Attending College could be the most fun or stressful time of your life. The journey toward higher education is a path of dedication, patience, and hard work.

College life is about studying hard, gaining independence, and experiencing a new place while making new friends, and starting college is undoubtedly a milestone for any student! You’ll make new friends throughout the university, learn many things, and experience unique lifestyles and perspectives.

College time can be one of the most important times in your life as you seek to gain knowledge to help you with the career you long for. We have gathered the best inspirational quotes for any new college student. Feel free to share these college quotes with any students you know to inspire them to make the most out of their time at college.

200 Best College Quotes To Motivate Students

Top 10 College Quotes

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

“Universities used to prepare young adults for the real world. I dare say the graduates today go in without a clue and graduate without a clue. It’s time to acknowledge the college degree is not worth what it was in the past. Times are changing, and so is the way we prepare our youth to survive in a competitive world.” – Dale Archer

“Unemployment rates among Americans who never went to college are about double that of those who have a postsecondary education.” – Bill Gates

“Your goals are the roadmaps that guide you and show you what is possible for your life.” – Les Brown

“Your families are extremely proud of you. You can’t imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money.” – Gary Bolding

“You’re going to fall down, but the world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up.” – Aaron Sorkin

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon

“The noblest question in the world is: What good may I do in it?” – Benjamin Franklin

“The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.” – Derek Bok

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

What is College?

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“Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.” – George Lorimer

“Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.” – R.S. Ingersoll

“Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.” – Bob Dylan

“College isn’t the place to go for ideas.” – Helen Keller

“College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.” – J. Cole

“College is the reward for surviving high school. Most people have great fun stories from college and nightmare stories from high school.” – Judd Apatow

“College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night?” – David Wood

“College is like a fountain of knowledge and the students are there to drink.” – Chuck Palahniuk

“College is fun as long as you don’t die.” – Tsugumi Ohba

“College is a refuge from hasty judgment.” – Robert Frost

“College is a place to keep warm between high school and an early marriage.” – George Gobel

“College inspired me to think differently. It’s like no other time in your life.” – Lari Oleynik

“College has given me the confidence I need to fail.” – Jarod Klintz, This Book Has No Title

“College campuses were once a hotbed of political activity.” – Tom Ford

“College ain’t so much where you been as how you talk when you get back.” – Ossie Davis

Funny College Quotes

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“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.”

“One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it’s very complex, it’s very profound.” – Dennis Prager

“One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not all hustle is loud. Sometimes hustle is just you, all alone, grinding, while no one hears a sound.”

“No, sky is not the limit. It is only the beginning.” – Donovan Livingston

“No period of my life has been one of such unmixed happiness as the four years which have been spent within college walls.” – Horatio Alger

“No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer

“Never get married in college; it’s hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you’ve already made one mistake.” – Elbert Hubbard

“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world right in the eye.” – Helen Keller

“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.” – Maya Angelou

“My favorite college experience was probably leaving college.” – Marshawn Lynch

“Losers quit when they’re tired. Winners quit when they’ve won.”

“Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.” – Stephen Colbert

“Keep going. Everything you need will come to you at the perfect time.”

“Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Just because I don’t have a college degree doesn’t mean I am not smart!” – Emma Stone

“I’ve got 99 problems and 97 of them are due by the end of the week. The other two were due last week.”

“It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort.” – Jillian Michaels

“It’s not about having time. It’s about making time.”

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings

“It never gets easier. You just get better.” – Jordan Hoechlin

“It is not my wish to lounge about the college and fatten on a fellowship all my days. I am always trying to look upon a college life as a medium, not an end.” – Thomas Edward Brown

“If you have four years to complete your college education, do it.” – Bo Jackson

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” – Nora Roberts

“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn

“If the college you visit has a bookstore filled with t-shirts rather than books, find another college. ” – Albert Mohler Jr

College Graduation Quotes

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“Struggling to decide what to do after graduation is… a sort of rite of passage to the next phase of your life.” – Gloria Davidson

“Struggling to decide what to do after graduation is, and always will be, a sort of rite of passage to the next phase of your life.” – Gloria Davidson

“A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.” – Robert Orben

“The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.” – William James

“That’s what college is for – getting as many bad decisions as possible out of the way before you’re forced into the real world. I keep a checklist of ’em on the wall in my room.” – Jeph Jacques

“Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.” – Chinese proverb

“Take it all one day at a time and enjoy the journey.” – Kristi Barlett

“Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose.” – G.K. Nielson

“Success isn’t overnight. It’s when every day you get a little better than the day before. It all adds up.” – Dwayne Johnson

“Success is what comes after you stop making excuses.” – Luis Galarza

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pele

“Success doesn’t just come and find you, you have to go out and get it.”

