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Tips to recent grads make for an interesting read. Below is our collection of favorites. Among the humorous and witty, hopefully, you’ll find something you like in all of our topics for that fun-loving graduate you know.
32 Funny Graduation Quotes by Famous Folks
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
David Barry
If at first, you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
Harry Banks
Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
Al Bernstein
In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.
Tom Bodett
The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.
Sarah Brown
I could have said something profound, but you would have forgotten it in 15 minutes – which is the afterlife of a graduation speech.
Art Buchwald
I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
Jim Carrey
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
Follow your passion, stay true to yourself, never follow someone else’s path unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path; then by all means, you should follow that.
Ellen DeGeneres
Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.
T.S. Eliot
Hilarious Quotations on Graduating
If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.
W.C. Fields
As you set off into the world, don’t be afraid to question your leaders. But don’t ask too many questions at one time or that are too hard because your leaders get tired and/or cranky.
Will Ferrell
You may build a building or hit someone over the head. The choice is yours.
Jodie Foster
When I was here, there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate…because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
Barney Frank
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
Benjamin Franklin
My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.
Paul Getty
You know, I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just going to ask where they’re going and hook up with them later.
Mitch Hedberg
I didn’t go to college, but if I did, I would’ve taken all my tests at a restaurant ’cause the customer is always right.
Mitch Hedberg
On behalf of frogs, fish, pigs, bears, and all of the other species who are lower than you on the food chain, thank you for dedicating your lives to saving our world and our home.
Kermit the Frog – See Sesame Street Day Quotes and Jokes
The Lord gave us two ends: one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most.
Ann Landers
Amusing Quotes for the Graduate
Whoever invented spray cheese had to have been a Harvard guy.
Seth MacFarlane
I’ve never studied anything formally. I was excluded from school at the age of 17, so I am an autodidact, which is a word that I have taught myself.
Alan Moore
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.
Robert Orben
Try putting your iPhones down every once in a while and look at people’s faces.
Amy Poehler
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Theodore Roosevelt
My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out.
Dr. Ruth
I, too, turned to Webster’s Dictionary and it defined Harvard University as a season for gathering crops.
Andy Samberg
Our school was so tough the student newspaper had an obituary column.
Unknown
The school of experience will repeat the lesson if you flunked the first time.
Unknown
This wasn’t like High School Musical at all.
Unknown
Well, I’m not usually one for speeches – Goodbye!
Unknown
A woman’s reach should exceed her grasp, or what’s heaven for?
Kurt Vonnegut
Check this out: Congratulations Graduation Messages
Tip: Play to your audience. Sometimes graduation quotes might work for one person who likes a laugh, and other times not for folks who are more serious. Ask yourself, does the recipient have a good sense of humor?
25 Funny Graduation Quotations for College and High School
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
Milton Berle
Be Santa Claus when you can.
Jimmy Buffett
Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.
Stephen Colbert
You will never become a howling success by just howling.
Bob Harrington
Life has a very simple plot: first, you’re here and then you’re not.
Eric Idle
If at first, you don’t succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.
William Lyon Phelps
Don’t treat your heart like an action figure wrapped in plastic and never used.
Amy Poehler
When things go wrong, don’t go with them.
Elvis Presley
Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
You have brains in your head – You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
Dr. Seuss
Lisa, if you don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.
Homer Simpson
The Best Grad Quotes
The best revenge is massive success.
Frank Sinatra
The road to success is always under construction.
Lily Tomlin
Life doesn’t have any hands, but it can sure give you a slap sometimes.
Unknown
Put your future in good hands – your own.
Unknown
God, please give me patience; if you give me strength I will just punch them in the face.
Unknown
The richer you get, the more expensive happiness becomes.
Unknown
If life is not smiling at you, give it a good tickling.
Unknown
Life always offers you a second chance. It’s called tomorrow.
Unknown
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
You will never see a U-haul behind a hearse. You can’t take it with you.
Denzel Washington
Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask for any failure.
Earl Wilson
I couldn’t wait for success. I went ahead without it.
Jonathan Winters
It doesn’t matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping.
Jerry Zucker
If you have any suggested additions, please let us know. Thanks!
Fun Graduation Sayings from Parents
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when looking back, everything is different?
C.S. Lewis
The unfortunate yet truly exciting thing about your life is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective.
Jon Stewart
Congrats on getting through the easiest part of life.
Unknown
All that stands between a graduate and the top of the ladder is the ladder.
Unknown
Graduation is a tough day for parents. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come back home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years, they are unemployed.
Unknown
You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.
Benjamin Franklin
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed.
Erma Bombeck
Cheery Advice for the Graduate
You are graduating from college. That means that this is the first day of the last day of your life. No, that’s wrong. This is the last day of the first day of school. Nope, that’s worse. This is a day.
Andy Samberg
Your life is your story, and the adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential.
Kerry Washington
The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.
Edward Koch
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, and catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover.
