fund over the course of a market cycle."
Statements such as these are made with alarming frequency by investment professionals. In some cases, subtle and sophisticated reasoning may be involved. More often (alas), the conclusions can only be justified by assuming that the laws of arithmetic have been suspended for the convenience of those who choose to pursue careers as active managers.”

William F. Sharpe (1934) American economist

William F Sharpe, "The arithmetic of active management." Financial Analysts Journal 47.1 (1991): 7-9.

School , Law , Business

“There's no switch inside you [high school students] that magically flips when you turn a certain age or graduate from some institution. You start being an adult when you decide to take responsibility for your life. You can do that at any age.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"What You'll Wish You'd Known", January 2005

Life , Age , School

“He went to the finest of private schools, and I am a public school graduate. Given the poor state of public schools it is obvious why everybody makes all those jokes about me.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

About Al Gore, (Newsweek, 1 September 1992)

School

“I've had people working for me who are film-school graduates and honestly, if they had been clapper boys or tea boys they probably would have learned more.”

Jamie Uys (1921–1996) South African film director

Sunday Times interview (1979)

People , School , Boy , Learning

“Virginia's Ring is a triumph and a tour de force. Lynn Seldon has written one of the best books about a military college ever written. With the publication of Virginia's Ring, he joins the distinguished ranks of our military academy graduates who have written about the life changing, fire tested tribe. It reminded me of James Webb's A Sense of Honor about the Naval Academy and Lucian Truscott's Dress Gray about West Point. But Mr. Seldon makes Virginia Military Institute a great test of the human spirit and one of the best places on earth to earn a college degree.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Conroy's advance praise for the novel Virginia's Ring (2014), written and published by Virginia Military Institute, Class of 1983 graduate Lynn Seldon, printed on the first page in the book.

Life , Books , Sense , Change

“The future mathematical statistician needs early contacts with experimental sciences. He needs them because, at this stage of the development of statistics, the expeimental sciences are sources of theoretical problems. Also, he needs them because in almost any imaginable job which he may get after graduation, he will be called upon to apply his theory to experimental or observational problems.”

Jerzy Neyman (1894–1981) Polish statistician

Proceedings of the Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability. Vol. 1. http://books.google.com/books?id=p2T2bxyDSLMC&pg=PA48 University of California Press, 1949, p. 48.

Imagination , Mathematics , Problem , Science

“While I was never over-romanced by the West Point graduate, at the same time, I always felt, by God, a West Pointer ought to be damn good.”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

Source: The Fighting Pattons (1997) by Brian M. Sobel, p. 22

God , Time

“I have had what might be called a post graduate course in the most important subject for all Canadians - Canada itself.”

Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada

Address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, December 18, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

“On my graduation there was a party by the junior students, and I was given a hair brush as a gift — if I take off my hat, you know what I mean.”

Hamid Karzai (1957) President of Afghanistan

laughter
Commencement Address to Boston University Class of 2005 http://www.bu.edu/news/2005/05/22/transcript-of-president-hamid-karzais-commencement-address/ (May 22, 2005)
2005

Laughter

“Making the future and the road to the future wealth lies in the youth of the present and future, and rebuilding the nation’s institutions based on knowledgeable scientific foundations that require promising human capacities derived from college graduates. Universities are the makers of men, we are proud of their role and of the efforts of their administrators.”

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938) Jordanian businesspeople

May 8, 2005, at the First Scientific Conference of the Faculty of Commerce – Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza Palestine.

Men , Youth , Knowledge , Effort

“Lately some picked graduates from Canada are beginning to play their part in looking after those parts of the Empire where the white man goes out, often alone, to teach, to educate and to bring along the more backward races of Empire. There is no more self-sacrificing work, there is no finer work, and you see Canadians to-day in the Sudan, Malaya, Mauritius, and in the colonial service generally—medical men, highly educated men in the Civil Service, helping to bear the white man's burden. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that it is not enough for a country to concentrate solely on making a lot of money for itself; that a real spiritual force comes into it when its sons are ready, as for generations Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen have been ready, to give up the comforts and ease of home life and go out on that pioneer work to bring forward those backward parts of the world and try to help them to benefit from the things that have profited us to much in the years past.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto (6 August 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 75-76.
1927

Life , Men , Money , World

“Both in England and on the Continent a graduated property tax (l'impôt progressif) has been advocated, on the avowed ground that the state should use the instrument of taxation as a means of mitigating the inequalities of wealth. I am as desirous as any one that means should be taken to diminish those inequalities, but not so as to relieve the prodigal at the expense of the prudent.To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbours. It is not the fortunes which are earned, but those which are unearned, that it is for the public good to place under limitation.”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Principles of Political Economy http://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlP64.html (1848), Book V, Chapter II

