Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American children’s author and cartoonist. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes many of the most popular children’s books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.
Geisel adopted the name “Dr. Seuss” as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and as a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. He left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life, and various other publications. He also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, including for FLIT and Standard Oil, and as a political cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM. He published his first children’s book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1937. During World War II, he took a brief hiatus from children’s literature to illustrate political cartoons, and he worked in the animation and film department of the United States Army.
After the war, Geisel returned to writing children’s books, writing acclaimed works such as If I Ran the Zoo (1950), and Horton Hears a Who! (1955), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960), The Sneetches and Other Stories (1961), The Lorax (1971), The Butter Battle Book (1984), and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990). He published over 60 books during his career, which have spawned numerous adaptations, including eleven television specials, five feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series.
He received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Children’s Special for Halloween Is Grinch Night (1978) and Outstanding Animated Program for The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (1982). In 1984, he won a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. His birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative focused on reading created by the National Education Association.
Dr. Seuss Quotes
1. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
— Dr. Seuss
2. “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
— Dr. Seuss
3. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
— Dr. Seuss
4. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
— Dr. Seuss
5. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.”
— Dr. Seuss
6. “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.”
— Dr. Seuss
7. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
— Dr. Seuss
8. “Because when you stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing.”
— Dr. Seuss
9. “You have to be odd to be number one.”
— Dr. Seuss
10. “Reading can take you places you have never been before.”
— Dr. Seuss
11. “Kid, you’ll move mountains.”
— Dr. Seuss
12. “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
13. “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
— Dr. Seuss
14. “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”
— Dr. Seuss
15. “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”
— Dr. Seuss
16. “Today is your day, your mountain is waiting. So get on your way.”
— Dr. Seuss
17. “You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.”
— Dr. Seuss
18. “He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
— Dr. Seuss
19. “Remember me and smile, for it’s better to forget than to remember me and cry.”
— Dr. Seuss
20. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.”
— Dr. Seuss
21. “It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.”
— Dr. Seuss
22. “Congratulations! Today is your day!”
— Dr. Seuss
23. “People who mind don’t matter. But people who matter don’t mind.”
— Dr. Seuss
24. “Being crazy isn’t enough.”
— Dr. Seuss
25. “A life with love will have some thorns, but a life without love will have no roses. To the world, you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”
— Dr. Seuss
26. “Only you can control your future.”
— Dr. Seuss
27. “Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.”
— Dr. Seuss
28. “Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.”
— Dr. Seuss
29. “Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! 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 winningest winner of all.”
— Dr. Seuss
30. “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.”
— Dr. Seuss
31. “Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!”
— Dr. Seuss
32. “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.”
— Dr. Seuss
33. “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!”
— Dr. Seuss
34. “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 flown. How did it get so late so soon?”
— Dr. Seuss
35. “The Lorax: Which way does a tree fall? The Once-ler: Uh, down? The Lorax: A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.”
— Dr. Seuss
36. “Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”
— Dr. Seuss
37. “I’m afraid that sometimes you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.”
— Dr. Seuss
38. “Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!”
— Dr. Seuss
39. “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
— Dr. Seuss
40. “Read. Travel. Read. Ask. Read. Learn. Read. Connect. Read.”
— Dr. Seuss
41. “If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”
— Dr. Seuss
42. “It is better to know how to learn than to know.”
— Dr. Seuss
43. “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
— Dr. Seuss
44. “Don’t live to please everyone. Embrace those who enjoy your company and to hell with the haters.”
— Dr. Seuss
45. “Step with care and great tact. And remember life’s a great balancing act.”
— Dr. Seuss
46. “And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!”
— Dr. Seuss
47. “Don’t give up! I believe in you all. A person’s a person, no matter how small! And you very small persons will not have to die If you make yourselves heard! So come on, now, and TRY!”
— Dr. Seuss
48. “I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”
— Dr. Seuss
49. “All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot!”
— Dr. Seuss
50. “You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.”
— Dr. Seuss
51. “Don’t conform for the sake of pleasing others. Mold yourself into the person that you want to be.”
— Dr. Seuss
52. “It’s opener, out there, in the wide, open air.”
— Dr. Seuss
53. “Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.”
— Dr. Seuss
54. “Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted.”
— Dr. Seuss
55. “If you want to catch beasts you don’t see every day, You have to go places quite out of the way, You have to go places no others can get to. You have to get cold and you have to get wet, too.”
— Dr. Seuss
56. “I know it may seem small and insignificant, but it’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become. That’s not a seed, any more than you’re just a boy.”
— Dr. Seuss
57. “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”
— Dr. Seuss
58. “It is fun to have fun.”
— Dr. Seuss
59. “Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky.”
— Dr. Seuss
60. “Out there things can happen and frequently do, To people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, don’t worry, don’t stew. Just go right along, you’ll start happening too!”
— Dr. Seuss
61. “When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really PLAYED.”
— Dr. Seuss
62. “Think! Think and wonder. Wonder and think. How much water can 55 elephants drink?”
