“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent!”

I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I did not read Dr. Seuss as a child, and I cannot believe that, even after I did, not only did I think he was a real doctor, I kept pronouncing his name like “Zeus” instead of “Zoice.”

The first time I was exposed to his work was in the aisles of a school library when I started teaching. Dr. Seuss spoke to the wise child in me who, despite growing up, still refused to grow old. The way images and rhyming words were put together (way before Pinterest and Instagram made quotes on pictures popular), was simply remarkable.

I have always loved art, photography, and reading, so to find them all in one masterpiece was truly thrilling. No one described it better than the man himself when he said, “Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”

Born on the second of March, this brilliant American author was behind some of our favorite immortal characters, like “The Grinch,” “The Cat in the Hat,” “The Lorax,” and many more. As an adult, I still find wisdom, healing, and even new insight while enjoying his rhymes.

When people kept bringing me down because I was either too much or I “cared a lot,” it was one of Dr. Seuss’s quotes that picked me up and gave me the strength I needed to carry on and never stop being me. Moreover, Dr. Seuss was behind one of my favorite words that I reversed and added to my list of strengths when people tried to use it against me. Yes, I am a nerd.

I’m sure that writers and activists will surprisingly find some of his quotes to be extremely inspiring and motivating.

Here are 23 quotes from a doctor like no other that will hopefully, not only entertain and encourage but also soothe you like they did to me:

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is You-er than You. Shout aloud, I am glad to be what I am.”

“We’ve got to make noises in greater amounts! So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”

“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.”

“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!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Think left and think right and think low and think, oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

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

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

“So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s ‘A Great Balancing Act.’ Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.”

“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.”

“You really can’t teach reading as a science. Love gets mixed up in it.”

“It is time to have fun but you have to know how.”

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

“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.”

If you haven’t read Dr. Seuss in a while, I will use his own words to urge you to, “If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”

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