People , Penalty , Wealth

“In the beginning, at least for academics, there was philosophy. All of learned inquiry occurred within the discipline of philosophy and was carried out by philosophers. We retain the vestiges of this organization in our practice of awarding a single advanced academic degree, the Ph. D. or Doctor of Philosophy.’ As our understanding of the world around us grew, however, various areas of philosophy became sufficiently well understood to graduate into their own disciplines. Mathematics and the physical and biological sciences were the first to appear, followed more recently by the social sciences. Emerging as its own discipline is only the first step toward becoming a mature field of study. Economics is unique among the social sciences for the number of remaining steps it has taken. Unlike many social sciences, economics has a well-defined core set of methods. The first year graduate program in economics is virtually indistinguishable across American universities, consisting of microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics. As a result, economics can be easily defined by its tools of inquiry as by the target of its inquiry.”

Larry Samuelson (1953) American economist

Larry Samuelson. "Bounded Rationality and Game Theory", The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Vol. 36, Special Issue, 1996, pages 17-35.

World , Mathematics , Understanding , Study

“You need one of those slave-driving old studio bosses if you ask me, not a sensitive graduate who went into movies because he liked the clouds in Antonioni and then turned himself into a nouvelle vague Deutscher all hot for Truthspiel.”

Julian Barnes book A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Page 194.
See wikipedia on Michelangelo Antonioni.
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (1989)

“Nancy Mace has written a wonderful, timeless memoir of the great test to become the first female graduate of The Citadel. Her book is provocative, hilarious, illuminating, and true. It is also a love letter to her college and the best book about The Citadel ever written.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Conroy's praise for In The Company Of Men (2001), by Nancy Mace, first-ever female graduate of The Citadel, displayed on the back of the dust jacket for the hardcover edition.

Love , Books

“Perhaps the best reason to consider the hard sciences is that, well, one study suggests science, engineering, medicine, and dentistry graduates live longer than arts graduates (or law grads). So whatever money you make you can keep a bit longer.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 18.

Money , Law , Art , Study

“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

“When I graduated from high school, I hoped that one day gay Americans would be able to get married. And now here I am 45 years later officiating same-sex marriages—how can I not be optimistic that the future is bright?”

Daayiee Abdullah (1954) Homosexual Muslim activist

First Gay ‘Imam’ in USA Says ‘Quran Doesn’t Call for Punishment of Homosexuals’ http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/05/159043/first-gay-imam-in-usa-says-quran-doesnt-call-for-punishment-of-homosexuals/ (22 May 2015), Morocco World News.

Marriage , School , Hope , Sex

“If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society… So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

National Day Rally, 1983. Cited in The Coming Population Crash: And Our Planet's Surprising Future, Fred Pearce
1980s

Women , People , Stupidity , Support

“Jacques Bertin's books Semiology of Graphics and Graphics and Graphic Information Processing have been stimuli for my own thinking about the representation and analysis of geographic information. I have also used both books as core readings for graduate seminars and they have generated lively discussion and prompted innovative research. I often ask graduate students to consider how cartographic research and practice in the U. S. might be different today if the English edition of Semiology of Graphics had appeared in 1967 (when it was published in French), rather than in 1983. I know that my own work would have been dramatically different if I had encountered these ideas a decade and a half sooner.”

Alan MacEachren (1952) American geographer

Alan MacEachren (2000) " An evolving cognitive-semiotic approach to geographic visualization and knowledge construction http://www.geovista.psu.edu/storage/alan/amm_InfoDesign.pdf"

Books , Idea , Thinking , Appearance

“Exercise is the technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated. By bending behavior towards a terminal state, exercise makes possible a perpetual characterization of the individual…It thus assures, in the form of continuity and constraint, a growth, an observation, a qualification.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish (1977)

Behavior , Exercises

“"They lit us up! Missiles incoming! Six count, closing, dead astern!" "Back-trace the missile lock and feed it to the computer for counter-fire." "Great idea! I'll get right on that first thing as soon as I graduate from gunnery school!"”

Matthew Stover book Shatterpoint

Nick Rostu and Mace Windu, p. 330
Shatterpoint (2004)

School , Idea , Dead

“Michelle was so mature beyond her years, so thoughtful and perceptive. She really prodded me about what the job would be like because she had lots of choices. I offered it to her on the spot, which was totally inappropriate because I should have talked to the mayor first. But I just knew she was really special.
Barack never grills. That's part of what is so effective about him: He puts you completely at ease, and the next thing you know he's asking more and more probing questions and gets you to open up and reflect a little bit. That night we talked about his childhood compared to my childhood and realized we both had rather…unusual childhoods.
Married in 1983, separated in 1987, and divorced in 1988. Enough said. He was a physician. He passed away. I want to say in about 1991.
We grew up together. We were friends since childhood. In a sense, he was the boy next door. I married without really appreciating how hard divorce would be.
I have to tell you: My daughter is in seventh heaven about me being in Vogue. Nothing else I have done has fazed her at all. But this! She's like, 'Oh, Mom. You don't understand. This is really big.'
I have never heard him yell, Ever. Not once in seventeen years. He's not a yeller.
Because my dad worked at the university, he could swing by and take Laura to school and pick her up from her first day of nursery school until the day she graduated from high school. They would often have breakfast and have these wonderful conversations.”

