The National Education Society’s Read Across America is coming up in a few days on March 2nd, which is also the birthday of the amazing Dr. Seuss. So I thought I’d pull one of my old top 10 lists out of the archives to celebrate one of my favorite authors.
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As a parent trying to instill a love of books in my young children, as a kindergarten teacher trying to find fun ways to teach beginning readers, and as a writer who has written a (yet unpublished) children’s book, I think Dr. Seuss was a GENIUS.
Dr. Seuss had this amazing ability to teach lessons surreptitiously. Kids listen to his books and think they’re all about silly rhymes and nonsensical words. Sure, some of them are simply unadulterated silliness. But so many Dr. Seuss books have hidden messages that kids can relate to and continue to process long after the rhymes are forgotten.
My top 10 list was originally going to be my favorite excerpts from Dr. Seuss books. However, when I did a little Googling, I discovered that Dr. Seuss shared lots of other tidbits of wisdom outside of his famous children’s books. (I also discovered that “Yertle the Turtle” was about Hitler!)
Here are my…
Top 10 Dr. Seuss Quotes
10) “They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”
9) “Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
8) “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
7) “In my world, everyone’s a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”
6) “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
5) “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”
4) “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.”
3) “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
2) “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
1) “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
What is your favorite Dr. Seuss-ism?
Oh, my goodness! I love Dr. Seuss — his books and so many of his quotes! One I love is: “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
One of my fave Seuss-isms is "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
Dr. Seuss
My daughter loves the books and has me read at least 4 or 5 at a time…haha 🙂
I agree the books are definitely lessons.
Enjoyed this! I had never heard some of these quotes!
Number 8 has alway been my favorite!!!
Number 8 has definitely been true for me lately 😛
I have seen the poop butterflies quote before, but I never knew it was Dr. Seuss! One of my favorite books of all times is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I have started reading it to my daughter every Christmas Eve. I hope to read more Seuss to her as she gets older.
It's not. It helps getting attributed to Dr Seuss cuz they said it in the animated Horton movie but I don't believe it is a true Dr Seuss quote
I love Dr. Seuss! One of my all time favorite Seuss-ism is "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
My son loves his books and at times I am not sure who enjoys reading them more, him or me!