It’s hard to believe that another school year is coming to an end. Through good times and bad times, we’ve found new ways to show our love and support in our classrooms. We’ve found pockets of joy and overcome challenges with our students to cross the finish line together. Here are some of the best end-of-the-school-year quotes to honor this moment.
Once you’ve finished reading these great quotes for the end of the year and the last day of school, be sure to check out our list of favorite all-time classroom quotes!
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End of the School Year Quotes for Teachers
This is a bittersweet time of year for teachers. We partnered with some of Instagram’s top teacher influencers and asked them to share their own thoughts on those exciting (and sometimes sad) last days. We also added a few of our own favorite quotes for teachers to this category.
1. “It’s the last day of school—hearts full, eyes teary, memories made, and little hands ready for their next big adventure.” — Trish Page, 1st Grade Teacher, @teachinwithglitter
2. “The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium.” — Booth Tarkington
3. “In August, your roster is a list of names. In April, it’s a list of lives. And you’ve had an influence on them all.” — Lindsay Sauer, 1st Grade Teacher, @sweetnsauerfirsties
4. “I hope their new teacher is nice … but not too nice. Like, remember-who-loved-you-first kind of nice.” — Trish Page, 1st Grade Teacher, @teachinwithglitter
5. “They don’t tell you that the hardest part of the school year isn’t the chaos & testing—it’s saying goodbye to the little family you formed back in August … complete with snack bags, inside jokes, and more heart than you thought possible.” —Trish Page, 1st Grade Teacher, @teachinwithglitter
6. “Saying goodbye to my students is like handing over a piece of my heart … that talks nonstop, loses pencils, and calls me ‘Mom’ by accident.” — Trish Page, 1st Grade Teacher, @teachinwithglitter
7. “The hallways are empty, the goodbyes have been said, and now comes the part where we miss them just a little more than we expected.” — Trish Page, 1st Grade Teacher, @teachinwithglitter
8. “The greatest sign of success for a teacher … is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” — Maria Montessori
9. “Teaching is a never-ending story. The work is never over; the job is never done.” — Andy Hargreaves
10. “They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — Carl W. Buehner
11. “How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.” — Charles Darwin
Quotes About Endings and Beginnings for the Last Day of School
The end of one thing is often the beginning of something entirely new! These quotes capture both what it feels like as the year draws to an end and the excitement and uncertainty of what’s yet to come.
12. “The day is ending. It’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
13. “Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.” — Sarah Dessen
14. “Sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful.” — Beau Taplin
15. “Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas.” — Charles Kettering
16. “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” — T.S. Eliot
17. “Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” — Hal Borland
18. “There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and endings of things.” — Francis Bacon
19. “Yesterday ended last night. Every day is a new beginning. Learn the skill of forgetting. And move on.” — Norman Vincent Peale
20. “The strings to our past are burned because we need a new beginning.” — Caroline Myss
21. “I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” — J.B. Priestley
22. “Every ending is a new beginning.” — Marianne Williamson
23. “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.” — John Galsworthy
24. “Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.” — Haim Ginott
25. “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” — Orson Welles
26. “So goodbye dear, and Amen,
Here’s hoping we meet now and then,
It was great fun,
But it was just one of those things.” — Cole Porter
27. “Even knowing the ending was sad, I wouldn’t have deprived myself the beauty of the story.” — Sandra Brown
28. “I’ve said goodbye to Mathematics forever, and I assure you, I was delighted to see the last of those horrid goblins!” — Helen Keller
29. “Each morning is a new beginning of our life. Each day is a finished whole.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
30. “Always Leave Them Laughing When You Say Goodbye.” — George M. Cohan
End of the School Year Quotes About Friends
Friends are one the best parts of school for many kids. Emphasize the importance of friendship, now and in the future, with these wise words.
31. “A real friendship should not fade as time passes, and should not weaken because of space separation.” — John Newton
32. “I’m not sure if our friendship is strong enough to survive into next year when we’re away at college. But. We know each other in a way that no one else can. We share a history that makes us permanently connected. So I have to hope for us. All I can do is hope.” — Susane Colasanti
33. “There’s a kind of release
And a kind of torment in every goodbye for every man.” — Cecil Day Lewis
34. “What I remember most about high school are the memories I created with my friends.” — J.J. Watt
35. “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” — Taylor Swift
36. “Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.” — Kahlil Gibran
37. “The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.” — Edward Everett Hale
38. “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.” — Oscar Wilde
39. “I won’t say goodbye my friend,
For you and I will meet again.” — Tom Petty
Growth Mindset Quotes for the End of the School Year
You’ve been building a growth mindset in your students all year long. Keep it going as the final school days of the year tick by!