Valerie Jarrett (1956) Chicago lawyer, businesswoman, civic leader; senior advisor to U.S. Senator Barack Obama

September 2008 interview with Vogue https://web.archive.org/web/20080930190831/http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2008_Oct_Valerie_Jarrett//

School , Boy , Moms , Understanding

“A fifty-seven-year-old college professor expressed it this way: "Yes, there's a need for male lib and hardly anyone writes about it the way it really is, though a few make jokes. My gut reaction, which is what you asked for, is that men—the famous male chauvinist pigs who neglect their wives, underpay their women employees, and rule the world—are literally slaves. They're out there picking that cotton, sweating, swearing, taking lashes from the boss, working fifty hours a week to support themselves and the plantation, only then to come back to the house to do another twenty hours a week rinsing dishes, toting trash bags, writing checks, and acting as butlers at the parties. It's true of young husbands and middleaged husbands. Young bachelors may have a nice deal for a couple of years after graduating, but I've forgotten, and I'll never again be young! Old men. Some have it sweet, some have it sour."Man's role—how has it affected my life? At thirty-five, I chose to emphasize family togetherness and income and neglect my profession if necessary. At fifty-seven, I see no reward for time spent with and for the family, in terms of love or appreciation. I see a thousand punishments for neglecting my profession. I'm just tired and have come close to just walking away from it and starting over; just research, publish, teach, administer, play tennis, and travel. Why haven't I? Guilt. And love. And fear of loneliness. How should the man's role in my family change? I really don't know how it can, but I'd like a lot more time to do my thing."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

In Harness: The Male Condition, pp. 6–7
The Hazards of Being Male (1976)

Love , Life , Women , Men

“Moses wasn’t the only one who could mangle his language. Fortunately, Moses recognized the call to serve something greater than himself. He answered the call, led his people, and history was made. You, too, will be called at some point. The question, as Mark aptly and artfully laid out, is: Will you be optimistic and hopeful, or pessimistic and cynical? Here are three reasons why you should be optimistic and hopeful. One, you are graduating from a great university. Your SMU degree will open the door to a wide variety of career options. Millions will never have had this opportunity. SMU has laid a foundation so you can reason, and continue to learn throughout your life. It has given you the tools to be productive citizens.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Life , People , Hope , History

“Ask yourself, other than Pittsburgh Steeler Alejandro Villanueva, a West Point graduate and former U. S. Army Ranger combat veteran, could today’s NFL produce another Pat Tillman? Perhaps instead of the images of these big multi-millionaires disrespecting our flag and nation. We should remind folks of Pat Tillman…that was a real professional football player who realized that true service, sacrifice, and commitment was not just on a playing field…it was on a battlefield.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Folks, you’re missing the point about the NFL protests (19 October 2017)

Football

“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

“When I sought admission to graduate schools, when I applied for fellowships and summer study grants, when I needed a teaching assistantship, my Spanish surname or the dark mark in the space indicating my race—‘check one’—nearly always got me whatever I asked for.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

School , Study , Summer

“In the early 1960s there existed a successful quantum theory of the electromagnetic force (QED), which was completed in the late 1940s, but the theories of the weak and strong nuclear forces were not yet known. In UC Berkeley, where I was a graduate student during the period 1962 – 66, the emphasis was on developing a theory of the strong nuclear force. I felt that UC Berkeley was the center of the Universe for high energy theory at the time. Geoffrey Chew (my thesis advisor) and Stanley Mandelstam were highly influential leaders. Also, Steve Weinberg and Shelly Glashow were impressive younger faculty members. David Gross was a contemporaneous Chew student with whom I shared an office.”

John Henry Schwarz (1941) American theoretical physicist

[Schwarz, J. H., The early years of string theory: a personal perspective, https://arxiv.org/pdf/0708.1917.pdf, 2007]

Strong , Universe , Time , Success

“As a graduate student at Yale, I studied the whole of Christian theology but focused my attention on the Darwinian controversies. I wanted to get to the root of the conflict between Darwinian evolution and Christian doctrine. In the course of my research I learned (to my surprise) that biblical chronology played almost no role in the 19th- century controversies, since most theologians had already accepted geological evidence for the age of the earth and re-interpreted the days in Genesis as long periods of time. Instead, the central issue was design. God created the cosmos with a plan in mind. This affirmation is among the most basic in all of Christianity (and other theistic religions as well, including Unificationism). And that plan included human beings as the final outcome of the creative process: we are created in the image of God.”

