Everything I Ever Needed to Know about College I Learned from Harry Potter

When choosing partners for projects:

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.
--Arthur Weasley

When facing deadlines:

It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. --Narrator

When your class load is driving you insane:

Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world. –Ron Weasley

When choosing roommates:

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. –Sirius Black

When you are down and feeling lonely:

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. --Albus Dumbledore

When you need some fresh ideas for assignments:

Nothing like a nighttime stroll (with a friend or a can of pepper spray) to give you ideas. –Mad Eye Moody

When you get the professor from hell:

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. –Albus Dumbledore

We must try not to sink beneath our anguish but battle on. –Albus Dumbledore

Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth. –Albus Dumbledore

When dealing with roommate issues:

There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other. --Albus Dumbledore

The best of us must sometimes eat our words. –Albus Dumbledore

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. –Albus Dumbledore

If you're holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time. –Albus Dumbledore

It is my belief... that the truth is generally preferable to lies. –Albus Dumbledore

When times are hard, remember family is always there:

NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH! –Molly Weasley (best line EVER!)

When meeting new and diverse types of people:

Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open. –Albus Dumbledore

When you are feeling the pressure and wonder if you can really do it:

You place too much importance... on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be! –Albus Dumbldore

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." –Albus Dumbledore

What's comin' will come and we'll meet it when it does. –Hagrid

You sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve. – Ginny Weasley

When you get a great professor:

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof. –Harry’s thoughts about Firenze.

The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by an invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing. –Severus Snape

When facing an obstacle you feel is overwhelming:

It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world. –Harry Potter

by Sarah Garrity