Valedictory Speech Quotes AP Literature

Quotes from Famous People

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

The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after. ~Newton D. Baker

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. ~Confucius

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. ~Albert Einstein

You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it. ~John Updike

We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. ~Author Unknown

Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. ~Art Linkletter

Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude. ~Ralph Marston

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

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~E.E. Cummings

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. ~Edmund Hillary

The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions. ~Bishop Mandell Creighton

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. ~Sydney J. Harris

The best helping hand that you will ever receive is the one at the end of your own arm. ~Fred Dehner

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ~Henry Ford

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these. ~Susan B. Anthony

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. ~John Wooden

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” ~Aristotle

"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

"Go for it now. The future is promised to no one." ~Wayne Dyer

Movie Quotes

"Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it's everything in between that makes it all worth living." - Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats

"I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw. I'm scared of what I did, of who I am. And most of all... I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life, the way I feel when I'm with you." - "Baby" in Dirty Dancing

“This picture takes place in Paris in those wonderful days when a siren was a brunette and not an alarm --- and if a Frenchman turned out the light, it was not on account of an air raid!”-Ninotchka (1939)

"Greetings, my friends! We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friends; future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable; that is why you are here. And now for the first time we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that faithful day. We are giving you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimonies of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places, my friends, we can not keep this a secret any longer; let us punish the guilty, let us reward the innocent. My friends, can your heart stand the shocking facts about the grave robbers from outer space?"-Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

"There's an old joke: Two elderly women are at a Catskill Mountain resort. And one of 'em says: 'Boy, the food in this place is really terrible.' The other one says: 'Yeah, I know. And such small portions.' Well, that's essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.” -Annie Hall (1977)

"You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the river bank. It's quiet; it's peaceful. And all of a sudden, it's a gear shift inside you. And it's like taking a deep breath and going... 'Oh yeah, I forgot about this'."-An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

“We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly. Human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love, that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.”-Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

“I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.” -The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

"My college experience wasn't what I had planned. It bore no resemblance to the pictures in the brochure. But I'm not unhappy. I don't think any of us are. We got what we needed out of it. It's kind of like when you go on vacation. You plan everything out but then one day you make a wrong turn or take a detour and you end up in some crazy place you can't even find on the map, doing something you never thought you'd do. Maybe you feel a little lost while it's happening, but later you realize it was the best part of the whole trip.” -Threesome (1994)

"Some people are born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people dance.” -The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)