Jonathan Wells (1942) American intelligent design advocate

Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wells/DARWIN.htm

God , Age , Religion , Study

“Of what value is the study of management?
The study of management has been omitted from the student's training until comparatively recently, for a very different reason than was psychology. It was never doubted that a knowledge of management would be of great value to anyone and everyone, and many were the queer schemes for obtaining that knowledge after graduation. It was doubted that management could be studied otherwise than by observation and practice. Few teachers, if any, believed in the existence, or possibility, of a teaching science of management. Management was assumed by many to be an art, by even more it was thought to be a divinely bestowed gift or talent, rather than an acquired accomplishment. It was common belief that one could learn to manage only by going out on the work and watching other managers, or by trying to manage, and not by studying about management in a class room or in a text book; that watching a good manager might help one, but no one could hope really to succeed who had not " the knack born in him."”

Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972) American psychologist and industrial engineer

Source: Psychology of management, 1914, p. 2-3

Books , Hope , Art , Knowledge

“Fechner laid down the general outlines of his program [psychophysics] in ZendAvesta, the book about heaven and the future life. Imagine sending a graduate student of psychology nowadays to the Divinity School for a course in immortality as preparation for advanced experimental work in psychophysics! How narrow we have become!”

Edwin Boring (1886–1968) American psychologist

Source: History, psychology, and science. 1963, p. 128: As cited in: Hergenhahn (2008;254)

Life , Books , School , Imagination

“I just looked in the phone book, and called up the Executive Officer of the Servomechanisms Laboratory (Al Sise) and said, "I'm a math graduate student and would like a summer job. If you could find an electrical engineering student, I'm sure by the end of the summer we could make you an electronic calculator that would beat the pants off that little mechanical thing that Wiener has put together. Are you interested?"”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

Source: An Interview with Douglas T. Ross (1984), p. 17.

Books , Summer

“I believe […] that we can still have a genre of scientific books suitable for and accessible alike to professionals and interested laypeople. The concepts of science, in all their richness and ambiguity, can be presented without any compromise, without any simplification counting as distortion, in language accessible to all intelligent people. […] I hope that this book can be read with profit both in seminars for graduate students and—if the movie stinks and you forgot your sleeping pills—on the businessman's special to Tokyo.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Wonderful Life

Preface, p. 16
Wonderful Life (1989)

People , Books , Hope , Intelligence

“Paul Laurence Dunbar High School was established in 1870 in Washington, D. C., as the nation's first black public high school. From 1870 to 1955, most of its graduates went off to college, earning degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Williams, Wesleyan and others. As early as 1899, Dunbar students scored higher on citywide tests than students at any of the district's [three] white [high] schools. Its attendance and tardiness records were generally better than those of white schools. During this era of high achievement, there was no school violence. It wasn't racially integrated. It didn't have a big budget. It didn't even have a lunchroom or all those other things that today's education establishment says are necessary for black academic excellence.”

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

"Educational excellence initiative" (15 August 2012)
2010s

Education , School

“Today, we are ranked so poorly in achievement scores. The average high school graduate in Japan has a better knowledge of science and mathematics than the average Filipino college graduate.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

School , Mathematics , Knowledge , Science

“After four years of sitting through lectures, I have a feeling you’re not in the mood for another one. What I have learned about graduation speeches is that they’re too long and rarely remembered. So I’ll keep this short. I just can’t attest to how memorable it will be. I’ve also learned that it’s important to refer to someone associated with the University. So I picked one, an SMU trustee, who by the way is not here, Reverend Mark Craig. Now, I asked Mark to deliver the sermon at the First United Methodist Church in Austin before my second inauguration as Governor of Texas. I still remember his Fort Worth twang as he talked about Moses. God called Moses to action, and Moses repeatedly found excuses not to act. 'Who am I that I should go to Pharoah, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? Oh, my Lord, I pray, send some other person. I have sheep to tend. And the people won't believe me. I'm not a very good speaker.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

God , People , Way , Feeling

“A report of the Carnegie Foundation recommended the abolition of the undergraduate bachelor of science degree in education leading to the state certification of teachers. Schools of education should become research institutions at the graduate level of the university and not places for the training of schoolteachers. Those planning to enter the profession of teaching should have four years of general, liberal education at the college level, and then three years of practice teaching under supervision… the best teacher is one who learns in the process of teaching.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 314

Education , School , Learning , Teachers

“Football is a machismo sport, which is great, but everything can't be machismo. On the field and at practice, yes, you can be machismo, but when it comes to diet, you need to have compassion for your body. … My food is my medication now. … I get a lot of success talking to older guys because they're like 30 years old and have children. I tell them, 'You might want to change the way that you eat because you want to be around longer and see your family and your daughter graduate.”

