Our 100 Favorite Dr. Seuss Quotes

Our favorite Dr. Seuss Quotes

March 2nd is the birthday of the famous Theodor Seuss Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss. You may have grown up having readathons at school to celebrate his birthday, and around here, we love any excuse to party! So, we’ve gathered 100 of the best Dr. Seuss quotes for any and every occasion. Use these in a birthday card, for a graduation, in a silly text to a friend, or just to brighten your day! Sit back and enjoy some quotes from one of America’s most famous children’s book authors.

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100 Perfect Dr. Seuss Quotes

One hundred quotes make for quite the list to scroll through. But as we were putting this list together, we struggled to categorize them in any certain way. You can find lots of posts out there with Dr. Seuss quotes organized by funny, inspirational, etc.—but the thing we love about Dr. Seuss and his books is the surprise twists and turns!

So rather than organizing these into categories, we’ve mixed them up all topsy-turvy and bopsy-burvy (OK, fine, we’re not Dr. Seuss), so you can read through them one by one, or just scroll until you find one that stands out to you!

And don’t worry; we’ve still got plenty of Dr. Seuss graduation quotes, Dr. Seuss quotes about life, and Dr. Seuss sayings so you can find exactly what you’re searching for. We’ve even linked some awesome or funny gifts that would go perfectly with some of the quotes. Use them to create unique graduation, birthday, or just-because gifts.

You may be surprised by what you find if only you look …

1. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

2. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot. Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

3. “It’s better to know how to learn than to know.”

4. “From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”

5. “Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend.”

6. “You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”

7. “Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.”

8. “Take every chance, drop every fear.”

9. “You are you. Now isn’t that pleasant?”

10.  “I sort of got thinking—it’s sort of a shame that scrambled eggs always taste always the same.”

11. “You have to be odd to be number one.”

12. “You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them! And you may!”

13.  “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.”

14. “My trouble was I had a mind, but I couldn’t make it up!”

15. “I’m afraid that sometimes you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.”

16. “What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

17. “You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.”

18. “Think and wonder. Wonder and think.”

19. “Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

20. “Today, I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.”

21. “Only you can control your future.”

22. “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”

23. “I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

24. “ASAP. Whatever that means. It must mean, ‘Act swiftly awesome pachyderm!’”

25. “It’s not about what it is. It’s about what it can become.”

26. “And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you’ll move mountains.”

27. “All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot!”

28. “It’s a troublesome world. All the people who are in it are troubled with troubles almost every minute. You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot, for the places and people you’re lucky you’re not.”

29. “Congratulations! Today is your day!”

30. “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

31. “They say I’m old-fashioned and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”

32. “I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.”

33. “Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets.”

34. “Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.”

35. “Poor empty pants with nobody inside them.”

36. “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

37. “I know, up on top, you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom, we, too, should have rights.”

38. “You’ll never be bored when you try something new. There’s really no limit to what you can do.”

39. “You know when you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

40. “So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life is a great balancing act.”

41. “You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.”

42. “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.”

43. “There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.”

44. “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.”

45. “And the turtles, of course…all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

46. “If you’d never been born, then you might be an Isn’t! An Isn’t has no fun at all. No, he didn’t!”

47. “We are all a little weird, and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

48. “I’m sorry to say so, but sadly, it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.”

49. “Being crazy isn’t enough.”

50. “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

51. “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

52. “I don’t care how you go. Just get.”

53. “It all began with a shoe on the wall. A shoe on the wall shouldn’t be there at all.”

54. “In the places I go, there are things that I see that I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.”

55. “Remember me and smile, for it’s better to forget than to remember me and cry.”

56. “‘Tut tut!’ said the doctor. ‘Such talk! How absurd! Your tail is just right for your kind of bird.’”

57. “So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”

58. “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

59. “Simple it’s not, I am afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.”

60. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

61. “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”

62. “If things start happening, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along, and you’ll start happening too.”

63. “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.”

64. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax; all you need is a book.”

65.  “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”

66. “When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really played.”

67. “Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky.”

68. “You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.”

69. “And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall, we cannot pick it up. There is no way at all!” 

70. “If we do not choose, we will end up with none.”

71. “If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.”

72. “The storm starts when the drops start dropping. When the drops stop dropping, then the storm starts stopping.”

73. “I was saving the name of ‘Geisel’ for the Great American Novel.”

74. “Sometimes, when I see my granddaughters make small discoveries of their own, I wish I were a child.”

75. “The main problem with writing in verse is if your fourth line doesn’t come out right, you’ve got to throw four lines away and figure out a whole new way to attack the problem. So the mortality rate is terrific.”

76. “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

77. “Reading can take you places you have never been before.”

78. “To the world, you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world.”

79. “You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.”

80. “Fill your house with stacks of books in all the crannies and all the nooks.”

81. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

82. “Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.”

83. “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

84. “He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

85. “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

86. “Preachers in pulpits talked about what a great message is in the book. No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.”

87. “Adults are obsolete children.”

88. “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads.”

89. “When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”

90. “Christmas Day will always be just as long as we have we.”

91. “Some people are much more … oh, ever so much more … oh, muchly much-much more unlucky than you!”

92. “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.”

93. “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW! It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”

94. “You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.”

95. “Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!”

96. “Be awesome! Be a book nut!”

97. “Every once in a while, I get mad. ‘The Lorax’ came out of my being angry. The ecology books I’d read were dull … In ‘The Lorax,’ I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might.”

98. “It’s opener there in the wide open air.”

99. “Sometimes the questions are complicated, and the answers are simple.”

100. “You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way!”

More Dr. Seuss Fun

Whew! Did you make it through the whole list? Hopefully, you found some great Dr. Seuss graduation quotes, Dr. Seuss sayings, or just some Dr. Seuss quotes about life that is perfect for whatever you need.

If you loved this, check out some Dr. Seuss Books or this cute Stuffed Cat in the Hat with Thing 1 and Thing 2.

You could also use these quotes to throw your own Dr. Seuss Birthday Party or check out these Ideas to Celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday. Or, grab your sweetheart and try our Green Eggs and Ham Date.

Lastly, if you liked this post, be sure to check out our Bookstore Date and our 125 Books to Read. Just make sure you follow Dr. Seuss’s best advice and go pick up a book!