Turtle Quotes About Life
These turtle quotes teach us many life lessons, like determination and perseverance.
As children we learned by reading Aesop’s fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare” that being the speediest isn’t always the most important factor in life. Sometimes slow but steady wins the race.
Let’s take a look at some of the best quotes and sayings that highlight the turtle’s best qualities.
Top 10 turtle quotes and sayings
1.) A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out.
Korean Proverb
2.) Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won’t be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.
Ajahn Chah
3.) The tortoise stores its wisdom in his shell.
Unknown
4.) Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Plato
5.) Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.
Henry David Thoreau
6.) Wealth comes like a turtle and goes away like a gazelle.
Arabic Proverb
7.) Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.
Kurt Vonnegut
8.) Trusting in wealth is like looking for feathers on turtles.
Senegalese Proverb
9.) Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.
Alex Haley
10.) We’re lean, we’re green, and we’re mean!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Life – turtle quotes
11.) Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause.
Bruce Feiler
12.) Try to be like the turtle at ease in your own shell.
Bill Copeland
13.) ‘Now you see,’ said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, ‘why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else’s joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.’
Amy Tan
14.) Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out.
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
15.) Pride of one’s work is not improper, unladylike, or vain. Low self-esteem is not modesty. We can all take a lesson from the sea turtle. She does not travel thousands of miles or risk all for her ego. She has an instinct for greatness — one that I believe is found in all living creatures.
Mary Alice
16.) On my door there’s a cartoon of two turtles. One says, ‘Sometimes I’d like to ask why he allows poverty, famine and injustice when he could do something about it. ‘The other turtle says, ‘I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.
Peter Kreeft
17.) In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Love
18.) Love makes even a turtle smile.
Henrietta Newton
Famous turtle quotes
19.) Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.
Ernest Hemingway
20.) The turtle couldn’t help us.
Stephen King
21.) Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
James Bryant Conant
22.) All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
23.) But we are mostly what we are, and the turtle stretching toward delicious buds on high does not lighten his carapace by his resolve.
Arthur Miller
24.) I suppose without curiosity a man would be a tortoise. Very comfortable life, a tortoise has.
Agatha Christie
25.) Turtle makes all men equal.
Benjamin Disraeli
26.) It’s the tortoise’s shell, ugly and hard that protects its life long journey on earth.
African Proverb
27.) “When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle – we used to call him Tortoise.”
“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked.
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily: “really you are very dull!”
Lewis Carroll
28.) As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, as sun to day, as turtle to her mate, as iron to adamant, as earth to centre.
William Shakespeare
29.) Sleepy turtles never catch up with the sunrise.
Jamaican Proverb
Cute turtle quotes
30.) Do not let fear confine your life Inside a shell of doubt; A turtle never moves until His head is sticking out.
Charles Ghigna
31.) It’s okay to play turtle for a while, as long as you don’t get too fond of your shell.
Eileen Wilks
32.) If superstition could contradict science, the world may as well be on the back of a turtle. But giving into turtle worship was a bridge too far.
Thomm Quackenbush
33.) I felt like time was a great sea, and I was floating on the back of a turtle, and no sails broke the horizon.
Janet Fitch
34.) Unfortunately, I am not like a snail or a turtle, and I can’t take my houses with me when I move.
Unknown
35.) One day a tortoise will learn how to fly.
Unknown
36.) A turtle never abandons its carriage.
African Proverb
37.) The beach is in our blood. Everyone in our family returns to the beach instinctively, just like the sea turtles.
Sandy Archibald
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38.) I’m slow and my wrinkles might annoy you, I’m green and slimy but I sure my shell can protect you.
Unknown
39.) My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out.
Ruth Westheimer
40.) Tortoises are cynics, they always expect the worst.
Why? I dunno, ‘cause it often happens to them I suppose.
Terry Pratchett
Funny turtle quotes
41.) See the turtle of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth. If you want to run and play, come along the beam today.
Stephen King
42.) Turtles always strike me as devastatingly serious. If turtles could talk, I’d believe everything they said.
Erin O’Brien
43.) We don’t even know if we’re in this room. We could be in a turtle’s dream in outer space.
Danny Devito
44.) A turtle does come in it’s own bowl.
Mike Dirnt
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Good for a laugh
45.) A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever, ” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
Stephen Hawking
46.) I’m as self-contained as a turtle. When I put my key in the ignition, I have my home right behind me.
Esther Tallamy
47.) I actually think I’m more of a turtle than Verne is. Where Verne is up on two legs and moving at full speed and doesn’t pull his head into the shell very often, I in reality was five or ten minutes later to every recording session.
Garry Shandling
48.) Men who wear turtlenecks look like turtles.
Doris Lilly
Tortoise and hare (turtle and rabbit) sayings
49.) Slow and steady wins the race.
Aesop
50.) Oh, a very useful philosophical animal, your average tortoise. Outrunning metaphorical arrows, beating hares in races… very handy.
Terry Pratchett
51.) In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.
Anita Brookner
52.) Tortoises can tell you more about the road than hares.
Khalil Gibran
53.) Good habits are the basic tools that will determine whether you are a tortoise or hare in life!
