Commencement Speech Quotes - Page 2

• You might as well take a chance on doing what you love.

  Jim Carrey

  Graduation, Doing What You Love, Might

  "Jim Carrey Receives Honorary Diploma from Maharishi University of Management". Jim Carrey's commencement speech at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, www.iowasource.com. May 24, 2014.

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• 

  Continue to share your heart with people even if it's been broken.

  Amy Poehler

  Love, Heart, People

  Harvard University Class Day Commencement Address, delivered 26 May 2011

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• Never follow anyone else's path, unless you're in the woods and you're lost.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Graduation, Funny Inspirational, Funny Motivational

  "12 Inspiring Graduation Speeches by Amazing Women" by Kelly Conniff, time.com. May 18, 2014.

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• You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.

  Zig Ziglar

  Motivational, Attitude, Failure

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• There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

  Beverly Sills

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  "Conquering an Enemy Called Average". Book by John Mason, 1996.

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• 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.

  Garry Trudeau

  Graduation, College, World

  "Peace, war, economy dominate graduation speeches" by Patricia McCormack, www.upi.com. May 29, 1982.

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• Don't be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self.

  Ed Helms

  Graduation, Running, Opportunity

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• Do not follow where the path may lead.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Graduation, Travel, Adventure

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• Don't be afraid to fail big, to dream big.

  Denzel Washington

  Dream, Failing, Bigs

  "Ohio Gov. John Kasich". 'This Week', abcnews.go.com. May 24, 2015.

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• My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out.

  Ruth Westheimer

  Graduation, Moving, Animal

  "‘Other People’s Rejection Letters’: 8 Of The Craziest Rejection Letters" by Bill Shapiro, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 11, 2010.

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• Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

  Dr. Seuss

  Life, Smile, Graduation

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• I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which, was that you can fail at what you don't want so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love

  Jim Carrey

  Father, Doing What You Love, Lessons

  "Jim Carrey's inspiring commencement speech" by Lisa Respers France, www.cnn.com. May 28, 2014.

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• Just remember, you can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.

  Arnold Schwarzenegger

  Failure, Funny Graduation, Pockets

  "Six Rules on How to Be Successful". Speech at the University of Southern California, www.graduationwisdom.com. May 15, 2009.

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• And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

  J. K. Rowling

  Inspirational, Life, Change

  J.K. Rowling (2015). “Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination”, p.38, Hachette UK

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• My daughter went to the school, and it's a very, very progressive and liberal school, and my commencement speech was telling the kids just to always be willing to quit, and that they need to quit a lot in their lives, and keep on quitting, because all the happiness I've ever got was when I turned my back on things that everybody else thought would make you happy. I can smell parents' stomach acid right now, but they know that whole "You gotta get a job and you gotta settle for what people perceive as success" thing is really absurd.

  Bobcat Goldthwait

  Daughter, Kids, School

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• I did work well with Hillary Clinton when she was my colleague in the Senate, and I certainly don't bear her any ill will. But when I listened carefully to her commencement speech, what I heard was a laundry list of very expensive new programs that our country simply cannot afford, and that would add to our already overwhelming $17 trillion debt. I'm also disturbed by the mismatch in her answers to the questions about her e-mail server and what the FBI Director Comey says that the FBI's investigation found.

  Susan Collins

  Country, Laundry, Clinton

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• 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.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Running, Parent, Upset

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• One of the panelists on CNN, after the Hillary Clinton commencement speech, literally started crying, "I can't believe, I can't believe the election actually happened and she lost." I don't need to see that. I don't need to see a bunch of whimpering leftists who themselves are incapable of grounding themselves in reality, whining and moaning.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Believe, Reality, Election

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• The question I have is out of all these commencement speeches that are happening, what`s the really worthwhile advice that a 21, 22 year old person will walk away from the speech and say, I can apply this maybe five years, 10 years later. How many speeches actually push the button like that, other than yours?

  David Corn

  Years, Advice, Buttons

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• 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.'

  Conan O'Brien

  Hard Work, Parent, President

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• George W. Bush gave a commencement speech at Southern Methodist University this weekend. It was pretty inspirational. He said, 'As I like to tell the 'C' students, you too can be president.' Even George W. Bush has George W. Bush comedy material in his act.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Weekend, Southern, President

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• One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are fodder for commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren't sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education.

  Edward Gibbon

  Education, Clever, Ideas

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• We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands...searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living...for the integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences...Fear is always with us, but we just don't have time for it.

  Hillary Clinton

  Integrity, Struggle, Political

  Commencement Speech, Wellesley College, www.wellesley.edu. 1969.

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• 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.

  David Foster Wallace

  Frustration, Boredom, Adults

  "Ten Best Commencement Speeches: See A List, Take The Poll" by Katharine Zaleski, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 17, 2009.

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• President Obama and Mitt Romney both gave commencement speeches over the last few days. Obama was like, 'You can be whatever you want to be,' while Romney was like, 'I can be whatever you want me to be.'

  Jimmy Fallon

  President, Speech, Want

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