Graduation Sayings

Over 100 graduation sayings for you to enjoy.

I hope to give you the best quotes for every part of graduation.

You may be making a speech, writing invites, announcements or a card or simply looking for words to capture the spirit of graduation. The sayings include ones for graduation day, achieving goals, coping with change, persevering, being the best you can be and on saying goodbye to friends and family. I also have inspirational quotes to inspire the graduates for the future.

Famous Quotes About Graduation

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"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go."

By Dr. Seuss

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It is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o'clock.

By Woody Allen, "My Speech to the Graduates," Side Effects, 1980

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Attributed to Mark Twain, unconfirmed

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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.

By Dr. Seuss

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You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.

Author Steve Jobs

~ graduation sayings ~

Your time is limited,
so don't waste it living someone else's life
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.

Author Steve Jobs

~ graduation sayings ~

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

Author Martin Luther King, Jr

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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Author William Butler Yeats

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You cannot continue to succeed in the world or have a fulfilling life in the world unless you choose to use your life in the service somehow to others and give back what you have been given. That’s how you keep it. That’s how you get it. That’s how you grow it.

Author Oprah Winfrey

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

Author Marianne Williamson

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Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.

Author Winston Churchill

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I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve.

Author Maya Angelou

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Graduation Sayings

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"The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse."

By Edward Koch

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Graduation day is tough for adults.
They go to the ceremony as parents.
They come home as contemporaries.
After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed.

By Erma Bombeck

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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.

By Robert Orben

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The lessons of the past provide the path to the future.

Author unknown

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The tassel's worth the hassle!

Author unknown

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It takes 10,000 hours of preparation to experience one moment of glory.

Author unknown

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Your schooling may be over, but remember that your education still continues.

Author unknown

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The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after.

By Newton D. Baker

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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.

By Garry Trudeau

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Your families are extremely proud of you. You can't imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money.

By Gary Bolding

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Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference.

By Arie Pencovici

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A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep.

By W.H. Auden

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Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.

By Richard Halliburton

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Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!

Author unknown

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Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference

Author Arie Pencovici

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You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.

Author Tom Brokaw

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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Author Aristotle

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Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.

Author Wendy Wasserstein

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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten

Author B.F. Skinner

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What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.

Author Joseph Addison

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The fruit of liberal education is not learning, but the capacity and desire to learn; not knowledge, but power.

Author Charles W. Eliot

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The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

Author Samuel Johnson

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Education should bring to light the ideal of the individual

Author J. Paul F. Richter

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The most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom to learn. All education is a continuous dialogue -- questions and answers that pursue every problem on the horizon. That is the essence of academic freedom.

Author William O. Douglas

~ graduation sayings ~

'Tis education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd

Author Alexander Pope

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13 years to acquire friends and a lifetime to keep them.

Author unknown

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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Author William Butler Yeats

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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

Author B.F. Skinner

~ graduation sayings ~

Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

Author Joseph Addison

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Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.

Author Anthony J D'Angelo

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Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.

Author Henry L. Doherty

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The highest result of education is tolerance.

Author Helen Keller

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The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

Author Plutarch

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To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Author Theodore Roosevelt

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A college degree is not a sign that one is a finished product but an indication a person is prepared for life.

Author Reverend Edward A. Malloy

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We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.

Author Loyd Alexander

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The first of many graduations of life. From elementary school to senior school, each one holds successes for you to enjoy.

Author Catherine Pulsifer

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It is indeed ironic that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school days.

Author Isabel Waxman

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Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, 'Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary'.

Author Martin Luther King Jr

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Educational Graduation Sayings

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The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

Author Franklin D. Roosevelt

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A wise man, when asked how he had learned so much about everything, replied: By never being ashamed or afraid to ask questions about anything of which I was ignorant.

Author Unknown

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Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you: you must acquire it.

Author Sudie Back

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One can never consent to creep when one feels the compulsion to soar.

Author Helen Keller

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It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

Author Henry David Thoreau

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We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

By Barack Obama

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We've all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it's more important to learn from successes. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors.

Author Norman Vincent Peale

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Education is the best provision for old age.

Author Aristotle

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Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.

Author Leonardo da Vinci

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Common sense and education are highly compatible; in fact, neither is worth much without the other.

Author Donald G. Smith

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The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

Author Sydney Harris

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The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

Author Tom Bodett

~ graduation sayings ~

A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak.

Author Michael Garrett Marino

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Be The Best You Can Be Graduation Sayings

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This above all; To thine own self be true

By William Shakespeare

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Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.

By Virgil

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Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

By Judy Garland

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It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.

Author Muhammad Ali

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Better to live one year as a tiger, than a hundred as a sheep.

By Madonna

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Don't let anyone else take the measure of your worth and capabilities.
Always stand proud in who you are!

By Margaret Spellings

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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.
There are going to be times in your life when you're going to have to stick your neck out.
There will be challenges and instead of hiding in a shell, you have to go out and meet them!

