In this post, we’ll read Dr. Seuss quotes, who was an American author and illustrator known for his children’s books.
Dr. Seuss, whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904–1991), used to write for the humor magazine in his college and later adopted the pen name “Dr. Seuss” (Seuss was his middle name and his mother’s maiden name) while working as a cartoonist and illustrator.
He published his first book in 1937 and became famous after writing “The Cat in the Hat” (1957). He later released popular books including “Green Eggs and Ham,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!,” “Horton Hears a Who!,” and “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
He is known for his whimsical characters, imaginative stories, and playful use of rhyme and language and his books often contain moral lessons and encouragement for children to use their imagination.
We have compiled the best inspiring Dr. Seuss quotes from his interviews as well as his books for kids, students and adults.
Let’s read Dr. Seuss quotes about life, love, friendship and more!
Inspiring Dr. Seuss Quotes
1. “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
2. “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
3. “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
4. “If we do not choose, we will end up with none.”
5. “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”
6. “It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.”
7. “Only you can control your future.”
8. “You can let is destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”
9. “Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re real quite lucky.”
10. “I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.”
11. “You’ll never be bored when you try something new. There’s really no limit to what you can do.”
12. “Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you.”
13. “Sometimes you will never know the value of something,until it becomes a memory.”
14. “There’s no limit to how much you’ll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.”
15. “To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”
16. “I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”
17. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Life
1. “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”
2. “Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong send of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”
3. “Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.”
4. “Life’s too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, forgive the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it’d be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Being Different
1. “You have to be odd to be number one.”
2. “You are you. Now, isn’t that pleasant?”
3. “Not one of them is like another. Don’t ask us why. Go ask your mother.”
4. “The people that mind don’t matter, and the people that matter don’t mind.”
5. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
6. “Being crazy isn’t enough.”
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Love
1. “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
2. “I am weird, you are weird. Everyone in this world is weird. One day two people come together in mutual weirdness and fall in love.”
3. “Cause when a guy does something stupid once, well that’s because he’s a guy. But if he does the same stupid thing twice, that’s usually to impress some girl.”
Dr. Seuss Quotes for Adults
1. “Adults are obsolete children.”
2. “Everything stinks till it’s finished.”
3. “You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.”
4. “When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really played.”
5. “He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
6. “All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot!”
7. “Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‘You can do better than this.’
8. “But you have to be smart and keep watching their feet. Because sometimes they stand on their tiptoes and cheat.”
9. “If you’d never been born, then you might be an Isn’t! An Isn’t has no fun at all. No, he disn’t.”
10. “Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered.”
11. “When you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”
12. “I love my job. I love the pay! I love it more and more each day. I love my boss, he is the best! I love his boss and all the rest. I love my office and its location. I hate to have to go on vacation. I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day! I think my job is swell, there’s nothing else I love so well. I love to work among my peers, I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers. I love my computer and its software; I hug it often though it won’t care. I love each program and every file, I’d love them more if they worked a while. I’m happy to be here. I am. I am. I’m the happiest slave of the Firm, I am. I love this work. I love these chores. I love the meetings with deadly bores. I love my job – I’ll say it again – I even love those friendly men. Those friendly men who’ve come today, in clean white coats to take me away!”
Inspirational Dr. Seuss Quotes for Students & Graduation
1. “And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!”
2. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
3. “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
4. “You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!”
5. “If things start happening, don’t worry, don’t stew, just go right along and you’ll start happening too.”
6. “I’m afraid that sometimes you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.”
7. “When you think things are bad, when you feel sour and blue, when you start to get mad…you should do what I do! Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky! Some people are much more… oh, ever so much more… oh, muchly much-much more unlucky than you!”
8. “You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.”
9. “I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny, but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.”
10. “You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.”
11. “With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.”
12. “Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you’ve ever imagined.”
13. “Thank goodness for all the things you are not, thank goodness you’re not something someone forgot, and left all alone in some punkerish place, like a rusty tin coat hanger hanging in space.”
Dr. Seuss Quotes for Kids
1. “Kid, you’ll move mountains.”
2. “Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted.”
3. “Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know, go ask your dad.”
4. “From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
5. “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent!”
6. “From east of the East-est to west of the West-est we’ve searched the whole world just to bring you the best-est.”
7. “It’s your Day of all Days! It’s the Best of the Best! So don’t waste a minute! Hop to it! Get dressed!”
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Memories
1. “Remember me and smile, for it’s better to forget than to remember me and cry.”
2. “I’m glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.”
3. “They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”
4. “How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Friendship
1. “Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend.”
2. ″‘I’ll find it!’ cried Horton. ‘I’ll find it or bust! I SHALL find my friends on my small speck of dust!‘”
3. “Nothing is going to change, unless someone does something soon.”
4. “I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re one of my friends. My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!”
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Reading & Learning
1. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.”
2. “I can read in red. I can read in blue. I can read in pickle color too.”
3. “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
4. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
5. “You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”
6. “It is better to know how to learn than to know.”
7. “You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.”
8. “Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”
9. “Be awesome! Be a book nut!”
10. “I stay out of politics because if I begin thinking too much about politics, I’ll probably… drop writing children’s books and become a political cartoonist again.”
11. “Sometimes, when I see my granddaughters make small discoveries of their own, I wish I was a child.”
Dr. Seuss Quotes about Change
1. “So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”
2. “You ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond Z and start poking around ”
3. “Never budge! That’s my rule. Never budge in the least! Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east! I’ll stay here, not budging! I can and I will if it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”
4. “They’ve proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the Smallest of All!”
5. “And you very small persons will not have to die if you make yourselves heard! *So come one, now, and TRY!*”
Funny Dr. Seuss Quotes
1. “I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.”
2. “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”
3. “ASAP. Whatever that means. It must mean, ‘Act swiftly awesome pacyderm!”
4. “One fish two fish red fish blue fish!”
5. “Teeth are always in style.”
6. “Just go. Go. Go! I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow.”
7. “And that is a story that no one can beat, When I say that I saw it on Mulberry Street.”
8. “I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”
9. “When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles……they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle.”
Dr. Seuss Short Quotes
1. “Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky.”
2. “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”
3. “Only you can control your future.”
4. “I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”
5. “Think and wonder, wonder and think.”
6. “You make ’em, I amuse ’em.”
7. “Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.”
8. “Fun is good.”
9. “My trouble was I had a mind but I couldn’t make it up!”
10. “For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests.”
11. “If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn’t show up.”
12. “If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”
13. “Poor empty pants with nobody inside them.”
14. “It’s high time you were shown that you really don’t know. All there is to be known.”
15. “Things are not quite as bad as you think.”
16. “A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.”
17. “I felt a great leaping of joy in my heart.”
18. “And I wish I could do All these great things for you!”
19. “The sun gets up. So up with you!”
20. “Oh the things you can find, if you don’t stay behind!”
21. “Take every chance, drop every fear.”
22. “Simple it’s not, I am afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.”
These Dr. Seuss quotes reflect his unique writing style as well his wisdom behind the wit and humor as his creative and engaging stories continue to captivate and inspire kids and adults alike.
Several of his books have been adapted into animated television specials, films, and Broadway musicals and he has received numerous awards for his works including two Academy Awards.
Dr. Seuss is one of the most beloved and influential children’s authors that had the ability to entertain while teaching important life lessons.
Which of these Dr. Seuss quotes is your favorite?
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