The first day of school will soon be here.
It’s often a day of many emotions.
Excitement to learn new things and meet new friends. But maybe also nervousness and a bit of worry and uncertainty of how things will work out.
So to help you out I’d like to share 110 of the most inspirational, motivational, funny and stress reducing first day of school quotes.
I hope you’ll find something helpful here no matter if you’re a student starting a new chapter in life, a parent guiding your child or a teacher who needs a boost of positive energy.
Inspirational and Positive First Day of School Quotes
“I’ve always loved the first day of school better than the last day of school. Firsts are best because they are beginnings.”
– Jenny Han
“This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change.”
– Taylor Swift
“Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.”
– Ken Poirot
“The most important day of a person’s education is the first day of school, not Graduation Day.”
– Harry Wong
“School bells are ringing loud and clear; vacation’s over, school is here.”
– Winifred C. Marshal
“The more that you read, the more things you know, the more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
– Dr. Seuss
“Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”
– B.B. King
“A new school year means new beginnings, new adventures, new friendships, and new challenges. The slate is clean and anything can happen.”
– Denise Witmer
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
– Dr. Seuss
“I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study… would be about the same as getting into paradise.”
– Booker T. Washington
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
– Plato
“Let us remember: one book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.”
– Malala Yousafzai
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
– Malcolm X
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“What we learn with pleasure we never forget.”
– Alfred Mercier
“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.”
– Brian Herbert
“Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.”
– Alan Cohen
“All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think.”
– Ken Robinson
“The first day of school is our second New Year’s. It is our day to make resolutions, to look backward to former lapses and triumphs and to look ahead, usually with a mix of anxiety and hope, to the year to come.”
– Mark Edmundon
“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
– Victor Hugo
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
– Dorothy Parker
“Minds are like parachutes, they only function when they are open.”
– James Dewar
Motivational First Day of School Quotes for Students
“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”
– C.S. Lewis
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
– Maya Angelou
“Be nice to yourself. It’s hard to be happy when someone’s mean to you all the time.”
– Christine Arylo
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe
“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
– Zig Ziglar
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
– Robert Collier
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
– Lao Tzu
“Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do, and at some point, you will.”
– Venus Williams
“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.”
– Brian Tracy
“Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen.”
– Conan O’Brien
“Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities — always see them, for they’re always there.”
– Norman Vincent Peale
“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
– Carl Bard
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
– Mark Twain
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
– Wayne Dyer
“Be curious, not cool.”
– Ken Burns
“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”
– Thomas Huxley
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
– A.A. Milne
“Make yourself proud.”
– Peter W. Smith
“They cannot stop me. I will get my education, if it is in the home, school, or anyplace.”
– Malala Yousafzai
“Dreams come a size too big so that we can grow into them.”
– Josie Bisset
“What I remember most about high school are the memories I created with my friends.”
– J.J. Watt
Funny First Day of School Quotes
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
– Mark Twain
“As long as teachers give tests, there will always be prayer in schools.”
– Unknown
“If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers.”
– Edgar W. Howe
“Work hard, nap hard.”
– Demi Lovato
“There’s no tired like teacher tired at the beginning of a school year!”
– Unknown
“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.”
– Lily Tomlin
“To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler – and less trouble.”
– Mark Twain
“We all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.”
– Peter De Vries
“My school was so tough the school newspaper had an obituary column.”
– Norm Crosby
“Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken.”
– Bill Dodds
“The human brain is special. It starts working as soon as you get up and it doesn’t stop until you get to school.”
– Milton Berle
“You can lead a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
– Andy McIntyre
“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”
– Tom Bodett
“I said school starts tomorrow. I didn’t say I was going to be there.”
– Kim Harrison
“Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”
– Fran Lebowitz
“Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don’t.”
– Lydia Child
“Some students drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.”
– E.C. McKenzie
“School is a lot like toilet paper. You only miss it when it’s gone.”
– Unknown
“It’s not that I hate school. I just hate waking up early in the morning.”
– Unknown
“You can drag my body to school but my spirit refuses to go.”
– Bill Watterson
First Day of School Quotes for Less Stress for Parents and Kids
“We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.”
– John Newton
“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
– Vivian Greene
“Everything is a learning process: any time you fall over, it’s just teaching you to stand up the next time.”
– Joel Edgerton
“I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.”
– Steve Maraboli
“Don’t try hard to fit in, and certainly don’t try so hard to be different… just try hard to be you.”
– Zendaya
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying: I will try again tomorrow.”
– Mary Anne Radmacher
“Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.”
– Chinese Proverb
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
– Maya Angelou
“Being fearless isn’t being 100 percent not fearful, it’s being terrified but you jump anyway.”
– Taylor Swift
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.”
– Viggo Mortensen
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
– John R. Wooden
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
– James Baldwin
“Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.”
– Lady Bird Johnson
“The seed of learning gets planted today. Now all you have to do is feel yourself grow.”
– Unknown
“Your body is slowly getting ready to carry you to your first day at school, my princess. Although you’re a little nervous now, I am sure you’ll have fun there.”
– Unknown
“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.”
– David M. Burns
“When you get back from school, Mommy and Daddy will be waiting for you. Go on, make new friends, meet some nice teachers, and learn something new on your first day!!”
– Unknown
“School is the beginning of a journey that will only bless you with good things in life. Take this overwhelming journey seriously, and give it your best.”
– Unknown
“You come here for one thing and one thing only, and that is to learn. I used to spend a lot of my life waiting for the day I could quit school, but then came to realize that so long as we are alive we never leave school. Life is a series of high schools, one after the other.”
– RuPaul
“Be curious about what you learn at school. Don’t be overconfident, ask a lot of questions, and above everything else, have a great time.”
– Unknown
“From holding my hand to stepping into the classroom – oh how time flies.”
– Unknown
“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
– E. Joseph Cossman
Short and Uplifting First Day of School Quotes for Teachers
“School is a building that has four walls with tomorrow inside.”
– Lon Watters
“A sense of curiosity is nature’s original school of education.”
– Smiley Blanton
“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.”
– Japanese Proverb
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
– Clay P. Bedford
“If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.”
– Guy Kawasaki
“The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.”
– Dorothea Dix
“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.”
– Roger Lewin
“The future of the world is in my classroom today.”
– Ivan Welton Fitzwater
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of becoming.”
– Goethe
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Our job is to teach the students we have, not the ones we would like to have. Not the ones we used to have. Those we have right now. All of them.”
– Dr. Kevin Maxwell
“Education doesn’t just make us smarter. It makes us whole.”
– Jill Biden
“Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
– Chinese Proverb
“The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.”
– Joseph Campbell
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.”
– Mark Van Doren
“Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.”
– Solomon Ortiz
“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.”
– Josef Albers
“Learn as much as you can while you are young, since life becomes too busy later.”
– Dana Stewart Scott
“Teaching is a work of heart.”
– Unknown
“Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
“One teacher can change the world of a young child.”
– Unknown
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
– John Dewey
Want more motivation for the first day of school? Have a look at these inspirational back to school quotes, the motivational quotes for students here and also these positive and helpful education quotes.