Honorary Doctorate Quotes

Don't be afraid to make an ass of yourself. I do it all the time, and look what I got." (Spoken at a graduation ceremony while holding aloft an honorary doctoral degree from McGill University)

If there were honorary degrees for assholes, he’d be a doctor of everything,” Lily said.

I have to think of all the possibilities, doctor. Even a crime of passion is possible.’ ‘Passion?’ the doctor smiled. ‘I am an Englishman.

The president, the secretary of state, the businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty—to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps—medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens—multitaskers—system hackers—who never know where they’re heading--northward, backward, eastward, forward, and never homeward—(where is home)—home is in the head—(but the head is cut off)—and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them how to bankrupt creativity.

Woolf turned her back on a number of tokens of her rising eminence in the 1930s, including an offer of the Companion of Honour award, an invitation from Cambridge University to give the Clark lectures, and honorary doctorate degrees from Manchester University and Liverpool University. ‘It is an utterly corrupt society,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘. . . & I will take nothing that it can give me

I thought he was in love with me,” Nancy said petulantly. “I truly did.” Jane let out an exasperated breath. “You knew he’d been disinherited. Didn’t that give you some pause?” “Yes, but…well…he told me it was all that girl’s fault. That she’d let him on and spun a tale to deceive his father and---” She grimaced. “I suppose that was all lies.” “To say the least,” Dom muttered. More and more, he began to see why Jane had defended the woman. Because she realized just how dim-witted her cousin could be about men. “You said you went to York to see a doctor about the baby,” Jane propped. “Why not just use the doctor you’ve always used?” He had to admit that Jane was rather good at the interrogation part. Perhaps the “honorary Duke’s Man” thing wasn’t so far-fetched after all. Nancy thrust out her chin. “He would have gone straight to Dom with the news. I wanted…someone unrelated to the family.” Jane’s eyes narrowed on her. “But why not ask me to take you before I left? I can see why you didn’t want to involve Dom, given the sticky nature of the situation, but I wouldn’t have told him, and I could probably have found you a doctor.” “Yes, but…well…” “You also wanted to see Samuel,” Dom said cynically. “And you could hardly do that with Jane around to disapprove.” Nancy shrugged feebly. “I figured I would already be in York to see a doctor, anyway. And Samuel had asked me to marry him. What would be the harm in it?” Jane glanced at Dom and rolled her eyes heavenward. It made him wonder how often she’d had to deal with such nonsense from her cousin in the past.

It is ironic how universities make their students slog for years for a degree, but often award honorary doctorates to those who succeed by doing the exact opposite of what the education system teaches

He wanted to take me to the Nacional, but he’s much too drunk for the Nacional – or even my hotel. Now we’ve got to get him home somehow, but he insists on going to see Señora Sanchez.’ ‘A friend of his?’ ‘Of half the men in this town. She runs the only good brothel here – or so they say. I’m not a good judge of that kind of thing myself.’ ‘Surely they are illegal,’ said Doctor Plarr. ‘Not in this city. We are a military headquarters – don’t forget that. The military don’t allow anyone in B.A. to dictate to them here.’ ‘Why not let him go?’ ‘You can see why – he can’t stand up.’ ‘Surely the point of a brothel is that one can lie down?’ ‘Something has to stand up,’ Doctor Humphries said with unexpected coarseness and an expression of distaste.

unburden himself was Mario Foligni, self-styled Count of San Francisco with an honorary doctorate in Theology.

The University of Breslau notified Johannes Brahms that he would receive an honorary doctorate in philosophy. Though he originally planned to write a handwritten note of acknowledgment, a friend convinced him protocol required him to write a musical offering. Thus, he wrote Academic Festival Overture, an irreverent compilation of student drinking songs.

The self or ego is like an honorary diploma. It may hold the title of master or doctorate but it is in fact weightless and is actually “doctored” perception and a “master” of disguise, nothing more.

Doctor, as in “an apple a day”? Or one of those guys who’s got an honorary title for staying in college too long?

General Abdulatty Kofta (Al Araby, 2021). [quoter’s note: a “kofta” is an Egyptian meatball basically] In February 2014, the general announced that the military had invented a device that could cure both Hepatitis C and H.I.V. The proposed cure was a medical device that could detect and destroy the virus, almost instantly. General Abdulatty stated that he would extract the virus from the patient, and give it back to him as a piece of Kofta, which the patient could eat. Even though there was no scientific evidence to support these claims, the pro-regime media pushed the narrative to new heights (El Dashan, 2014), even after the scientific advisor to the interim President Adly Mansour, Essam Hegy, was extremely critical of the announcement due to its lack of scientific merit (Abdelaziz and Abedine, 2014). The military even announced that the miracle cure would be available in military hospitals and clinics starting from July 2014, only to backtrack a month before that date (Loveluck, 2014). It was later established that General Abdulatty was not a medical professional nor a scientist, and that he was previously sentenced to one month in jail in 2007 for impersonating a doctor and practising without a license (Al Araby, 2021). His connection to the military was also questionable. Abdulatty was granted the rank of honorary general after after the head of the engineering authority became attracted to the general’s ideas, in spite of having no formal affiliation with the military establishment (Armbrust, 2019, p. 229). How Abdulatty was able to convince the military brass to support his bizarre claim to have found a miracle cure remain so a mystery, but it is indicative of the level of prevalent polarisation that a charlatan was able to spin such a ridiculous state-sponsored lie that a large number of Egyptians believed.” Chapter “Genesis”, Page 37