Kenyon Graduation Speech Quotes

The really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get at a [liberal arts college] isn't really about the capacity to think but, rather, the choice of what to think about ~ David Foster Wallace

Graduation Speech: I'd like to thank the internet, Google, Wikipedia, Microsoft Word, and Copy & Paste. ~ Steve Weinburg

I could have said something profound, but you would have forgotten it in 15 minutes - which is the afterlife of a graduation speech. ~ Art Buchwald

Risk being seen in all of your glory. ~ Jim Carrey

Graduation is not the terminus of your experience; it is the terminal of your success. ~ Christian J. Dolores

Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life." (Wellesly High School commencement speech, "You Are Not Special", 6-12) ~ Teacher David McCullough

Live your fear." Why didn't we teach kids that? Why wasn't that in a graduation speech? Commencement speakers should start telling the truth: "You're going to fuck up, but most of the time, that's all right. ~ Mara Wilson

The world is waiting for us to graduate from ourselves. ~ Shannon L. Alder

This is a perfect example of the power and ridiculousness of a website like Wikipedia. I did give a slightly contentious graduation speech, where I decided not to be funny as my classmates had hoped, which was why I was chosen. I was not valedictorian, that's for sure. Instead, I talked about the failure to communicate between the administration and the teachers and students. That's what was contentious about it. At some point, somebody wrote about that incident on my Wikipedia page. And then somebody added the bit about me exposing my genitals to the crowd. ~ Nick Kroll

I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. ~ J.K. Rowling

I can not remember telling my parents that I was studying classics, they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard-put to name one less useful in Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys of an executive bathroom. Now I would like to make it clear in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I can not criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor. And I quite agree with them, that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty, entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression, It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something by which to pride yourself, but poverty itself, is romanticized only by fools. But I feared at your age was not poverty, but failure... Now, I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted, and well educated, that you have never known heartbreak, hardship, or heartache. Talent and intelligence, never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates... ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure. ~ J.K. Rowling

I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

And that's why I've been talking only about you and the tension within you, because you are - not in a clichéd sense, but in a weirdly literal sense - the future. After you walk up here and walk back down, you're going to be the present. You will be the broken world and the act of changing it, in a way that you haven't been before. You will be so many things, and the one thing that I wish I'd known and want to say is, don't just be yourself. Be all of yourselves. Don't just live. Be that other thing connected to death. Be life. Live all of your life. Understand it, see it, appreciate it. And have fun. ~ Joss Whedon

And remember whatever discipline you're in, whether you're a musician or a photographer, fine artist or a cartoonist, writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer... whatever you do, you have a thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art. ~ Neil Gaiman

Sometimes you find out what you are supposed to be doing by doing the things you are not supposed to do. ~ Oprah Winfrey

So, kiss the girl. Buy the dress. Take a vacation. Join the circus. Order the fried frog legs. Try out for the play. Learn to snowboard. Do something that scares the shit out of you. Or something that makes you happy. Or something that makes you cry. Whatever it is, do something that makes you feel. Because feeling nothing is no way to go through life. ~ Valerie Thomas

The most important thing is this: to sacrifice what you are now for what you can become tomorrow. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Be yourself,its the best thing you can be. ~ Selena Gomez

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. ~ William O. Douglas

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement. ~ J.K. Rowling

This is your time and it feels normal to you, but really, there is no normal. There's only change and resistance to it and then more change. ~ Meryl Streep

It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to stumble ... If you're constantly pushing yourself higher ... the law of averages, not to mention the Myth of Icarus, predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Be compassionate to everyone. Don't just search for whatever it is that annoys and frightens you-see beyond those things to the basic human being. Especially see the child in the man or woman. Even if they are destroying you, allow a moment to see how lost in their own delusion and suffering they are. ~ Alice Walker

The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. ~ Jim Carey

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

If religion is not all encompassing, and does not factor in freedom of thought and speech, it is bound to become reductionist eventually - An absolute reductionism can result into its disintegration also, as a possibility. ~ Sandeep Sahajpal

All things have the capacity for speech -- all beings have the ability to communicate something of themselves to other beings. Indeed, what is perception if not the experience of this gregarious, communicative power of things, wherein even obstensibly 'inert' objects radiate out of themselves, conveying their shapes, hues, and rhythms to other beings and to us, influencing and informing our breathing bodies though we stand far apart from those things?

