135 Wonderful Preschool Quotes for Kids and Kids at Heart

This collection of preschool quotes will remind you to show kindness to young children—and don’t forget their preschool teachers!

Preschool, daycare, early childhood education—whatever you may call it, this set of early learning experiences can shape a child’s whole life.

Ask any kindergarten teacher, and they will tell you.

It’s easy to tell in September which children in their class have been to preschool and which ones haven’t. 

Let us know your favorite preschool quote in the comment section below.

You will also enjoy our article on motivational quotes for kids.

What Are The Benefits Of Reading Preschool Quotes?

Preschool not only prepares children for what will come later in life but cares for them while they are there.

Meanwhile, preschool teachers are often undervalued for the role they play in children’s early development and the foundation they lay for our smallest friends and family members.

Preschool is part of the foundation to becoming:

• good students
• kind people
• polite children

Below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and insightful preschool quotes and sayings, collected from a variety of sources over the years.

If you are on the fence about sending your kiddo to preschool, let these quotes help you decide.

Also, check out these first day of school quotes on the beauty of earning an education.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration. 

Our inspirational quote category page has even more inspirational and educational quotes.

Preschool Quotes About How Learning Happens

1.) “Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded.” – Jess Lair

2.) “Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” – Jim Henson

You will also enjoy our article on learning quotes.

3.) “Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” – Fred Rogers

You will also enjoy our article on Teacher’s Day quotes.

4.) “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats

5.) “Play is the exultation of the possible.” – Martin Buber

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of education quotes about learning and success.

6.) “When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero.” – Fred Rogers

7.) “The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught as that every child should be given the wish to learn.” – John Lubbock

You will also enjoy our article on homeschool quotes.

8.) “By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in the child and man; body, mind and spirit.” – Mahatma Gandhi

9.) “The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.” – Denis Waitley

10.) “You cannot make people learn. You can only provide the right conditions for learning to happen.” – Vince Gowmon

11.) “Teaching is not about answering questions but about raising questions – opening doors for them in places that they could not imagine.” – Yawar Baig

12.) “Love is the supreme form of communication. In the hierarchy of needs, love stands as the supreme developing agent of the humanity of the person. As such, the teaching of love should be the central core of all early childhood curriculum with all other subjects growing naturally out of such teaching.” – Ashley Montagu

Quotes About Preschool Children and Play

13.) “If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.” – Alfie Kohn.

14.) “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” – Oscar Wilde

15.) “Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” – Diane Ackerman

16.) “Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” – Kay Redfield Jamison

17.) “Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato

18.) “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung

19.) “Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” – O. Fred Donaldson

20.) “The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” – Erik H. Erikson

21.) “Let the child be the scriptwriter, the director and the actor in his own play.” – Magda Gerber

22.) “Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves.” – Jean Piaget

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to check out our collection of children quotes that will fill your heart with love and laughter.

23.) “Since the jobs that our preschoolers will do probably don’t exist yet, our priority is to teach them the skills to adapt and inquire and question and cooperate…life skills. So much more useful than rigid concepts such as the alphabet.” – Caroline Bellouse

Quotes About Preschool Teachers

24.) “Teaching is an instinctual art, mindful of potential, craving of realizations, a pausing, seamless process.” – A. Bartlett Giamatti

25.) “The teacher’s task is to initiate the learning process and then get out of the way.” – John Warren

26.) “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry B. Adams

27.) “In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.” – Jacques Barzun

28.) “When you get, give. When you learn, teach.” – Maya Angelou

29.) “Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world.” – Maria Montessori

30.) “Teachers are people who start things they never see finished, and for which they never get thanks until it is too late.” – Max Forman

31.) “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

32.) “Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is.” – William Glasser

33.) “Education … is a painful, continual, and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning … by praise, but above all, by example.” – John Ruskin

34.) “Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” – Jacques Barzun

35.) “Teaching is the only major occupation…for which we have not developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the naturals, the ones who somehow know how to teach.” – Peter Drucker

36.) “Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.” – Haim Ginott

37.) “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” – Colleen Wilcox

38.) “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” – Mark Van Doren

39.) “The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contented and happy.” – Anatole France
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of curiosity quotes that will inspire you to learn more about the world around you.

