Writing a commencement speech can be really difficult. There are so many things to consider, so many things to say. Giving a speech in front of your entire graduating class, the school faculty, family and friends is nerve-wracking. Your graduation speech is meant to inspire and motivate your classmates. A great way to start a speech or even to get ideas for a speech is to rely on a quote by someone older or wiser than yourself.
Here, I have listed a number of quotes that are perfect for a commencement speech. I have divided them into categories so that you can choose a message and then a quote to work with. These quotes are not only great for speeches but for home-made graduation cards or letters to graduates.
The following quotes are meant to inspire your fellow classmates to be their best selves. These quotes are great for commencement because graduation marks the beginning of the rest of your life. It is important not to lose sight of yourself as you grow older and experience the new and different things that life has to offer. This is a timeless message and one that will never fail. After all, didn’t your mother always tell you to “be yourself”?
Be Yourself
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” ~E.E. Cummings
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings
Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up as slaves.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The mark of an educated man is to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~Aristotle
Another popular and successful message for a commencement speech is to dream big. At graduation, everyone is looking to the future and wants to know what is in store. A great message to your classmates is to both dream big and do big!
Dream Big, Do Big
“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.” ~Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles,” 1992 (commonly misattributed to Nelson Mandela, 1994 inauguration speech)
“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” ~Arnold H. Glasow
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” ~Michelangelo Buonarroti
“Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~Henry David Thoreau
“There is a good reason they call these ceremonies ‘commencement exercises.’ Graduation is not the end; it’s the beginning.” ~Orrin Hatch
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily; to not dare is to lose one’s self entirely.” ~Soren Kierkegaard
The following quotes do not cover one specific topic. Instead these are what I like to refer to as life lessons. These are things that some people learn only after a lifetime of experiences. These lessons are a great message to bring to your classmates as they embark on their future. The Anne Frank quote is one of my favorites because it is not only a great quote but the context of its origins make the quote that much more impressive. If a young woman trapped in an attic can be this optimistic, then why can’t anybody have such a great, positive outlook?
Life Lessons
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point-of-view…until you can climb into his skin and walk around in it.” ~Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in your life, you will have been all of these.” ~George Washington Carver
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems you could not hold a minute longer, never give up then for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” ~Harriet Beecher Stowe
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~Anne Frank
If all else fails, you can always break the ice with a little laughter.
Funny
“Someday you will look back on this moment and slam into a parked car.” ~Evan Davis