David Carter (1987) Player of American Football

"NFL veganism? David Carter, Griff Whalen have broken the mold" http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000711369/article/nfl-veganism-david-carter-griff-whalen-have-broken-the-mold, interview with NFL.com (28 September 2016).

Children , Family , Food , Way

“And that brings me to the other big lesson that I want to share with you today. It’s a lesson about how to get through those struggles, and that is, instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed. Now, I know that many of you have already dealt with some serious losses in your lives. Maybe someone in your family lost a job or struggled with drugs or alcohol or an illness. Maybe you’ve lost someone you love […]. […] So, yes, maybe you’ve been tested a lot more and a lot earlier in life than many other young people. Maybe you have more scars than they do. Maybe you have days when you feel more tired than someone your age should ever really feel. But, graduates, tonight, I want you to understand that every scar that you have is a reminder not just that you got hurt, but that you survived. And as painful as they are, those holes we all have in our hearts are what truly connect us to each other. They are the spaces we can make for other people’s sorrow and pain, as well as their joy and their love so that eventually, instead of feeling empty, our hearts feel even bigger and fuller. So it’s okay to feel the sadness and the grief that comes with those losses. But instead of letting those feelings defeat you, let them motivate you. Let them serve as fuel for your journey.”

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

2010s, Commencement speech for Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep graduates (2015)

Love , Life , Pain , People

“Advice to students: Leap in and try things. If you succeed, you can have enormous influence. If you fail, you have still learned something, and your next attempt is sure to be better for it. Advice to graduates: Do something you really enjoy doing. If it isn’t fun to get up in the morning and do your job or your school program, you’re in the wrong field.”

Brian W. Kernighan (1942) Canadian computer scientist

"Leap In and Try Things: Interview with Brian Kernighan" https://web.archive.org/web/20110701151454/http://www.harmonyatwork.in/blog/2009/10/leap-in-and-try-things-brian-kernighan/ from Harmony at Work blog http://www.harmonyatwork.in/blog/.

School , Learning

“I read about two young ladies that went to Parsons, and when they graduated Elizabeth Taylor opened a store for them in Paris and I thought okay-that's all I have to do!”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

CNN Interview (July 31, 2004)

Reading

“Atmosphere is the medium through which we see all things. In order, therefore, to see them in their true value on a photograph, as we do in Nature, atmosphere must be there. Atmosphere softens all lines; it graduates the transition from light to shade; it is essential to the reproduction of the sense of distance. That dimness of outline which is characteristic for distant objects is due to atmosphere. Now, what atmosphere is to Nature, tone is to a picture.”

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) American photographer

Source: 'A Plea for Art Photography in America', Alfred Stieglitz, in 'Photographic Mosaics,' Vol 28, 1892: About Pictorialism.

Nature , Sense , Light , Distant

“Within the past ten years there have appeared with increasing frequency books, articles, conferences, and monograms dealing with system engineering, system analysis, system design, the systems approach, the design of systems, system theory, and problems of systems engineering. The number of publications and the stature of their authors does not allow the dismissal of the subject as a passing fad. The breadth of engineering activity involved in even a cursory examination of recent publications is of interest… It is therefore obvious that whatever Systems Engineering may or may not be, it is non-sectarian and encompasses activities that are of concern in all phases of engineering. On the other hand undergraduate college offerings akin to Systems Engineering are rather limited and even graduate programs are not extensive.”

Allen B. Rosenstein (1920–2018) American systems engineers

Source: Systems engineering and Modern Engineering Design (1965), p. 1.

Books , Problem , Appearance , Past

“As graduation neared, neither my classmates nor I could know, of course, that World War II was in the offing. It was destined to expose us to trying and often tragic events. My roommate, Billy Hulse, a flier, disappeared on a training mission over the Great Lakes, his body never recovered. A close friend, Frank Oliver, died in the fighting in Normandy soon after the invasion. Buist Dowling killed in Normandy while leading a patrol. One of the better football players, Jock Clifford, killed as a regimental commander on Okinawa. Bill Priestly, aide to the high commissioner of the Philippines, electing to stay when the fighting started on the islands, also killed. Those and more.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 13.

War , World , Fight , Football

“The scalar process is the same form in organization which is sometimes called hierarchical. But in order to avoid all definitional ambiguities the term scalar is much to be preferred. A scale means a series of steps; hence, something graduated.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 31

“I believe the most important decision taken anywhere by anyone in the 20th century was the decision about where to locate the Princeton Graduate College. President of the University Thomas Woodrow Wilson wanted it down on the campus, integrated with the undergraduate college. His nemesis, Dean Andrew Fleming West, wanted it where it now is, up on a little hill overlooking the Princeton golf course. President Woodrow Wilson had one of his characteristic snits, resigned as president, went into politics and ruined the 20th century.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Remarks at the Disinvitation Dinner http://www.buckleyprogram.com/#!Transcript-of-George-Wills-Remarks-at-the-Disinvitation-Dinner/c18lp/i8sxengw20, William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale (15 April 2015). Of his quip, Will remarked, "I simplify a bit and exaggerate somewhat."
2010s