Not just animals and plants, then, but tumbling waterfalls and dry riverbeds, gusts of wind, compost piles and cumulus clouds, freshly painted houses (as well as houses abandoned and sometimes haunted), rusting automobiles, feathers, granite cliffs and grains of sand, tax forms, dormant volcanoes, bays and bayous made wretched by pollutants, snowdrifts, shed antlers, diamonds, and daikon radishes, all are expressive, sometimes eloquent and hence participant in the mystery of language. Our own chatter erupts in response to the abundant articulations of the world: human speech is simply our part of a much broader conversation.

It follows that the myriad things are also listening, or attending, to various signs and gestures around them. Indeed, when we are at ease in our animal flesh, we will sometimes feel we are being listened to, or sensed, by the earthly surroundings. And so we take deeper care with our speaking, mindful that our sounds may carry more than a merely human meaning and resonance. This care -- ~ David Abram

Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Nick - Psycho-ass? You're bringing psycho-ass back?
Zarek - That's Mister Psycho-ass to you, punk. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Acheron: Yeah well, I don't like talking about myself and I despise personal questions.
Tory: Fine. All I want is that brain of yours for a few ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Women and men communicate differently, often on entirely different planes. But just as men have failed us, we have failed them. It has been one of our great collective female shortcomings to presume that whatever we do not perceive simply isn't there, or that whatever is not communicated in our language is not intelligible speech. ~ Norah Vincent

There is nothing novel or comedic or righteous about men using the threat of sexual violence to control non-compliant women. This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoors, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay our of the world. IF you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like. ~ Lindy West

I consider the two years in Beaufort when I taught high school as perhaps the happiest time of my life. My attraction to melodrama and suffering had not yet overwhelmed me, but signs of it were surfacing. No one had warned me that a teacher could fall so completely in love with his students that graduation seemed like the death of a small civilization. ~ Pat Conroy

Land sakes, I can't make a speech," she said. "Tell you what: I'll recite a poem I composed while in jail." And she began. "Although in jail in Centerboro, I do not fret or stew or worro. And confidently I confront The judge, because I'm innosunt. Tho I'm a cow, I am no coward I have not flinched when thunder rowered. When lightning flashed I've merely giggled Like one whose funnybone is tiggled. And I shall never give up hoping That soon the jail front door will oping And I'll once more enjoy my freedom On Bean's green fields. When last I seed 'em They were a fair and lovely vision And so for my return I'm wishun. I hope that Bismuth will get his'n And spend a good long time in prison. ~ Walter R. Brooks

My father is the harbinger of death and destruction. My grandmother the Great Destroyer. My mother is the goddess of the hunt. I think I'll be okay. (Kat)
Yeah, you do have the history of absolute terror and cruelty in your veins. (Sin)
Remember that if you ever come between me and my chocolate bar. (Kat) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

One of the areas I have a little less confidence in is giving any kind of a speech. ~ Danica Patrick

Ren crossed his arms over his chest. "is it LoJacked?"
"Of course," Andy said indignantly. "That's my baby. I even have a kill switch on her."
"Then stop the engine."
Andy appeared downright horrified by Ren's suggestion. "Are you out of your mind? What if someone hits it for stalling? I had that thing on order for over a year. Custom hand built. The epitome of German engineering. I even paid extra for the paint on her. Ain't no way I'm going to chance someone denting my baby. Or, God forbid, totaling it."
Jess rolled his eyes at the boy's hissy fit. If he kept that up, he'd be putting Andy back in diapers.
He turned to Ren. "You take the air. I'll get a bike." Then he focused his attention on Andy again. "And you-"
Andy held his cell phone out to him. "Have an app. Track her down, get my car back, and beat the hell out of her ... in that precise order. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom. ~ Owen Feltham

Anything you do to prevent inauspicious contemplation (durdhyan, to hurt others by mind,body,speech,etc.) is dharmadhyan (auspicious contemplation, to not hurt anyone, to give happiness to others). ~ Dada Bhagwan

I want you to show him to Zeth and the rest of the Olympian dogs who fight for us. (Noir)
Anything else, Master? Lick your boots? Wipe your ass? (Asmodeus) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Freedom is an ingredient of humble facts. ~ Arif Naseem

Then shut up or grab a sword and come help. (Takeshi)
Is that a challenge? (Savitar)
It would be if I didn't know for a fact that you're too lazy to rise to one. (Takeshi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

He knows she's his daughter, twit. (Artemis)
Twit? Moi? The Simi? Why, I do believe the bitch-goddess has done gone and gotten herself confused. She thinks she's me, not that I blame her. All women want to be me because of my beautoneousness and the fact that I have such stylish clothing and sparklies. But believe me, I ain't no heifer-goddess. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon