Top 10 Funny Graduation Quotes

Humor and Levity for Commencement Cards and Ceremonies

"An investment in knowledge
always pays the best interest."
Benjamin Franklin
(1706 - 1790)

Commencement Quips

As eager high school and college seniors don mortarboard caps and glossy gowns for their parades across commencement podiums, families and friends seek memorable comments to enclose with graduation greetings, gifts, gift cards and other mementos.

What are the top ten funny graduation quotes? Here are our favorite commencement quips:

"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
(1927 - 1996)

A beloved American humorist, Erma Bombeck faithfully offered comic relief on practical topics, particularly parenting.

In this graduation quote, Bombeck points to mothers and fathers of graduates. As young adults embark upon life after schooling, parents may find their own roles changing dramatically.

Hopefully, their graduating offspring will soon be transformed from dependents to independent adults. If this occurs, these young adults will become employed, thus working their parents out of a job (as parents).

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
(1858 - 1919)

Teddy Roosevelt was the 26^thPresident of the United States. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, known for "speaking softly and carrying a big stick," was widely respected worldwide for diplomacy, leadership and conservationism.

In this graduation quote, Roosevelt satirically highlighted the power of an education. According to Roosevelt, an individual with training and schooling may carve out a more powerful professional position than one without. Still, the quipping President tinged this truth with the possibility that even a quality education may not dictate true human values and integrity.

"A professor is someone
who talks in someone else's sleep."
W.H.Auden
(1907 - 1973)