Graduation is a big milestone for so many of us, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. To celebrate this momentous occasion, here are 100 quotes about graduation from some of the world’s most influential figures.

Through these words, we can capture the feelings of joy, accomplishment, and anticipation that come with this important life event.

From poignant reflections to humorous musings, these words offer insight into our journey through school and inspire us to greet what comes next with enthusiasm and courage.

It’s an exciting time – let’s take a look at these quotes and reminisce on all that has brought us here!

  1. Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes…but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. -George Saunders
  2. If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. -Fred DeVito
  3. Your life is your adventure. And the adventure ahead of you is a journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential. -Kerry Washington
  4. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. -Sun Tzu
  5.  Success doesn’t rush. The greatest reward is the journey. –Jeff Moore
  6.  Everything’s always ending. But everything’s always beginning, too. -Patrick Ness
  7. Yes, there will be pitfalls, mountains, and glass ceilings, but you’re going to get across it. -Debbie Allen
  8. Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you quit, try. –William Arthur Ward
  9. Everyone learns more from your actions than from what you say. -Barb Bailey
  10. Despite difficulties, always keep optimism. ‘I can overcome these difficulties.’ That mental attitude itself will bring inner strength and self-confidence. -Dalai Lama
  11. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. –Steve Jobs
  12. There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. Wouldn’t you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more everyday like a photograph coming into focus. -Jodie Foster
  13. If you want to be the best, you have to do things other people aren’t willing to do. -Michael Phelps
  14. If you can do what you do best and be happy, you are further along in life than most people. -Leonardo DiCaprio
  15. Your inexperience is an asset in that it will make you think in original, unconventional ways. -Natalie Portman
  16. Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. –Napoleon Hill
  17. There is no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. -Nelson Mandela
  18. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -Eleanor Roosevelt
  19. My wish for you is that this life becomes all that you want it to. Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small and that you never need to carry more than you can hold. –Rascal Flatts
  20. Purpose is what drives you. It offers the deepest sense of fulfillment. -Joanna Barsh
  21. I have learned that learning is a passion that must not diminish with years. That applies to memory as well. It needs to be shared, lest it remains stifled, icy, silent. -Elie Wiesel
  22. To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. –Anatole France
  23. 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. -Tom Brokaw
  24. You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream. -C.S. Lewis
  25. Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. -Nelson Mandela
  26. It’s amazing what you can get if you quietly, clearly, and authoritatively demand it. -Meryl Streep
  27. If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place. -Nora Roberts
  28. The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match, each one of you is a fuse. -Ed Koch
  29. There are no regrets in life – just lessons. -Jennifer Aniston
  30. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. –Henry Ford
  31. I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance. Never settle for the path of least resistance. -Lee Ann Womack
  32. Before you go out and press that fast forward button, I’m hoping, I’m praying, that you’ll have the courage to first press the pause button. -Maria Shriver
  33. Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive: easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. -Henry Peter Brougham
  34. You miss 100% of the shots you never take. -Wayne Gretzky
  35. So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. –Christopher Reeve
  36. You are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say ‘yes.’ And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say ‘yes’ back. -Stephen Colbert
  37. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul. -Joseph Addison
  38. There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. –C.S. Lewis
  39. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. -Dr. Seuss
  40. Wherever you go, go with all your heart. -Confucius
  41. The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future. –Plato
  42. If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it. -Ronnie Lott
  43. Now I usually try not to give advice. Information, yes, advice, no. But, what has worked for me may not work for you. Well, take for instance what has worked for me. Wigs. Tight clothes. Push-up bras. -Dolly Parton
  44. What we learn with pleasure we never forget. -Alfred Mercier
  45. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. -Henry David Thoreau
  46. You must have some vision for your life. Even if you don’t know the plan, you have to have a direction in which you choose to go. -Oprah Winfrey
  47. Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. –Nathaniel Hawthorne
  48. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
  49. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. –Will Rogers