Decision , Universe

“At the end of the Washington Monument rally in September, 1976, I was admitted to the second entering class at Unification Theological Seminary. During the next two years, I took a long prayer walk every evening. I asked God what He wanted me to do with my life, and the answer came not only through my prayers, but also through Father's many talks to us, and through my studies. Father encouraged us to set our sights high and accomplish great things. He also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in nature or history; in the process, they re-interpreted the fall, the incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination. Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph. D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”

Jonathan Wells (1942) American intelligent design advocate

Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm

Life , God , World , Imagination

“Both Abrams and Westmoreland would have been judged as authentic military "heroes" at a different time in history. Both men were outstanding leaders in their own right and in their own way. They offered sharply contrasting examples of military leadership, something akin to the distinct differences between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant of our Civil War period. They entered the United States Military Academy at the same time in 1932- Westmoreland from a distinguished South Carolina family, and Abrams from a simpler family background in Massachusetts- and graduated together with the Class of 1936. Whereas Westmoreland became the First Captain (the senior cadet in the corps) during their senior year, Abrams was a somewhat nondescript cadet whose major claim to fame was as a loud, boisterous guard on the second-string varsity football squad. Both rose to high rank through outstanding performance in combat command jobs in World War II and the Korean War, as well as through equally commendable work in various staff positions. But as leaders they were vastly different. Abrams was the bold, flamboyant charger who wanted to cut to the heart of the matter quickly and decisively, while Westmoreland was the more shrewdly calculating, prudent commander who chose the more conservative course. Faultlessly attired, Westmoreland constantly worried about his public image and assiduously courted the press. Abrams, on the other hand, usually looked rumpled, as though he might have slept in his uniform, and was indifferent about his appearance, acting as though he could care less about the press. The sharply differing results were startling; Abrams rarely receiving a bad press report, Westmoreland struggling to get a favorable one.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 134

Men , War , World , Family

“I make sure that they photograph everything they do. And they have to have a portfolio to graduate. You know, there’s no formula for success out there, but what works is: learn how [to photograph], photograph everything you do and you put those photographs in front of people that can help hire you. That works.”

Tom Savini (1946) American actor, stuntman, director and makeup artist

People , Learning , Success , Help

“When I entered West Point, some Americans still believed the Vietnam War might end honorably. By the time I graduated, South Vietnam did not exist. As cadets, we watched the war teeter and implode, and the historical sweep was not lost on us.”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

Source: My Share Of The Task (2013), p. 17

War , Time

“The usual thing — the statistically normal thing — is for the speaker to tell the graduating class that they are going out into a world torn by dissent, racked by problems of unprecedented knottiness and difficulty, and headed for the abyss of destruction unless the graduating class shoulders its burden and does something splendid to put everything right. The speaker generally admits that he is at the end of his tether: he is old, and broken on the wheel of Fate; his decrepitude and his wounds have been received in this great battle with the world's problems. Nothing — absolutely nothing — is to be expected of him in the future. From his failing hands he throws the torch; he plants the task of setting the world right square on the graduating class. He says that he does it with confidence. But he is usually so gloomy that one wonders how much his confidence is worth. Sometimes one gets the impression that immediately after Convocation he is going home to die.”

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

What Will the Age of Aquarius Bring
One-Half of Robertson Davies (1977)

Fate , World , Home , Confidence

“One of the things near and dear to me is art therapy. Even as an art teacher and someone very involved in the arts, I never knew what art therapy even was. These men and women go to graduate school and they actually are therapists that use art, especially at Riley, they’re making such a difference, so I’m looking forward to that.”

Karen Pence (1958) First Lady of Indiana, schoolteacher

Karen Pence focuses on moving family forward amid hoopla http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/20/karen-pence-focuses-moving-family-forward-amid-hoopla/96828962/ (January 20, 2017)

Women , Men , School , Art

“On the one hand I did think the war was less than righteous. On the other hand I love my country. And I valued my life in a small town and my friends and family. So I wrestled with what was, for me, at least, more torturous and devastating and emotionally painful than anything that happened in Vietnam. Do you go off and kill people if you're not pretty sure it's right? And if your nation isn't pretty sure it's right? If there isn't some consensus, do you do that? In the end, I just capitulated, and one day I got on a bus with some other recent graduates, and we went over to Sioux Falls about sixty miles away, and raised our hands and went into the Army. But it wasn't a decision; it was a forfeiture of a decision. It was letting my body go, turning a switch in my conscience, just turning it off, so it wouldn't be barking at me saying, "You're doing a bad and evil and stupid and unpatriotic thing."”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

from the companion book, p. 318
From The Vietnam War (2017)

