My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out.
You must realize that honorary degrees are given generally to people whose SAT scores were too low to get them into schools the regular way. As a matter of fact, it was my SAT scores that led me into my present vocation in life, comedy.
Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
There is just one life for each of us: our own.
The things that make me different are the things that make me.
In the game of life, when the final buzzer sounds, the only stat you carry with you is the number of assists you made.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.
Don't be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self.
Because as tough as things have been, I am convinced you are tougher. I've seen your passion and I've seen your service. . . I've seen a generation eager - impatient even - to step into the rushing waters of history and change its course.
The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; if is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment from which forms the secret of civilization.
pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower!
After we graduate tonight, we no longer have to let society happen to us. We get to create our own.
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
We all go through life bristling at our external limitations, but the most difficult chains to break are inside us.
It is likely that human beings will find fulfillment and will be rewarded for the same qualities that they have been rewarded for for 5,000 years. And that is intelligence, hard work, honesty, a sense of character, loyalty to family and friends, and above all, love and faith. If you are trying to decide what you should do, those are the things you should do. And you know it.
And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be-eagles, not chickens.
For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.
My first class is biology. I can't find it and get my first demerit for wandering the hall. It is 8:50 in the morning. Only 699 days and 7 class periods until graduation.