Graduation is a strange mix of accomplishment, relief to finally be done with those last exams and that slightly terrifying feeling of “what happens now?”
And sure, there are also plenty of inspirational speeches, teary-eyed parents and relatives and fun parties. But sometimes during this intense period, you just need a few good laughs to relieve some of the stress and overwhelming emotions.
So in today’s post I want to share 83 of the wittiest and often insightful funny graduation quotes.
Use one or a few of them for a card, social media captions on for example Instagram or simply to have a good laugh with friends and loved ones during the celebrations and bitter sweet moments in between it all.
Funny Graduation Quotes for a Son, Daughter or a Best Friend
“If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.”
– Muhammad Ali
“My dear terrified graduates, you are about to enter the most uncertain and thrilling period of your lives. The stories you are about to live are the ones you will be telling your children, and grandchildren, and therapists.”
– Lin-Manuel Miranda
“Don’t be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I’ve had four careers and three husbands.”
– Nora Ephron
“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
“Travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.”
– George Saunders
“Parents, write this down: Many of you haven’t seen your children in four years. Now you are about to see them every day when they come out of the basement to tell you the WiFi isn’t working.”
– Conan O’Brien
“The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.”
– Sarah Brown
“You may feel some creative energy coursing through your body. Don’t ignore it. If you feel the urge to create and discover and to do something that will bring you fulfillment and happiness, do it now while you’re young. You will never have more energy or enthusiasm, hair, or brain cells than you have today.”
– Ray Magliozzi
“A good rule to remember for life is that when it comes to plastic surgery and sushi, never be attracted by a bargain.”
– Graham Norton
“Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself.”
– Mark Cooper
“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 numbers of times you get back up.”
– Aaron Sorkin
“Most of your post-college life is simply filling out forms. Car insurance, health insurance, W-2s. W-4s, 1099s. Guess what? None of us know what any of those forms mean, but you will fill out a hundred of them before you die.”
– Mindy Kaling
“Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Life is tough, but it’s a whole lot tougher if you’re stupid.”
– John Wayne
“When I was your age, we didn’t have the internet in our pants. We didn’t even have the internet not in our pants. That’s how bad it was.”
– Dick Costolo
“Just because you’re trash doesn’t mean you can’t do great things. It’s called garbage can, not garbage cannot.”
– Unknown
“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
“You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.”
– Bette Reese
“Education is a progressive discovery of your own ignorance.”
– Will Durant
“Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!”
– Louisa May Alcott
Funny Graduation Quotes for High School Seniors
“This is a great, great day for you. Except for those of you leaving college with any student loan debt. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m sorry. I hope you win the lottery. I don’t know what to tell you about that.”
– Maya Rudolph
“To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.”
– A. A. Milne
“Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle.”
– Robert Anthony
“Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.”
– John Green
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
– Albert Einstein
“Now that you’ve graduated, just remember: Bosses don’t usually accept notes from your mother.”
– Melanie White
“One of the most important things, especially when you’re leaving school, is to realize you’re going to be dealing with a lot of idiots. And a lot of those idiots are in charge of things, so if you’re in an interview and you really want to tell the person off, don’t do it.”
– Lewis Black
“Remember, when it comes to applying for jobs, books are judged by their cover!”
– Patricia Akins
“Minds are like parachutes – they only function when open.”
– Thomas Dewar
“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
“Goodbye everyone. I’ll remember you in therapy.”
– Unknown
“If at first you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.”
– Harry Banks
“I think sleeping was my problem in school. If school had started at 4:00 in the afternoon, I’d be a college graduate today.”
– George Foreman
“To those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honors, awards and distinctions, I say, ‘Well done.’ And as I like to tell the C students: You too, can be president.”
– George W. Bush
“Don’t give up on your dreams. Keep sleeping.”
– Unknown
“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
“The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate.”
– Doug Larson
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
– Dumbledore (from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
“If our ancestors didn’t feel fear, the whole species probably would have been trampled by mammoths a long time ago. But if they never examined their fears – no delicious mammoth-burgers. And so, success lies in the tension between fear and discovery.”
– Ed Helms
“So, what’s it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don’t recommend it.”
– Bill Watterson
Funny Graduation Quotes for University Students
“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
“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
“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.”
– Gary Trudeau
“Each year at graduation, I am obliged to offer a few ‘brief remarks,’ which are usually not as brief as they should be.”
– James E. Ryan
“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
“Congratulations on four years of pretending your third pick school was your first choice.”
– Unknown
“The unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective.”
– Jon Stewart
“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
“If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.”
– Robert F. Goheen
“I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back.”
– Fred Allen
“Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After 22 years of child-raising, they are unemployed.”
– Erma Bombeck
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
– Mark Twain
“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
“Maybe you want to make a difference by serving in government. Maybe you want to launch your own television show. Or maybe you simply want to collect some change. Your parents would appreciate that about now.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“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 Baker
“There’s a saying that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. At Apple, I learned that’s a total crock. You’ll work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands.”
– Tim Cook
“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
“And to get real work experience, you need a job, and most jobs will require you to have had either real work experience or a graduate degree.”
– Donald Norman
“I can’t wait to hear your name horribly mispronounced at the graduation ceremony.”
– Unknown
“It doesn’t matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping.”
– Jerry Zucker
“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
– Isaac Asimov
Short and Funny Graduation Quotes
“When they hand you your diploma, keep moving. Just in case they try to take it back.”
– Unknown
“At graduation you get to wear a cap and gown, but it’s a good idea to also wear something underneath it.”
– Greg Tamblyn
“So long as your desire to explore is greater than your desire to not screw up, you’re on the right track.”
– Ed Helms
“Dance like nobody’s watching, because they are not, they are all checking their phones.”
– Unknown
“I couldn’t wait for success. I went ahead without it.”
– Jonathan Winters
“I’ve already forgotten everything.”
– Unknown
“Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.”
– Al Bernstein
“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“If at first you don’t succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.”
– William Lyon Phelps
“This man used to go to school with his dog. Then they were separated. His dog graduated!”
– Henny Youngman
“Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.”
– Napoleon Hill
“Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.”
– Erma Bombeck
“Remember, half the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class.”
– Al McGuire
“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”
– Frank A. Clark
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
– Vidal Sassoon
“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
“Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”
– Erma Bombeck
“You aren’t doing it wrong if no one knows what you’re doing.”
– Unknown
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
– Oscar Wilde
“The road to success is always under construction.”
– Lily Tomlin
“Well, I’m not usually one for speeches. So, goodbye.”
– Ron Swanson (from the TV-show Parks and Recreations)
Want more inspiration for graduation season and the summer? Then have a look at these short graduation quotes, this post with inspirational graduation quotes and the inspirational June quotes here. Plus, the inspirational summer quotes in this post and also this one with plenty of funny summer quotes.