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1 " The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can." , University of the Arts, 134th Commencement (Philadelphia, PA, May 17, 2012)] "
2 " The commencement of God’s emanation stars from the physical sheath. Life-power of the emanated God from the body undergoes transformations in His sportive forms in five sheaths or seven plans. Then follows the attainment of the Supreme Knowledge. The Ascent ends here. The Descent starts now and knowledge of ‘I-am-not-but-thou’ prevails. "
― Sri Jibankrishna or Diamond
3 " Day n night passing by,No tribute, we cannot deny,We did to world's problems so deep,Not a single sign, to take the leap.Senseless striving for some unknown glory,Too patiently awaiting time for our story.Still haven't spot that light,That make us seem calm n bright.How to ensure tis time-being,Is not in vain, but commencement of freeing. "
― Akilnathan Logeswaran
4 " 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 , Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
5 " The commencement of all labor consisted in the preparation of his own soul. "
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon , Lectures to My Students
6 " We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life. What I'm grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I'm scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow after Commencement and leave this place. “It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four A.M. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went , we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats. "
― Marina Keegan
7 " There are times in life when the best part of our life and the worst part seemingly coincide, especially those periods that demark commencement of significant personal transformation. "
8 " 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) "
― David McCullough
9 " If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity? "
― Robert G. Ingersoll , Some Mistakes of Moses
10 " Good tennis players are those who beat other tennis players, and a good shot during play is one the opponent can't return. But that's not a truth about life or excellence -- it's a truth about tennis. We've created an artificial structure in which one person can't succeed without doing so at someone else's expense, and then we accuse anyone who prefers other kinds of activities of being naive because " there can be only one best -- you're it or you're not," as the teacher who delivered that much-admired you're-not-special commencement speech declared. You see the sleight of hand here? The question isn't whether everyone playing a competitive game can win or whether every student can be above average. Of course they can't. The question that we're discouraged from asking is why our games are competitive -- or our students are compulsively ranked against one another -- in the first place. "
11 " The commencement of true happiness is the realization that your happiness begins with you. "
― Ogwo David Emenike , Happiness Recipe: Eat and Stay Happy
12 " It’s natural to think of one’s own life as a novel (or a movie or a play), and within that narrative we are always the central character. Thoughtful people try to overcome this compulsion, but they usually fail (in fact, trying makes it worse). In a commencement speech at Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace argued that conquering the preoccupation with self is pretty much the whole objective of being alive — but if we are to believe Wallace succeeded at this goal, it must be the darkest success imaginable. "
― Chuck Klosterman
13 " 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. "
14 " 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. "
― J.K. Rowling
15 " Surely the shortest commencement address in history - and for me one of the most memorable - was that of Dr. Harold E. Hyde President of New Hampshire's Plymouth State College. He reduced his message to the graduating class to these three ideals: 'Know yourself- Socrates. Control yourself- Cicero Give yourself - Christ.' "
16 " 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. "
17 " I grew up very differently than a lot of other people in my hometown in Mississippi. But I can't imagine my life any other way. I flew home and surprised my best friend at his graduation, and I remember turning to my mom and saying, 'My graduation was so much cooler than this.' I had Melissa Joan Hart give my commencement speech. "
18 " How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion. "
19 " As my friend said to me, when you have children, typically in a second marriage, when you're older and you get married again to a woman who would have children, you must always remember that you make sure the children attend a college where the commencement ceremonies are held in a facility with a wheelchair accessible ramp. "