Lucas Remmerswaal
54.) We’re the tortoise that has outrun the hare because it chose the easy predictions.
Charlie Munger
Speed quotes
55.) No turtle can be a revolutionist, because revolution requires high speed.
Mehmet Murat ildan
56.) How you start is important, very important, but in the end it is how you finish that counts. It is easier to be a self-starter than a self-finisher. The victor in the race is not the one who dashes off swiftest but the one who leads at the finish. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter in life’s race. In America we breed many hares but not so many tortoises.
B. C. Forbes
Inspirational turtle quotes
57.) No man has ever seen a turtle climbing the wall. In order to do the things which are impossible for you, you need to change yourself, and better still, transform yourself into something new!
Mehmet Murat ildan
58.) The Turtle’s teachings are so beautiful. So very special. It teaches us that everything you are, everything you need and everything you bring to the world is inside you, not external, and you carry it with you, and are not limited to a place, space or time.
Eileen Anglin
59.) I am successful because I have always been a tortoise: I did not come from a rich family, I was not smart in school, I did not finish school, I am not particularly talented. Yet, I am far richer than most people simply because I did not stop.
Robert Kiyosaki
60.) It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius
61.) Turtle has just one plan at a time, and every cell buys into it.
Ted Kooser
Famous turtles – turtle quotes
These turtle quotes are from famous turtles in movies, books, and TV.
Crush the Turtle from Finding Nemo
62.) Oh, I saw the whole thing, dude! First, you were like, whoa! And then we were like, WHOA! And then you were like, whoa.
63.) Righteous! Righteous! (while surfing the tide)
64.) You’ve got serious thrill issues dude… awesome!
65.) It’s awesome, Jellyman. Little dudes are just eggs, we leave ’em on the beach to hatch, and then — koo-koo ka-choo! — they find their way back to the Big Ol’ Blue.
66.) Now give me some fin, nogin dude!!!!
67.) Mister turtle is my father, name’s Crush.
68.) Oh, man. Hey, no hurling on the shell, dude, okay? Just waxed it.
69.) You, Mini-Man! Takin’ on the jellies. You got serious thrill issues, dude.
Grand Master Oogway from Kung Fu Panda
70.) If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now.
71.) You are the master of your destiny: No one and nothing can come in between you and your destiny except you. Take destiny by the horns and have fun.
72.) It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.
73.) There is always something more to learn. Even for a master.
74.) Nothing is impossible.
75.) Use your skills for good, young warrior. Find the one thing you were denied so long ago — compassion.
76.) When will you realize? The more you take, the less you have.
77.) Who knows the ways of the universe? Accident? Or destiny? That is the secret.
78.) Shifu, an acorn can only become the mighty oak, not a cherry tree. You must let her grow into what she will be.
79.) Your mind is like this water, my friend. When it is agitated, it becomes difficult to see. But if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear.
80.) My old friend, the panda will never fulfill his destiny, nor you yours, until you let go of the illusion of control.
81.) One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
82.) My time has come. You must continue your journey… without me. You must… believe. Promise me you’ll believe.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles quotes
83.) Cowabunga!
Raphael
84.) She’s so hot I can feel my shell tightening.
Michaelangelo
85.) I’m the one who licks the icing off the Pop-Tarts every morning and puts them back in the box.
Donatello
86.) Turtles in a half shell!
Vern Fenwick
87.) We turtles don’t know the meaning of the word ‘defeat’.
Leonardo
88.) That’s right. We never bothered to look it up in the dictionary.
Michaelangelo
89.) Vern Fenwick: You’re a talking turtle?!
Raphael: And you’re a human nerd, let’s go!
90.) Face it, man, it’s the only job we’re qualified for.
Michelangelo
91.) Yes, dudes and dudettes! Major league butt kicking is back in town!
Michaelangelo
Yertle the Turtle
92.) And the turtles, of course… all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
Dr. Seuss
Turtle captions for Instagram
Use these captions to spice up your social media posts. Perfect for adding funny lines to your turtle posts on Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat, Facebook and more!
- Your speed doesn’t matter. Forward is forward.
- What the shell?
- We’re on turtle time.
- Save the turtles.
- I like turtles.
- Shell yeah!
- Live slow.
- I just freaking love turtles, OK?
- Always late, but worth the wait.
- Stop dropping trash where we splash.
- Turtley handsome.
- I’m not late, I’m just early for tomorrow.
- Just a girl who loves sea turtles.
- I’m turtley in love with you.
- Grumpy turtle.
- I’m introverting.
- Sassy since birth. Salty by choice.
- Live in the sunshine. Swim the sea. Drink the wild air.
- Turtle power!
- Skip a straw – save a turtle.
- Slow down, bro!
- I love turtles.
- Man I love being a turtle.
- I run on turtle speed.
- Save the ocean.
- Time to shellebrate!
- Slow poke.
- See turtle?
- Crazy tortoise guy.
- Do you turtle too?
- Life is good. Take it slow.
Thank you for reading the best turtle quotes and sayings. Check out more interesting animal quotes here:
By Greg Johnson | Published 4/15/2021
