The Quotable Graduate

"The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse."
--Edward Koch, Mayor of New York City, 1983 commencement address, Polytechnic Institute of New York, during which fire broke out briefly

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
--Albert Einstein

"Be as bold as the first man or woman to eat an oyster."
--Shirley Chisholm, politician, commencement address, Mount Holyoke College, 1981

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards."
--Mark Twain

"Education costs money, but then so does ignorance."
--Sir Claus Moser (1922-), Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, England, Daily Telegraph, 1990


More than five million students graduate from high school or college each year, making commencement one of our most common rites of passage. Nearly every American knows someone who will graduate within the next twelve months. This collection of wise and witty statements about graduation--and education in general--offers food for thought to graduates and their families and friends alike. Culled from commencement speeches and from the writings and words of CEOs, theologians, astronauts, generals, authors, musicians, artists, actors, entrepreneurs, scientists, and psychologists, it presents diverse perspectives on the non-academic world that graduating students enter, and words of wisdom on what truly matters as one embarks on this new chapter in life. If you're stumped for an appropriate comment to make when offspring, sibling, or spouse receives a diploma, the kernels of inspiring ideas can be found in these pages. Those quoted include:


Albert Einstein
Margaret Mead
Plato
Mao Zedong
Sylvia Plath
George Bernard Shaw
Maria Montessori
Oscar Wilde
Ivan F. Boesky
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Henry David Thoreau
Anne Sullivan
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Kurt Vonnegut
John F. Kennedy
and more

HEIDI REINHOLDT writes about public relations and is special projects manager for Halstead Communications, a communications firm specializing in education and other nonprofits. She lives in New York.

JOHN ROSS, winner of a National Outdoor Book Award for Trout Unlimited's Guide to America's 100 Best Trout Streams, also writes about public relations and higher education and consults on strategic communication with colleges and universities. He lives in Upperville, Virginia.