Life

32 Inspirational Quotes for Kids Every Parent Should Know

Sometimes you need a poet or a sage (or Tom Hanks) to pass along your valuable wisdom.

inspirational quotes for kids, depicted by an illustration of a parent holding a star with a child, ...
Joy Velasco for Fatherly

Passing on our valuable wisdom may be one of the most cherished aspects of being a parent. But sometimes, in spite of all the wisdom that we may have accumulated by the time we become parents, we need a professional poet (or America’s dad, Tom Hanks) to articulate our most inspired thoughts. By passing down inspirational quotes we love, we also have an opportunity to share a moment with our kids that’s out of the mundane, to step outside of the day-to-day, and be inspired together. Here are 16 inspirational quotes for kids to remind them to always look ahead and unapologetically tap into their potential.

32 Inspirational Quotes for Kids

  • “You may not control life’s circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.” —Atul Gawande
  • “To go in search of what once was is to postpone the difficulty of living with what is.” —Barry Lopez
  • “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” —John Lewis
  • “One voice can change a room.” —Barack Obama
  • “A hero is someone who voluntarily walks into the unknown.” —Tom Hanks
  • “As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.” —Toni Morrison
  • “Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.” —E. B. White
  • “Hold fast to
  • dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” —Langston Hughes
  • “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” —Robin Williams
  • “It’s really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are. Of course, it’s the opposite that’s true: What we are ultimately determines what we do!” —Fred Rogers
  • “Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities.” —Robert H. Schuller
  • “Live as if you were die tomorrow. Lear as if you were to live forever.” —Mahatma Gandhi
  • “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” —Paulo Coelho
  • “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” —Audrey Hepburn
  • “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” —The Dalai Lama
  • You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”– Wayne Gretzky
  • “Never doubt yourself, it will only hold you back.” – J.M. Barrie
  • “The people who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones who do.”– Steve Jobs
  • “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”– Nelson Mandela
  • “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”– Desmond Tutu
  • “No one is perfect – that’s why pencils have erasers.”– Wolfgang Riebe
  • “What makes a child gifted and talented may not always be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning.”– Chuck Grassley
  • “The time is always right to do what is right.”– Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”– Mark Twain
  • “Just imagine how different the world could be if we all spoke to everyone with respect and kindness.”– Holly Branson
  • “Even miracles take a little time.”– The Fairy Godmother, Cinderella
  • “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”– Albert Einstein
  • “The kids who ask WHY are the ones who are going to change the world.”– Neal Thompson
  • “One day the people that don’t even believe in you will tell everyone how they met you.”– Johnny Depp
  • “Only love can truly save the world. So I stay, I fight, and I give, for the world I know can be.”–Wonder Woman
  • “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”–Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie