Top 91 Commencement Quotes & Sayings

From the very commencement the student should set out to witness the progress and effects of sickness and ought to persevere in the daily observation of disease during the whole period of his studies.

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.

My favorite commencement addresses are the ones that get real and don't make too many promises.

En Ma Fin Est Ma Commencement - In my end is my beginning.

There is a two-fold solemnity which belongs to the dying hour-it is the winding up of life, and it is the commencement of eternity.

Zealous in the commencement, careless in the end.

The whole of that part of Southern Africa which is controlled by racial minorities is experiencing either consistent and regular guerilla activity or is faced with advanced preparation for its commencement.

There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning.

It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.

One of the challenges of commencement speeches is that you have this older, wiser person who is accomplished talking to young, not-yet-so-wise, not-yet-accomplished adults or, in high school or middle school, even younger.

Student loan debt is certainly not a fitting topic for a commencement speech, but it's an issue we must confront - not only for thousands of college graduates who deserve a fair shot, but also for our economy.

The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.

Axiome: la haine du bourgeois est le commencement de la vertu. Axiom: Hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom.

Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

I'd been invited to deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2017 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Speaking live on television is one thing... speaking to 30,000 people in a football stadium is another.

The bow is tactically strong at the commencement of battle, especially battles on a moor, as it is possible to shoot quickly among the spearmen.

It is to have a compulsive, repetitive, and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to return to the origin, a homesickness, a nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of absolute commencement

The core civil liberty that underpins our American criminal justice system is the presumption of innocence. Every person enjoys this presumption long before the commencement of any investigation or official proceeding.

I've done so many commencement speeches at colleges and law schools, and I tell young women that there are no glass ceilings because those were broken by a lot of women who came before us. You can be anyone you want to be. You can do anything you want to do.

Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.

There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration.

As my friend said to me, when you have children, typically in a second marriage, when you're older and you get married again to a woman who would have children, you must always remember that you make sure the children attend a college where the commencement ceremonies are held in a facility with a wheelchair accessible ramp.

It is the beginning of the end. [Fr., C'est le commencement de al fin.]

Commencement Day has a sobering finality in that it's the end of the prescribed path.

The first time I spoke to a group this large was at my college commencement in 1969.

And the commencement of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

Play is a sacred thing, a divine ordinance, for developing in the child a harmonious and healthy organism, and preparing that organism for the commencement of the work of life.

I hope this will find you...enjoying the commencement of a new year with every prospect that can make it a happy one.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

The beginning and the end of love are both marked by embarrassment when the two find themselves alone. [Fr., Le commencement et le declin de l'amour se font sentir par l'embarras ou l'on est de se trouver seuls.]

Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.

I never expected to join the ranks of commencement speakers, especially at my alma mater. I had a tough time there, left eagerly, and returned rarely.

The commencement of coal mining at Parsa Kente is a milestone event in coal mining sector.

A commencement is a time of joy. It is also a time of melancholy. But then again, so is life.

The year 1826 was remarkable for the commencement of one of those fearful droughts to which we have reason to believe the climate of New South Wales is periodically subject.

Since the commencement of 1830, I had been living with Mr. Joseph Travis, who was to me a kind master and placed the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no cause to complain of his treatment of me.

Unusual commencement advice: Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the spider, trembling at every breeze, may in the end prove as links of tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or woe.

I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

At his Philadelphia alma mater, Temple University, Cosby gave commencement addresses and attended games. He served on the university`s board of trustees for more than three decades.

I was pretty sure I lacked the wisdom to be the commencement speaker, but after stewing over the idea for about 48 hours, I decided that if the senior class at the University of Wisconsin wants me to come speak, I'll do whatever they ask me. I love that school.

The closing period of the fifteenth century witnessed the slow but sure increase of the churches of the Brethren. Although far from being unmolested, they yet enjoyed comparative rest. At the commencement of the sixteenth century their churches numbered two hundred in Bohemia and Moravia.

At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards.My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.

To make a commencement requires a mental effort.

Commencement addresses are usually garbage. They're for colleges seeking publicity.

The whole point of a commencement speech is to say something encouraging.

I'm an artist. And I'm happy that I was there at the commencement of this music, this Jamaican music, to put my contribution and help to establish it.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

President Bush delivered a commencement speech at a university in Wisconsin. A very inspirational speech. Apparently Bush told the students, 'You can do anything in life if your parents work hard enough.'

In love it is only the commencement that charms. I am not surprised that we find pleasure in frequently recommencing.

For Texas, a wise and prudent administration in the commencement of her national existence will be universally expected, imposing upon me the difficult and delicate task of setting in complete and successful operation a political body based upon principles so hazardously asserted and so gloriously maintained.

What kind of a world are we going to leave the next generation? I, at least, want my children to look back and say, "My daddy was being arrested at the White House fence and booed off commencement stages. He was trying."

Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.

It was a myth that's often perpetuated at commencement that holds that only hope and promise lie beyond the halls of academe. Don't worry, be happy. Everything is fine.

I don't believe complete assimilation is possible, at least not for anyone who has an active, open mind. Every step, every entry into the flows of existence can be seen as a beginning, a commencement of a brand new way of seeing oneself in the world. This is the case for everyone.

It's just like when Trump made his speech, his commencement speech at Liberty University, I saw something that I've never seen. ABC News was there, and they're running around asking the parents of students at Liberty University what about Donald Trump they don't like. Are you upset that Trump is here? Do you ever remember any such reporting at an Barack Obama or Michelle Obama commencement? Of course not. And Trump was loved and adored at this thing, and he had some great things to say.

I did the commencement speech at UNH in 2006, and one of the biggest jokes was a 'Guts' joke.

The stunning part was that one time Neil McElroy the Secretary of Defense who was the father of one of our classmates spoke and basically at commencement, he told us all that our job after graduation was to get married and have interesting sons...and we all found that hard to believe.

Chemistry, unlike other sciences, sprang originally from delusions and superstitions, and was at its commencement exactly on a par with magic and astrology.

As a life-long liberal who has engaged in protests against the government and for civil rights, I am saddened at efforts by some of my fellow liberals to silence commencement speakers with whom they might disagree on some issues.