Love , Life , Pain , War

“I actually think it will be interesting to listen to the President tonight. What I'd like him to do is report on his promises but there are forgotten promises and forgotten people. Over the last four years, the President has said that he was going to create jobs for the American people and that hasn't happened. He said he would cut the deficit in half and that hasn't happened. He said that incomes would rise and instead incomes have gone down. And I think this is a time not for him not to start restating new promises but to report on the promises he made. I think he wants a promises reset. We want a report on the promises he made. And that means let's hear some numbers. Let's hear 16. Sixteen trillion dollars of debt. This is very different than the promise he made. Let's hear the number 47. 47 million people in this country on food stamps. When he took office, 33 million people were on food stamps. Let's understand why it was he's been unsuccessful in helping alleviate poverty in this country. Why so many people have fallen from the middle class into poverty under this president. Let's have him explain to the American people the 50% number. Why 50% of college graduates can't find work or work that is consistent with their college degree. The President needs to report tonight on his promises rather than try and reset a whole series of new promises that he also won't be able to keep.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-09-06
http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/09/06/romney-on-obamas-speech-tonight-americans-want-a-report-on-presidents-promises/
Romney on Obama’s Speech Tonight: Americans Want A Report On President’s Promises
Mitt Romney Central
2012

People , Food , Understanding , Thinking

“The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is that I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have. And, instead of people doing things for me, I had to do things for myself. That was scary for me.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Academy of Achievement Interview (1996)

People , World , Education , Way

“Mother prepared me to live in the world, but she didn't try to make me into a social being just so I could hang out with other teenagers at the lake, or have pajama parties with other girls. Her eyes were on a bigger prize - giving me the skills and nurturing the talents that would allow me to graduate from school, attend college, find a satisfying job and live independently.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

page 48 of The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships By Temple Grandin, Sean Barron, Veronica Zysk

World , School , Girl

“[A]s a graduate student at Columbia University, I remember the a priori derision of my distinguished stratigraphy professor toward a visiting Australian drifter [a supporter of the theory of continental drift]. […] Today […] my own students would dismiss with even more derision anyone who denied the evident truth of continental drift—a prophetic madman is at least amusing; a superannuated fuddy-duddy is merely pitiful.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"The Validation of Continental Drift", pp. 160–61
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

Truth , Support , Universe

“Yes, beloved brothers, every one who is thus rightly taught of God, in this wisdom (for she is the wisdom of the saints), may glory, by the grace given them, over all graduated doctors, theologists, jurists, orators and poets, although he could neither write norspeak, and were he the most helpless upon earth. But all those who are not instructed in the wisdom from God, though they were as glorious as Solomon, as victorious as Alexander, as rich as Crosesis, as strong as Hercules, as learned as Plato, as subtle as Aristotle, as eloquent as Demosthenes and Cicero, and as well skilled in languages as Mithridates; yea, so greatly experienced that his like were not to be found from the beginning, nevertheless, he is a fool in the eyes of the Lord; this must be confessed.”

Menno Simons (1496–1561) Dutch theologian, founder of the Mennonites

Ibid, p.106

Wisdom , God , Fools , Strong

“The purpose of the Collège was the demolition of culture, even of surrealism, which they considered too organized. But make no mistake, these people were graduates of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and highly cultured. Their method was based on puns and practical jokes—le canular. There is a great tradition of puns in Anglo-Saxon literature — Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland — but not in French. So they adopted it. They believed that the science of sciences is the pataphysique and its dogma, le canular.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

le canular refers to hoaxes, humorous deceptions. -->
The Paris Review interview (1984)

People , Literature , Science

“Yeah, I graduated with a 4.0… blood alcohol level.”

James Carville (1944) political writer, consultant and United States Marine

In a speech to LSU students at the Manship School of Communications' Holliday Forum on January 27, 2006.

Alcohol

“Oh, yes, that is a good way to do up the so-called bosses, but have you ever thought what would become of the country if the bosses were put out of business, and their places were taken by a lot of cart-tail orators and college graduates? It would mean chaos. p. 81”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 20, Bosses Preserve the Nation

Way , Business , Country

“The Army which I joined in 1922 was drab and unexhilarating after West Point. Most of our citizens assumed that World War I had ended all wars and hence regarded a standing army as useful as "a chimney in summer," to use an old English phrase. Promotion was strictly by seniority, and a large bloc of contemporary officrs taken into the Regular Army at the end of the war constituted a discouraging "hump" in the promotion list just ahead of my contemporaries and me. As a result it took me thirteen years to become a captain, and such distinguished officers as Generals Gruenther, McAuliffe, Palmer, and Wedemeyer, who graduated a few years before me, took seventeen years. Under such conditions of stagnation, many of the most promising officers resigned and sought their fortune in civil life. But for some unaccountable reason a remarkable number stayed in the service to become the military leaders of World War II.”