  50. Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. -Judy Garland
  51. It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. – William Shakespeare
  52. The important thing is not to stop questioning. –Albert Einstein
  53. Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. -Vincent Van Gogh
  54. The difference between triumph and defeat, you’ll find, isn’t about willingness to take risks. It’s about mastery of rescue. -Atul Gawande
  55. Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors! -Louisa May Alcott
  56. You already have everything you need inside of you right now, today. -Alicia Keys
  57. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X
  58. The only thing you can do in this life is pursue your passions, celebrate your bloopers, and never stop following your fear. -Grace Helbig
  59. To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization. –Harriet Beecher Stowe
  60. All our dreams can come true… if we have the courage to pursue them. –Walt Disney
  61. You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result. -Mahatma Gandhi
  62. There may be days when you’ll say to yourself, ‘I can’t. I literally can’t even.’ But you can! You can even! -Katie Couric
  63. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. –Dr. Seuss
  64. Life is meant to have meaning and to be lived with purpose. -Dr. Ignatius K Otchere-Asamoah
  65. You have to be singular, inflexible, unyielding in your own work so that even the struggle, that very struggle to achieve becomes its own reward. -Martin Scorsese
  66. Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life. -Frederick W. Robertson
  67. Whatever you choose for a career path, remember the struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose. -Chadwick Boseman
  68. I’ve learned it’s important not to limit yourself. You can do whatever you really love to do, no matter what it is. -Ryan Gosling
  69. The most rewarding things in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done. -Arnold Palmer
  70. Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else. –Les Brown
  71. If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped. –Melinda Gates
  72. The noblest question in the world is: What good may I do in it? -Benjamin Franklin
  73. Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered. -Michelle Obama
  74. The unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. –Jon Stewart
  75. Be allergic to failure and addicted to success. -Daniel Roberts
  76. One of the more powerful outbreaks of happiness and meaning in your life will occur when you pair your passion and the world’s need. -Sue Monk Kidd
  77. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. -Benjamin Franklin
  78. All those adults that you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing? It turns out they don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions. So, if the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you. -Barack Obama
  79. Fight for what makes you optimistic about the world. Find it, insist on it, dig into it, go after it. -Jennifer Garner
  80. Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I’m possible. -Audrey Hepburn
  81. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. –Gandhi
  82. Your education is a dress rehearsal for a life that is yours to lead. -Nora Ephron
  83. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules. –Neil Gaiman
  84. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. -Will Rogers
  85. Whether you think you can or you can’t, you are right. –Henry Ford
  86. Do what you have to do resolutely, with all your heart. -Buddha
  87. As long as you are breathing, it is never too late. Because people will tell you you’re too old, people will tell you it’ll never work. You have come too far to quit. -Missy Elliot
  88. The future is always uncertain, but we who celebrate what you have done, who celebrate all of your achievements, are certain of one thing on this day: You will not let us down. -Tom Hanks
  89. Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill
  90. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King Jr.
  91. Dream big and dare to fail. -Norman Vaughan
  92. The best way to predict your future is to create it. –Abraham Lincoln
  93. You don’t go to university so you can punch a clock. You go to university so you can be in a position to make a difference. -Janet Napolitano
  94. When we show up, act boldly, and practice the best ways to be wrong, we fail forward. No matter where we end up, we’ve grown from where we began. -Stacey Abrams
  95. 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 fail by default. –J.K. Rowling
  96. Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world right in the eye. –Helen Keller
  97. Graduates, we need you to save the world. -Pierce Brosnan
  98. Whatever the world looks like in 10 years and 20 years, part of that is up to you. I urge you to let this current moment push you to improve yourself in all areas of your life. -Beyoncé
  99. Don’t underestimate the power of your dreams. -Corinna Kong
  100. You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. -Oprah Winfrey

Graduation marks an important milestone in everyone’s life. It is the time to pause and reflect on all the hard work, dedication, and commitment it took to get to this point.

As these 100 quotes illustrate, graduating can be a source of both pride and trepidation; a reminder of what goals have been achieved and what new paths may lie ahead.

It is vital that we take the time to appreciate all our accomplishments during this time, after all, there will never be another moment quite like this!

Check out these 100 Thoughtful Graduation Gift Ideas For Him or Her.