“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“Now that you’ve graduated, just remember: Bosses don’t usually accept notes from your mother.” – Melanie White

College Friends Quotes

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“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest when you haven’t planted.” – David Bly

“Stop doubting yourself. Work hard and make it happen.”

“Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.” – Mark Twain

“So long as your desire to explore is greater than your desire to not screw up, you’re on the right track.” – Ed Helms

“So if a college education is indispensable, the challenge as I see it is how to make it more accessible.” – Gordon Gee

“Skill is only developed by hours and hours of work.” – Usain Bolt

“Set a goal so big that you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can.”

“A college education should equip one to entertain three things: a friend, an idea and oneself.” – Thomas Ehrlich

“All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Don’t judge a book by its cover. My math book has a picture of someone enjoying themselves on it, but I am not enjoying myself at all.”

“Don’t try to be perfect. Just try to be better than you were yesterday.”

“Don’t ever dare to take your college as a matter of course – because, like democracy and freedom, many people you’ll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.” – Alice Duer Miller

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

“Do something now; your future self will thank you for later.”

“Do not worry too much about your lawn. You will soon find, if you haven’t already, that almost every adult American devotes tremendous time and money to the maintenance of an invasive plant species called turf grass that we can’t eat. I encourage you to choose better obsessions.”

College Life Quotes

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“When I die I want the people I did group projects with to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time.”

“When bright young minds can’t afford college, America pays the price.” – Arthur Ashe

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln

“What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.” – Norton Juster

“What school, college, or lecture bring men depends on what men bring to carry it home in.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it.” – Les Brown

“Wake up with determination. Go to bed with satisfaction.”

“Self-discipline is the magic power that makes you virtually unstoppable.” – Dan Kennedy

“Remember, when it comes to applying for jobs, books ARE judged by their cover!” – Patricia Akins

“Push yourself because no one else is going to do it.”

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” – Newt Gingrich

“Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for he better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities.” – William James

“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” – Chris Grosser

“I pulled an all-dayer today. It was rough.”

“I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” – Jim Carrey

“I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back.” – Fred Allen

“I got a wonderful college education. I went to Harvard. In those four years, I accumulated a lot of knowledge, but I also created a kind of habit of learning that has stayed with me my whole life.” – John Lithgow

“I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” – Ray Bradbury

“I accidentally forgot to graduate from college.” – Anne Lamott

“Hustle until you no longer have to introduce yourself.”

“Grind while they sleep. Learn while they party. Live like they dream.”

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.” – Ronald Reagan

“Going to college made me realize you have to have real spaces of privacy, and you have to establish those early.” – Cole Sprouse

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Getting through high school and college was one of my greatest achievements.” – Ann Bancroft

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. This time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.” – Ralph Marston

“Everything’s always ending. But everything’s always beginning, too.” – Patrick Ness

“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair

“Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question.” – Orison Swett Marden

“Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.” – John Green

“Every person you meet knows something you don’t; learn from them.” – H Jackson Brown Jr

“Every expert was once a beginner.” – Helen Hayes

“Even the greatest were beginners. Don’t be afraid to take that first step.”

“Choose a major you love and you’ll never work a day in your life because that field probably isn’t hiring.”

“By making college unaffordable and student loans unbearable, we risk deterring our best and brightest from pursuing higher education and securing a good-paying job.” – Mark Pocan

“Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.” – Marian Wright Edelman

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” – Steve Martin

“And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed).” – Dr. Seuss

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” – Anatole France

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” – Judy Garland

“All progress takes place outside of your comfort zone.” – Michael John Bobak

“Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Develop a passion for learning… you will never cease to grow.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo

“Determination is doing what needs to be done even when you don’t feel like doing it.” – unknown

“Definition of a College professor: someone who talks in other people’s sleep.” – W.H. Auden

“Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” – W. Clement Stone

“Cumulative final exams are like fights in relationships. Why must we continue to bring up the past? What’s done is done.”

“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

Inspirational College Quotes

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“You won’t get much done if you grind only on the days you feel good.”

“You will never have more energy or enthusiasm, hair, or brain cells than you have today.” – Tom & Ray Magliozzi

“You will never always be motivated. You have to learn to be disciplined.”

