Graduation Quotes - page 3
I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater.
Pedro Pascal
My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war..
W. E. B. Du Bois
On Wednesday, June 2, 1976, I graduated and my father commissioned me as a second lieutenant. Our graduation ceremony was where we'd begun our cadet experience, at Michie Stadium. As I sat with 834 other members of my class, out of an original 1,378, waiting to receive our diplomas, I realized I was very different from the seventeen-year-old boy whose friend had dropped him off a few years earlier. I wondered if I could, or would, be the kind of military leader I admired, and I was eager to try. When the ceremony ended, in accordance with tradition, we launched our hats into the air and congratulated one another. I rapidly looked for Annie- and the exit. As quickly as possible, I threw everything I owned into the used Chevy Vega I'd bought and set course with Annie down the hill away from campus. As we neared the last bend before the academy gates, I turned to her. "Hey, look back at West Point." "Why?"
Stanley A. McChrystal
In high school the approaching graduation was stirring up excitement among the seniors. I didn't care much for any of it since I couldn't afford any of the mementoes or activities offered for completing the four years. I had not attended the prom or the senior trip, had not purchased a class ring or letterman's jacket or the yearbook-had not even taken my senior portrait-and I wasn't about to attend the ceremony we had been rehearsing all week.
Rigoberto González
When 9-11 happened, Pat Tillman quit the NFL. He gave up his million-dollar career, and humbled himself as a U.S. Army [sic] Soldier. And not just a Soldier, but as a U.S. Army Infantryman, a Ranger. Who can ever forget that picture of Tillman, an Army Private, marching in his graduation carrying his platoon guidon, that look of purpose, discipline, Americanism.
Allen West (politician)
There are a helluva a lot of Americans trying really hard these days to embrace a new spirit of inclusion and self-reflection, and this progressive allergy to acknowledging societal advances is self-defeating because progress and hope that we can achieve it is the product we're selling and having a warped view of reality leads to policies that are warped. Black-only dorms and graduation ceremonies, a growing belief that Whiteness as a malady and White people as irredeemable, giving up on a colorblind society – only if you believe we've made no progress does any of that make sense.
Bill Maher