By Ruth Westheimers

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Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.

By Anthony J. D'Angelo

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

By Marianne Williamson

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It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

Author J K Rowling

~ graduation sayings ~

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there,
except those that sang best

Author unknown

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Self confidence is the first pre-requisite to great undertakings.

Author Samuel Johnson

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It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

Author Edmund Hilary

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Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.

Author Ralph Marston

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Take the initiative and lead the way,
You can make the difference.

Author unknown

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The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.

Author Ben Stein

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Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

Author Mark Twain

~ graduation sayings ~

Don’t ever doubt yourself. Laugh at yourself but don’t doubt yourself.

Author Alan Alda

~ graduation sayings ~

Be the change that you want to see in the world.

Author Mohandas Gandhi

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Inspirational Graduation Sayings

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I would rather be ashes than dust.
I would rather that flame burn out in a brilliant blue blaze
than it should be stilled by dry rot.
I'd rather be a superb meteor;
every atom of me in a magnificent glow
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist."

By Jack London, American Author.

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The credit belongs to the man:
who is actually in the arena,
who strives valiantly,
who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotions,
and spends himself in a worthy cause,who at the best,
knows the triumph of high achievement,
and who, at the worst,
If he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.

By Theodore Roosevelt

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All our dreams can come true...if we have the courage to pursue them.

by Walt Disney

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You don’t have to see the whole staircase - just take the first step.

Author Martin Luther King

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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

By Barack Obama

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Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

By Barack Obama

~ graduation sayings ~

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm

By Vince Lombardi

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I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk.

By Tony Robbins

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It's always the challenge of the future, this feeling of excitement, that drives me.

By Yoshihisa Tabuchi

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Open up to the future, avoiding the challenges means missing the fun too.

By Cecil Moore

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Success Graduation Sayings

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There's always a way - if you're committed.

by Tony Robbins

~ graduation sayings ~

You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.

by Michael Jordan

~ graduation quotes ~

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

Author Albert Einstein

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Health, happiness and success depend upon the fighting spirit of each person. The big thing is not what happens to us in life - but what we do about what happens to us.

Author George Allen

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The key to happiness is having dreams. The key to success is making your dreams come true.

Author Unknown

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Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.

Author Dr. Joyce Brothers

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Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

Author Arnold H. Glasow

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The secret of success is constancy of purpose.

Author Benjamin Disraeli

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Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture... Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.

Author Norman Vincent Peale

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People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

Author Dale Carnegie

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From the first day in school until the day I graduated, everyone gave me one hundred plus in art. Well, where do you go in life? You go to the place where you got one hundred plus.

Author Louise Nevelson

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The world rewards those who take responsibility for their own success.

Author Curt Gerrish

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The path to success is to take massive, determined action.

Author Tony Robbins

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Graduation Sayings - Perseverance

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Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward

By Henry Ford

~ graduation sayings ~

If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.

By Barack Obama

~ graduation sayings ~

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

Author Albert Einstein

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You must knock on doors until your knuckles bleed.
Doors will slam in your face.
You must pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and knock again.
It's the only way to achieve your goals in life.

Author Michael Uslan

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Just keep trying!
Never give up, never, never give up!
Because the only person that can stop you is - you!

Author Yvonne Thorton

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There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

Author unknown

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Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is the quiet voice
At the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.

Author unknown

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Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Author Michael Jordan

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It is with many enterprises as with striking fire; we do not meet with success except by reiterated efforts, and often at the instant when we despaired of success.

Author Françoise d'Aubigné

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In the confrontation between the river and the rock the river always wins..... not through strength, but by perseverance.

Author unknown

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Work hard now, success is the most fun you’ll ever have.

By Cecil Moore

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Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.

Author Louis Pasteur

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Graduation Sayings - Change

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Change is life giving. It helps us grow into something greater than we already are.

Author unknown

~ graduation sayings ~

Change always comes bearing gifts.

Author Price Pritchett

~ graduation sayings ~

The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Author Socrates

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If it doesn’t challenge you it won’t change you.

Author Fred Devito

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If you are not riding the wave of change.......you'll find yourself beneath it.

Author unknown

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Goal Achieving Graduation Sayings

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Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

By Henry Ford

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The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

By Benjamin Mays

~ graduation sayings ~

Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.

Author Washington Irving

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The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it.

Author Mal Pancoast

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When something big stands in your way, think of the triumph that waits on the other side.

Author Lance Dale

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People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals - that is, goals that do not inspire them.

By Tony Robbins

~ graduation sayings ~

Graduation Sayings - Goodbye

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It's time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I'd much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.

By Ernie Harwell

~ graduation sayings ~

Thank god I found the GOOD in goodbye.

By Beyonce

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Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

By Brian Dyson

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Here's to the nights we felt alive
Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry
Here's to goodbye
Tomorrow's gonna come too soon

By Eve 6

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