“You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.” – Benjamin Franklin

“You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.” – Abraham Maslow

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho

“There is no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela

“There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.” – Zig Ziglar

“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done and those who don’t want to make mistakes.” – John Maxwell

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – General Colin Powell

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

“The true success is the person who invented himself.” – Al Goldstein

“The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee

Going To College Quotes

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“You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.” – Mahatma Ghandi

“You have to stay in school. You have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because that’s the one thing people can’t take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.” – Michelle Obama

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Oprah Winfrey

“You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” – Brigham Young

“You don’t want to look back and know you could have done better.”

“You don’t get what you wish for. You get what you work for.” – Daniel Milstein

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

“You can lead a boy to college but you can’t make him think.” – Elber Hubbard

“You are the only one who can limit your greatness.”

“With the realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.” – Dalai Lama

“When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.” – Eric Thomas

“When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.” – Elon Musk

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond, cauliflower is nothing but cabbage without a college education.” – Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson

“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.” – Robert H. Schuller

“To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you too may one day be president of the United States.” – George W. Bush

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole Franc

“Third Law of Applied Terror – 80% of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and the one book you didn’t read. ”

“It is not hard for me to remember when I was in college. I loved many things about college life: I loved learning. I loved the comradery. And I loved football.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin

“In my bright, utopian future world, they will hand out college educations like cups of water at the end of the L.A. Marathon.” – Henry Rollins

“In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that.” – Mary Oliver

“In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. They were not necessarily the same sentences the professors pointed out, which would turn up for further explication on an exam. I noted them for their clarity, their rhythm, their beauty and their enchantment.” – Jhumpa Lahiri

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” – Frank Zappa

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“I’m going to college. I don’t care if it ruins my career. I’d rather be smart than a movie star.” – Natalie Portman

“I think, especially when you’re in college, each book that you’re reading tends to tell you who you are.” – Jeffrey Eugenides

“I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated.” – Al McGuire

“I think a college education is important no matter what you do in life.” – Phil Mickelson

“Free speech is the foundation of an open and liberal democracy from college campuses to the White House.” – Hasan Minhaj

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

“Focus on your goal. Don’t look in any direction but ahead.”

“Focus on doing the right things instead of a bunch of things.” – Mike Krieger

“Fathers send their sons to college either because they went to college or because they didn’t.” – L. Henderson

Last Day Of College Quotes

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“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character –– that is the goal of true education.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

“The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match, each one of you is a fuse.” – Ed Koch

“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.” – Aristotle

“The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.” – Robert M. Hutchins

“The chief value in going to college is that it’s the only way to learn it really doesn’t matter.” – George Edwin Howes

“My college years are a blur.” – Robert Ben Garant

“My college experience was like everyone else’s. I learned a lot. I gained a new perspective on the world and on people that I’m so thankful and appreciative for.” – Kyle Carpenter

“Months are different in college, especially freshman year. Too much happens. Every freshman month equals six regular months –– they’re like dog months.” – Rainbow Rowell

“Many kids come out of college, they have a credit card and a diploma. They don’t know how to buy a house or a car or health insurance or life insurance. They do not know basic microeconomics.” – Jesse Jackson

“Make the most of yourself….for that is all there is of you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Accept failure as part of the process.”

“A year from now…we’ll see who was really working.”

“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.” – Plutarch

“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“A little progress each day adds up to big results.” – Satya Nani

“A college education shows a man how little other people know.” – Thomas Chandler Haliburton

“A college degree is not a sign that one is a finished product but an indication a person is prepared for life.” – Reverend Edward A. Malloy

“A college degree is not a sign of a finished product but an indication a person is prepared for life.” – Reverend Edward A. Malloy

“A college boy cannot successfully go through life by graduating in football, baseball, or highballs, for the responsibilities of life are not ball-bearing.” – William H. Murray

First Day Of College Quotes

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“The same independence that got me into trouble in high school got me praise in college.” – Alan Dershowitz

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle

“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers

“The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Forbes

“The privilege of a university education is a great one; the more widely it is extended the better for any country.” – Winston Churchill

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” – Tony Robbins

“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” – Nicole

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

“The best math lesson we can teach college students this year is to subtract a tuition increase and benefit from the dividends of higher education.” – Jodi Rell

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” – B. B. King

“The American Dream is one of success, homeownership, college education for one’s children, and have a secure job to provide these and other goals.” – Leonard Boswell

“The aim of the college, for the individual student, is to eliminate the need in his life for the college; the task is to help him become a self-educating man.” – Wright Mills

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