Graduation quotes

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.

OUT of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.

All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages.

This above all: to thine own self be true;And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are we now afloat,And we must take the current when it serves,Or lose our ventures.

Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Things do not change; we change.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it’s such an interesting world.

When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.

I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead.

“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,Strong and content I travel the open road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,You must travel it for yourself.

There is no frigate like a bookTo take us lands away,Nor any coursers like a pageOf prancing poetry.This traverse may the poorest takeWithout oppress of toll;How frugal is the chariotThat bears a human soul!

Four things a man must learn to doIf he would make his record true:To think without confusion clearly;To love his fellow-men sincerely;To act from honest motives purely;To trust in God and Heaven securely.

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time;—Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.Let us, then, be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.

The heights by great men reached and keptWere not attained by sudden flight,But they, while their companions slept,Were toiling upward in the night.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action— Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience.

A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.

He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.

The dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

CONGRATULATION, n. The civility of envy.

FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.