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

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 29

Life , War , World , Summer

“Economics as currently learned and taught in graduate school and practiced afterward is more theory-intensive and less observation-intensive than perhaps any other science. I think the statement that "no mere fact ever was a match in economics for a consistent theory" accurately describes the prevailing attitude in the profession”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Milgrom and Roberts, 1987, p. 185
Source: "Theory, experiment and economics," 1989, p. 151.

School , Thinking , Learning , Science

“The man who has graduated from the flogging block at Eton to the bench from which he sentences the garrotter to be flogged is the same social product as the garrotter who has been kicked by his father and cuffed by his mother until he has grown strong enough to throttle and rob the rich citizen whose money he desires.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#55
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Money , Strong

“And what is going on is that the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) has lost the trust of working class German voters, is overwhelmingly a party of the public sector, social science graduates and ethnic minorities and won barely more than a quarter of the vote. It has moved its concerns from those of the internal governance of the political economy to a political and legal orientation that requires the passing of laws, external regulation and redistribution. It has not seriously defended the internal virtues of its economic system, preferring to stress external factors such a stimulus and taxation. Justice and rights rather than democracy and the good have come to define the position. I am strongly suggesting the party has become liberal rather than socialist and that is the fundamental problem.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Blue Labour, The Profundity of Defeat http://www.bluelabour.org/2013/10/30/285/

Justice , Law , Democracy , Problem

“I was twenty-one at the time, about to turn twenty-two. No prospect of graduating soon, and yet no reason to quit school. Caught in the most curiously depressing circumstances. For months I'd been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill. In the autumn, everything took on a desolate cast, the colors swiftly fading before my eyes. The sunlight, the smell of the grass, the faintest patter of rain, everything got on my nerves.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 1: Wednesday Afternoon Picnic

World , School , Color , Autumn

“Of course, there is one great virtue in size; and of course, London is the greatest show on earth, for never have so many human characters been gathered together in one place. Here, in a day, you can see the world. Stand at the entrance to a main-line railway station, during the rush-hour, and you see every possible human species scurrying past. One becomes amazed and transported by the multiplicity of the human face, by its infinite differences, by its almost prismatic graduations from ugliness to beauty, evil to good.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

An Obstinate Exile, p. 45.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)

World , Beauty , Evil , Past

“There’s a serious danger that the college education bubble may burst. As more and more people get college degrees, which inevitably have to become easier to get in order to increase the amount of graduates beyond its realistic levels, the market will eventually figure out that the degree doesn’t mean what it used to. It will become less useful as a heuristic for intelligence and achievement. And college graduates will find themselves with an asset—a degree—whose value is dropping while their debt remains high.”

John Carney

" What Obama Should Have Told The Kids Today http://www.businessinsider.com/john-carney-what-obama-should-have-told-the-kids-today-2009-9," The Business Insider magazine, 8 September 2009.

People , Education , Intelligence

“In this highly competitive world, there is a crying need for the government to assure that schools in the country, for one, are able to produce graduates who have the capability to find quality work that mostly requires a sufficient level of technology skills.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

[www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/02/16/909422/chiz-wants-eco-growth-translated-jobs The Philippine Star]
2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail

World , School , Cry , Country

“In 1950, I received my PhD in psychology. I was offered a fellowship to attend the Graduate School of Public Health at the that I had previously studied in clinical and abnormal psychology. Reflecting this disappointment, I entitled my Public Health Practice thesis Mental Health Is Not the Opposite of Mental Illness. After receiving my master’s degree in public health, I took a job as research director for Psychological Services of Pittsburgh. A local industrialist came to see me after a nasty labor relations disturbance and asked me plaintively, ‘What do people want from their jobs?’ I answered him in typical academic fashion, ‘Sir, I don’t know but if you give me enough money I will find out.’. I followed up on my School of Public Health thesis by designing a study to test the hypothesis that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction were separate concepts. The result was the book, The Motivation to Work, which led to a fundamentally different approach to the study of people’s affective states.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Frederick I. Herzberg in: "This Week’s Citation Classic," in: CC, Nr. 19, May 7, 1984; Re-published in: Neil J. Smelser (1987) Contemporary Classics in the Social and Behavioral Science. p. 199

Money , People , Health , Books

“There's an element of desperation in the insistence of the graduate student's respect for knowledge — as opposed to wisdom.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

Source: Poetry and Craft (1965), p. 95

Wisdom , Knowledge

“The power of a free people is often at the disposal of a single and seemingly an unimportant individual; — a terrible and truthful power; for such a people feel with one heart, and therefore can lift up their myriad arms for a single blow. And, again, there is no graduated scale for the measurement of the influences of different intellects upon the popular mind. Peter the Hermit held no office, yet what a work he wrought!”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 43

People , Truth , Feeling , Heart

Quotes about graduation page 2

Quotes about graduation
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