In Part I of ‘Everything You Need to Know About Birthday Cards’, we looked at all the basics of birthday cards, and in Part II we looked at birthday greetings you could use when writing a birthday card. This time around, we look at some of the best birthday quotes you can use to add a little extra meaning to your card writing.
Happy birthday quotes are perfect for filling space on a card one you’ve said everything you wanted to say, or for adding some extra thoughtfulness. They’re particularly great for your literary-minded friends.
Inspirational birthday quotes
Inspirational birthday quotes work for almost anyone. They’re the sorts of quotes you often find on the front of department store greeting cards. All the happy birthday quotes on this list are specific to birthdays, time passing, and getting older.
“With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come.” – William Shakespeare
“Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new.” – Sammy Hagar
“You don’t get older, you get better.” – Shirley Bassey
“It takes a long time to become young.” – Picasso
“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” – Sophia Loren
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” – Henri Bergson
“Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.” – Ausonius
“Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.” – Plautus
“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” – Agatha Christie
“Cakes are special. Every birthday, every celebration, ends with something sweet, a cake, and people remember. It’s all about the memories.” – Buddy Valastro
“Forever is composed of nows.” – Emily Dickinson
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” – Neil Gaiman
Funny birthday quotes
Birthdays are a staple for comedians and other public figures, so there are heaps of funny birthday quotes to choose from if you feel like making the birthday girl or birthday boy smile.
“Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” – Satchel Paige
“The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.” – E. Joseph Cossman
“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.” – Steven Wright
“To me – old age is always ten years older than I am.” – Bernard Baruch
“I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn’t have one. So I got a cake.” – Mitch Hedberg
“You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” – Bob Hope
“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.” – Robert Frost
“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.” – Tom Wilson
“Age is not important unless you’re a cheese.” – Helen Hayes
“I believe in loyalty. When a woman reaches an age she likes, she should stick with it.” – Eva Gabor
Friendship quotes for a birthday card
Quotes don’t have to be specifically about birthdays or getting older to be appropriate for a birthday card. In place of happy birthday quotes you can use a quote relevant to your relationship to the person. Quotes on friendship are perfect for a friend’s birthday card, so you can let them know just how much their friendship means to you.
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – Anais Nin
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”’ – C.S. Lewis
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” – William Shakespeare
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
“Friends who love you and have warmth for your creative life are the very best suns in the world.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.” – Hubert H. Humphrey
“There is nothing on this Earth more to be prized than true friendship.” – Thomas Aquinas
Birthday card quotes for lovers
In our busy lives, birthday cards are often as close as we get to sending a love letter to our spouse or partner. Make it count with some romantic quotes about love to help you say it well.
“What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with.” – Robert Brault
“She is delightfully chaotic; a beautiful mess. Loving her is a splendid adventure.” – Steve Maraboli
“But now, this pretty woman he adored was his for life. The universe, for him, was contracted to the silken compass of her petticoat.” – Gustave Flaubert
“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow – this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
“To get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with.” – Mark Twain
“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we’ve lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we’ve found each other…When I look at you, I see your beauty and grace and know they have grown stronger with every life you have lived. And I know I have spent every life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you, but you, for your soul and mine must always come together.” – Nicholas Sparks
“The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.” – Meghan O’Rourke
“Someone who betters you. Somebody who inspires and encourages you in love and in life, who pushes you towards dreams and goals you’d otherwise ignore, who selflessly sacrifices their time to helping you become a more courageous, well rounded and happy human being. That’s sacred. You hold on to a love like that” – Beau Taplin
Quotes about life for a birthday card
Birthdays are a celebration of life, so it makes sense to use quotes about life as a form of happy birthday quotes. These are the sort of quotes you see on motivational posters or sweet photographic quote images online.
“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past.” – Haruki Murakami
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” – Bertrand Russell
“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual.” – Ernest Hemingway
“We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels noblest, acts the best.” – P.J. Bailey
Hopefully somewhere in this list is the perfect quote to add to your next birthday card, whether it’s for a friend, your spouse, or an acquaintance. Keep this birthday wishes quotes list on hand for next time you find yourself trying to find the right words.
Thanks for sticking with us for this series on everything you need to know about birthday cards! Now you know it all, from choosing the perfect birthday card to wording your birthday greetings and choosing birthday quotes.