— Dr. Seuss
63. “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW! It is fun to have fun But you have to know how.”
— Dr. Seuss
64. “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.”
— Dr. Seuss
65. “Nothing is going to change unless someone does something soon.”
— Dr. Seuss
66. “And when you’re alone there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.”
— Dr. Seuss
67. “Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. Oh! The places you’ll go!”
— Dr. Seuss
68. “Teeth are always in style.”
— Dr. Seuss
69. “Sleep is like the unicorn – it is rumored to exist, but I doubt I will see any.”
— Dr. Seuss
70. “You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…”
— Dr. Seuss
71. “Everything stinks till it’s finished.”
— Dr. Seuss
72. “The Sneetches got really quite smart on that day. The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches. And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether they had one, or not, upon thars.”
— Dr. Seuss
73. “If you want to get things you can’t buy in a store, you have to do things never thought of before.”
— Dr. Seuss
74. “So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact.”
— Dr. Seuss
75. “When you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”
— Dr. Seuss
76. “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
77. “Oh, what a day. I will make it a holiday.”
— Dr. Seuss
78. “Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind maker-upper to make up his mind.”
— Dr. Seuss
79. “Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‘You can do better than this.’”
— Dr. Seuss
80. “We’ve taught you that the earth is round, That red and white make pink, And something else that matters more – We’ve taught you how to think.”
— Dr. Seuss
81. “There’s no limit to how much you’ll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.”
— Dr. Seuss
82. “In the places I go there are things that I see that I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.”
— Dr. Seuss
83. “I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”
— Dr. Seuss
84. “My shoe is off. My foot is cold. I have a bird I like to hold.”
— Dr. Seuss
85. “Gray day. Everything is gray. I watch. But nothing moves today.”
— Dr. Seuss
86. “Think and wonder, wonder and think.”
— Dr. Seuss
87. “Did you ever fly a kite in bed? Did you ever walk with ten cats on your head? Did you ever milk this kind of cow? Well, we can do it. We know how. If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”
— Dr. Seuss
88. “Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you.”
— Dr. Seuss
89. “Be awesome! Be a book nut!”
— Dr. Seuss
90. “Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.”
— Dr. Seuss
91. “People are weird. When we find someone with weirdness that is compatible with ours, we team up and call it love.”
— Dr. Seuss
92. “The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote: stink. Stank. Stunk.”
— Dr. Seuss
93. “I still climb Mount Everest just as often as I used to. I play polo just as often as I used to. But to walk down to the hardware store I find a little bit more difficult.”
— Dr. Seuss
94. “Oh, the places you will go.”
— Dr. Seuss
95. “You have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.”
— Dr. Seuss
96. “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.”
— Dr. Seuss
97. “In my world, everyone’s a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”
— Dr. Seuss
98. “I box in yellow Gox box socks.”
— Dr. Seuss
99. “If I went in debt a million dollars every time I committed genocide, I’d be our economy.”
— Dr. Seuss
100. “Got something new, maybe it’ll work before the end of the day if that’s ok .”
— Dr. Seuss
101. “For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests.”
— Dr. Seuss
102. “You can’t build a substantial V out of turtles!”
— Dr. Seuss
103. “Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!”
— Dr. Seuss
104. “Once-ler! You’re making such smogulous smoke – my poor swomee swans, why they can’t sing a note! No one can sing who has smog in his throat.”
— Dr. Seuss
105. “Big Z, little Z, what begins with Z? I do. I’m a zizzer zazzer zuzz, as you can plainly see.”
— Dr. Seuss
106. “This is not good. This is not right. My feet stick out of bed all night. And when I pull them in, oh dear! My head sticks out of bed out here!”
— Dr. Seuss
107. “You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”
— Dr. Seuss
108. “And this mess is so big And so deep and so tall, We cannot pick it up. There is no way at all!”
— Dr. Seuss
109. “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.”
— Dr. Seuss
110. “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”
— Dr. Seuss
111. “And will you succeed? Yes, you will indeed!”
— Dr. Seuss
112. “You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.”
— Dr. Seuss
113. “With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.”
— Dr. Seuss
114. “And when they played they really played. And when they worked they really worked.”
— Dr. Seuss
115. “Here are some who like to run. They run for fun in the hot, hot sun.”
— Dr. Seuss
116. “I am lucky to be what I am! Thank goodness I’m not just a clam, or a ham, or a dusty jar of sour gooseberry jam! I am what I am – that’s a great thing to be!”
— Dr. Seuss
117. “The storm starts, when the drops start dropping When the drops stop dropping then the storm starts stopping.”
— Dr. Seuss
118. “From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
— Dr. Seuss
119. “One fish. Two fish. Redfish. Bluefish. Blackfish. Bluefish. Old fish. New fish. This one has a little star. This one has a little car. Say! What a lot of fish there are.”
— Dr. Seuss
120. “And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day.”
— Dr. Seuss