40.) “The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment.” – Maria Montessori

Quotes About Preschool Children

41.) “We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” – Stacia Tauscher

42.) “A child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.” – Pablo Casals

43.) “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.” – Frederick Douglass

44.) “To take children seriously is to value them for who they are right now rather than adults-in-the-making.” – Alfie Kohn

45.) “Every day, in a hundred small ways, our children ask, ‘Do you hear me? Do you see me? Do I matter?’ Their behavior often reflects our response.” – L.R. Knost

46.) “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” – Dr. Seuss

47.) “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” – Oscar Wilde

48.) “Remember: everyone in the classroom has a story that leads to misbehavior or defiance. Nine times out of ten, the story behind the misbehavior won’t make you angry. It will break your heart.” – Annette Breaux

49.) “Children are a great comfort to us in our old age, and they help us reach it faster too.” – Unknown

50.) “Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.” – Unknown

51.) “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” – John F. Kennedy

52.) “The soul is healed by being with children.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

53.) “A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.” – Paulo Coelho

54.) “Encouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, you are listened to, you are cared for, you are very important to me.” – Barbara Coloroso

Don’t go without reading these quotes for kids of all ages about success, life, and happiness.

More preschool quotes

55. “When we raise our children to Shine, the future becomes brighter!” – Brigette Foresman

56. “The journey through the preschool years helps children to move from dependence to interdependence to independence.” – Deepa Bhushan

57. “All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection.” – Alice Miller

58. “Too close supervision stifles the mental growth of children.” – Abhijit Naskar

59. Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” – Margaret Mead

60. “No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.” – Plato

61. “Children are good learners. The first learn to act what they hear and see.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

62. “The function of a child is to live his/her own life, not the life that his/her anxious parents think he/she should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educators who think they know best.” – A.S. Neill

63. “Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.” – Alice Waters

64. “Our children are only as brilliant as we allow them to be.” – Eric Micha’el Leventhal

Preschool Quotes That Remind Us Of Its Importance

65. “Preschool children are virtuosos of imagination.”  -Benjamin Spock

66.” A child’s sense of reality vs. fantasy can be a bit blurred at the preschool age.”  -Eva Amurri

67. “Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

68. “They may forget what you said, but they will not forget how you made them feel.” – Carl Buechner

69. “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” – C.S. Lewis

70. “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” –Ignacio Estrada

71. “If we want our children to move mountains, we first have to let them get out of their chairs.” -Nicolette Sowder

72. “…my object is to show that the chief function of the child–his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life–is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses…”  -Charlotte Mason

73. “Be patient with kids, they are just beginners.”  -Author Unknown 

74. “Play is really the work of childhood.”  -Fred Rogers

75. “Art for toddlers and preschoolers is rarely about beauty. it’s all about exploration and personal expression.” – Heather Shumaker

Check out these toddlerhood quotes to learn more about these cute little terrors!

Preschool Quotes About Their Needs

76. “Next time a child has a meltdown, see their smallness. See how their emotions are bigger than they are. And in that moment of truly seeing them, you will feel empathy rather than exasperation.” -Dr. Ashley Soderlund

77. “We are built to play and built through play. When we play, we are engaged in the purest expression of our humanity, the truest expression of our individuality.” -Stuart Brown

78. “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood- for it alone is the free expression of what is in the child’s soul.” -Friedrich Froebel

79. “Before we ever put a pencil in a child’s hands, those hands should dig, climb, press, pull, squish, twist, and pinch in a wide array of environments and with a variety of materials.” -Amanda Morgan

80. “Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.” -Rita Pierson

81. “All children can explode into learning.” -Maria Montessori

82. “Hugs can do great amounts of good, especially for children.” -Diana, Princess of Wales

83. “Passive toys make active learners.” -Magda Gerber

84. “Children don’t need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.” -Emma Thompson

85. “Join them in their world when they’re little so you’ll be welcome in their world when they get big.” -L.R. Knost

Preschool Quotes To Motivate Young Learners and Their Instructors

86. “All children are artists.” — Picasso

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

88. “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I will learn.” — Benjamin Franklin

89. “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.” — Mr. Rogers

90. “So please, oh please, we beg, we pray. Go throw your TV set away! And in its place, you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” — Roald Dahl

91. “Work hard, nap hard.” — Demi Lovato

92. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” — Charles Dederich

93. “You’re off to great places. Today is your first day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way!” — Dr. Seuss

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

95. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela

Preschool Quotes For Your Child’s Readiness

96. “The best predictor of preschool children’s physical activity is simply being outdoors.” ― James Sallis

97. “It just happens that there is more employment for puppeteers in preschool television than anywhere else.” ― Stephanie D’Abruzzo

98. I will do everything that I can to make sure that you have good jobs, with rising incomes, that your kids have good educations from preschool through college.” ― Hillary Clinton

99. “I went to the 30th reunion of my preschool. I didn’t want to go, because I’ve put on like a hundred pounds.” ― Wendy Liebman

100. “I found out I’d been signing my name wrong. You know, like with the alphabet they teach you in preschool. But I think I’ve got it right now.” ― Vanessa Marano

101. “Tutoring a four year old to get into an exclusive preschool made as much sense as hiring a swim coach for a guppy.” ― Jodi Picoult

102. “School is very conformist, and one of the very first conforming that goes on in preschool and kindergarten is gender.” ― Dan Savage

103. “If have to undergo preschool safety checks every morning, why does a random thug get to own an assault rifle?” ― Christine Pelosi

104. “I was class mom at the preschool one year and I was pretty much asked not to do that again!” ― Julie Bowen

105. “The benefits kids get from watching “Sesame Street” can be as powerful as the ones children get from preschool.” ― Julie Roginsky

Famous Preschool Quotes

106. “The future of the world is in my classroom today.” ― Ivan Welton Fitzwater

107. “Every child is an artist.” ― Pablo Picasso

108. “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” ― John F. Kennedy

109. “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” ― George Washington Carver

110. “What we learn with pleasure, we never forget.” ― Alfred Mercier

111. “A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove, but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.” ― Forest E. Witcraft

112. “Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.” ― Haim Ginott

113. “There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child; there are seven million.” ― Walt Streightiff

114. “The future of the world is in my classroom today.” ― Ivan Welton Fitzwater

115. “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” ― Malala Yousafzai

Top Best Preschool Quotes

116. “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” ― John Dewey

117. “In learning, you will teach, and in teaching, you will learn.” ― Phil Collins

118. “A child’s mind is not a container to be filled but rather a fire to be kindled.” ― Dorothea Brande

119. “Play is the work of the child.” ― Maria Montessori

120. “The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” – Alexandra K. Trenfor

121. “A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.” ― George Santayana

122. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” ― Abraham Lincoln

123. “Every student can learn, just not on the same day or in the same way.” ― George Evans

124. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax; all you need is a book.” ― Dr. Seuss

125. “What we learn with pleasure, we never forget.” ― Alfred Mercier

126. “The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” ― Plato

127. “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.” ― Albert Einstein

128. “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up.” ― Pablo Picasso

129. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” ― Albert Einstein

130. “The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.” ― Maria Montessori

131. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” ― Aristotle

132. “Every child you encounter is a divine appointment.” ― Wess Stafford

133. “Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.” ― Bob Talbert

134. “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” ― C.S. Lewis

135. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” ― Socrates

How Can Your Child Benefit From Experiencing Preschool?

Whether or not preschool was a part of your life, your child or other young children can help develop a solid foundation for long-term development by attending preschool on a part-time or full-time basis.

Many families choose to send their children to preschool at least part-time, even if there is a family member who can stay home with them.

In preschool, children learn how to learn; they learn how to love themselves and others; they learn to cooperate and coexist peacefully.

Next time you meet a preschool teacher, be sure to thank them for their role in creating a better world by improving the lives of its youngest inhabitants.

What’s your biggest takeaway from these preschool quotes and sayings?

Do you have any other favorite quotes to add?

Let us know in the comment section below.