40. “It’s for you to decide whether change is right for you right now. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But either way keep the growth mindset in your thoughts then when you bump up against obstacles you can turn to it, it will always be there for you showing you a path into the future.” — Carol Dweck
41. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — John F. Kennedy
42. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” — Thomas Edison
43. “It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.” — Henry David Thoreau
44. “Victory is not won in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later win a little more.” — Louis L’Amour
45. “Remember: never walk away from failure. On the contrary, study it carefully—and imaginatively—for its hidden assets.” — Michael Korda
46. “Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.” — George S. Patton
47. “The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.” — Paramahansa Yogananda
48. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” — Og Mandino
49. “Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.” — Edward Eggleston
50. “If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that’s a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life.” — Chris Evert
51. “Remember my friend to enjoy your planning as well as your accomplishment, for life is too short for negative energy.” — Bruce Lee
52. “A minute’s success pays the failure of years.” — Robert Browning
End of the School Year Quotes About Effort and Success
Everyone finds it a little challenging to stay focused at this time of year. These quotes can inspire both students and staff to stick it out until the very end.
53. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier
54. “Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.” — Theodore Roosevelt
55. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
57. “You can. End of story.” — Cory Lewis
58. “I attribute my success to this—I never gave or took any excuse.” — Florence Nightingale
59. “Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” — Simone de Beauvoir
60. “The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.” — G.K. Chesterton
61. “Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.” — Joyce Brothers
62. “Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal.” — Charles Buxton
63. “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” — José Ortega y Gasset
64. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” — Colin Powell
65. “These success encourages: they can because they think they can.” — Virgil
66. “Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility.” — Michael Korda
67. “I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.” — Langston Hughes
68. “Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” — Ayn Rand
69. “Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others.” — Jules Renard
70. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” — Richard Branson
71. “Passion presented with a greater challenge achieves a greater goal.” — Aberjhani
72. “As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
73. “Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.” — An Wang
74. “Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult; make something big by starting with it when small.” — Lao Tzu
75. “You must act as if everything depended on your individual efforts. The secret of success is constancy of purpose.” — Benjamin Disraeli
76. “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” — Louis Pasteur
End of the School Year Quotes About Education and Learning
These last days are a wonderful time to reflect on what students have learned and the importance of education itself.
77. “A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.” — George Santayana
78. “What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.” — Joseph Addison
79. “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” — Thomas Henry Huxley
80. “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
81. “Your education is a dress rehearsal for a life that is yours to lead.” — Nora Ephron
82. “We all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.” — Peter De Vries
83. “Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future.” — Hannah Arendt
84. “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.” — President George Washington
85. “Achieve success in any area of life by identifying the optimum strategies and repeating them until they become habits.” — Charles J. Givens
86. “People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.” — Annie Sullivan
87. “There is power in thinking. And you can use that power to enhance your success potential if you spend some time every day thinking of yourself as a success.” — Joyce Brothers
88. “A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.” — Bob Bennett
89. “Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.” — Edward Carpenter
90. “Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life.” — Plato
91. “To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.” — Marilyn vos Savant
92. “Learn as if you were not reaching your goal and as though you were scared of missing it.” — Confucius
93. “I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.” — Eartha Kitt
94. “The more you learn, if you learn it properly, the more clear you become and the more you know.” — Leonard Peikoff
95. “An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history—he is one who can accomplish things.” — Henry Ford
96. “Wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole subject we study and learn.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
97. “In youth we learn; in age we understand.” — Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
98. “Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty.” — Roger Ascham
Goal-Setting End of the School Year Quotes
Help students think ahead toward whatever the future holds with these quotes about setting and achieving goals.
99. “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” — Oprah Winfrey
100. “One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.” — Michael Korda
101. “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.” — Albert Einstein
102. “Once a positive goal is chosen, you should decide to pursue it all the way to the end. Even if it is not realized, at least there will be no regret.” — Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
103. “No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.” — Jessica Savitch
104. “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” — Anthony Robbins
105. “Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.” — Brian Tracy
106. “A man has to have goals—for a day, for a lifetime.” — Ted Williams
107. “The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.” — Cecil B. De Mille
108. “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” — Alan Kay
Inspirational Quotes for the Last Days of School
Here are even more quotes to inspire your students, teachers, and staff as the school year draws to a close.
109. “We always may be what we might have been.” — Adelaide Anne Procter
110. “Always find time for the things that make you feel happy to be alive.” — Matt Haig
111. “Life—a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.” — Charles Lindbergh
112. “Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.” — John Updike
113. “Have faith in your skills. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” — Suzy Kassem
114. “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” — Carl Jung
115. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
116. “They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” — Andy Warhol
117. “Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.” — Langston Hughes
118. “If a little day-dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.” — Marcel Proust
119. “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” — John Henry Newman
120. “If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.” — Jim Carrey
121. “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” — Edgar Allan Poe
122. “We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.” — Lucy Maud Montgomery
123. “Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others, reaches us so deep as that which we find in ourselves.” — Theodor Reik
124. “The present is the ever-moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
125. “All our dreams can come true—if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney
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