Mark Twain
Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis
Funny Quotes for Sister
Congratulations on four years of pretending your third pick school was your first choice.
Unknown
Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.
Neil Gaiman
The fact that no one understands you doesn’t make you an artist.
Unknown
Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Unknown
A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We’d like to apply for a refund on your college education.
Unknown
So, what’s it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don’t recommend it.
Bill Watterson – Creator of Calvin and Hobbes comic strip
Tip: Use humorous graduation quotes for photo captions on Instagram and Facebook, in photo books, texts, emails, and more.
Funny Graduation Quotes
Don’t take life too seriously; nobody makes it out alive.
Elbert Hubbard
And if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.
Neil Gaiman
Tommy: Ya know, a lot of people go to college for ten years.
Richard: Yeah, they’re called doctors.
Tommy Boy (the movie)
The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.
Unknown
Friends and classmates are God’s way of apologizing for your relatives.
Unknown
A big shoutout to all of the sidewalks in our town. They kept me off the streets.
Unknown
I graduated, so now I’m like smart and stuff.
Unknown
Witty Graduation Sayings for Friends
Experience is the only school from which no one graduates.
Unknown
I would’ve gone to Hogwarts but my ACT score was too low.
Unknown
You can’t get to the top by sitting on your bottom.
Unknown
You know that point at your graduation ceremony where everyone tosses up their caps? Isn’t it great that we all celebrate how smart we are by throwing sharp pointy objects in the air?
Unknown
Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.
Napoleon Hill
To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe.
Anatole France
College Graduate Quotes
I can’t wait to hear your name horribly mispronounced at the graduation ceremony.
Unknown
Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.
Garry Trudeau
Without Google and Wikipedia, would we even be celebrating your graduation today?
Unknown
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers
Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.
John Green
I lost a bet because you graduated.
Unknown
We always knew you’d barely graduate.
Unknown
My dear terrified graduates, you are about to enter the most uncertain and thrilling period of your lives.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde
Funny Sayings for the Graduate
Worry is like a rocking chair — it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.
Erma Bombeck
The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.
Unknown
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Isaac Asimov
You’re going to fall down, but the world doesn’t care how many times you fall down as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up.
Aaron Sorkin
So long as your desire to explore is greater than your desire to not screw up, you’re on the right track.
Ed Helms
Lighthearted Quotes for the Graduate
When they hand you your diploma, keep moving. Just in case they try to take it back.
Unknown
Struggling to decide what to do after graduation is, and always will be, a sort of rite of passage to the next phase of your life.
Gloria Davidson
If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.
Frank A. Clark
If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.
Muhammad Ali
The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.
Will Rogers
To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too may one day be president of the United States.
George W. Bush
The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this: Don’t do it. I have been out there. It is a mess.
Russell Bake
Your families are extremely proud of you. You can’t imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money.
Gary Bolding
Now that you’ve graduated, just remember: Bosses don’t usually accept notes from your mother.
Melanie
The only place where success comes before work is the dictionary.
Vidal Sassoon
The road to success is always under construction.
Lily Tomlin
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
John Dewey
Funny Quotes About School
School is learning things you don’t want to know, surrounded by people you wish you didn’t know, while working toward a future you don’t know will ever come.
Dave Kellet
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Theodore Roosevelt
During a test, students look up for inspiration, down in desperation and left and right for information.
Unknown
If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.
Robert Goheen
As long as algebra is taught in school, there will be prayer in school.
Cokie Roberts
At graduation, you get to wear a cap and gown, but it’s a good idea to also wear something underneath it.
Greg Tamblyn
High School looks so much cooler on TV.
Unknown
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done: school and prison.
William Glasser
Student: Would you punish me for something I didn’t do?
Teacher: Well, of course not.
Student: I didn’t do my homework.
Group projects make me understand why Superman works alone.
Unknown
Of course, there’s a lot of knowledge in universities: The freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.
Lawrence Lowell
Inspirational Graduation Quotes
Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.
Malcolm X
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
E. E. Cummings
Your education is a dress rehearsal for a life that is yours to lead.
Nora Ephron
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
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
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
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
JK Rowling
Motivational Graduation Quotes
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We may live in an age of instant messaging, instant gratification and Instagram, but there is no way to short circuit the path to success.
Tory Burch
Now the first suggestion is to aim high, but be aware that even before you have reached your ultimate professional destination, if you always strive for excellence, you can and should have a substantial impact on the world in which you live.
Sandra Day O’Connor
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
Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.
Barack Obama
You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once, but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.
Michelle Obama
Short Graduation Quotes
There are no regrets in life. Just lessons.
Jennifer Aniston
Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.
Albert Einstein
Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life.
Frederick W. Robertson
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules.
Neil Gaiman
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is the founder and editor of Greeting Card Poet.
Encore
Hopefully, these selections might inspire you, your friends, and your family. They’re great for graduation, an educator or graduates. Check out these other graduation pages:
