152 Birthday Quotes to Celebrate Friends and Family

There are a lot of ways to wish someone a happy birthday, from the two-word tradition to more personal takes on the day. There are also plenty of reasons to gravitate toward the latter, especially when celebrating good friends, best friends, girlfriends, or boyfriends. To help, we've put together an original list of happy birthday quotes to share with someone special in your life. Check out the selection below.

RELATED: I'm Sorry Quotes: 100 Ways to Apologize.

152 Ways to Wish Someone a Very Happy Birthday

Use these meaningful birthday messages to wish someone the very best on their special day. Write them on a birthday card, incorporate them into a birthday gift, or save them for a special toast at the birthday party. The choice is yours!

Inspirational Birthday Quotes

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1. "Your birthday is the beginning of your own personal new year. Your first birthday was a beginning, and each new birthday is a chance to begin again, to start over, to take a new grip on life." — Wilferd Peterson
2. "Birthdays are inevitable, beautiful, and very particular moments in our lives! Moments that bring precious memories back, celebrate the present times, and give hope for the future." — Bsbr Arish
3. "There are two great days in a person’s life—the day we are born and the day we discover why." — William Barclay
4. "In other words, live vicariously, beautifully, and excitingly, discover, love, dare and act as there is nothing to lose." — Andy Hertz
5. "We should celebrate every year that we made it through and every year that we're happier and healthier." — Ellen DeGeneres
6. "Don't just count the years, make the years count." — George Meredith
7. "Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year. The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again." — Menachem Mendel Schneerson
8. "I believe that no matter what condition you are in when someone close to your heart remembers your birthday and wishes you a happy birthday, you feel happy." — A. Singla
9. "Celebrate your journey of life." — Lailah Gifty Akita
10. "Eventually you reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it." — Will Rogers
11. "A birth date is a reminder to celebrate the life as well as to update the life." — Amit Kalantri
12. "Each new year of life added to your past, changing the way you viewed every new day, influencing how you reacted to everything from the simplest daily routines to complex events touching you, your family, and the world you lived in." — Paul Snyder
13. "A birthday is not a day to fear. It is a day to celebrate and look forward to the coming year." — Byron Pulsifer
14. "My life is better with every year of living it." — Rachel Maddow
15. "If we could be twice young and twice old we could correct all our mistakes." — Euripides
16. "You take away all the other luxuries in life, and if you can make someone smile and laugh, you have given the most special gift: happiness." — Brad Garrett
17. "A child whose birthday is coming up is so excited, they count down the days. But as we get older we seem to lose the excitement. We need to rethink and be happy we have reached another birthday." — Theodore W. Higginsworth
18. "Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter." — Satchel Paige
19. "When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." — Cherokee Proverb

Funny Birthday Quotes

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20. "You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely." — Ogden Nash
21. "Why is a birthday cake the only food you can blow on and spit on and everybody rushes to get a piece?" — Bobby Kelton
22. "I’m at an age when my back goes out more than I do." — Phyllis Diller
23. "The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." — Lucille Ball
24. "Why party like it's 1999 when you can party like it is your birthday?" — Prince
25. "Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest." — Larry Lorenzoni
26. "Put candles in a cake, it’s a birthday cake. Put candles in a pie, and somebody’s drunk in the kitchen." — Jim Gaffigan
27. "Every year on my birthday, I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary because I am a teenage girl." — Chris Hardwick
28. "You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‘See if you can blow this out.’" — Jerry Seinfeld
29. "The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once." — H.V. Prochnow
30. "Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays—everybody's got one. Most kids wish they had more. Older people wish they had fewer and find them a bore." — Sally Huss
31. "When a man has a birthday, he takes a day off. When a woman has a birthday, she takes at least three years off." — Joan Rivers
32. "I still think of myself as I was 25 years ago. Then I look in a mirror and see an old bastard and I realize it’s me." — Dave Allen
33. "As you get older, three things happen; the first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two." — Norman Wisdom

... And Even More Hilarious Birthday Quotes

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34. "A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age." — Robert Frost
35. "I wish people would stop talking about my birthday." — George Bernard Shaw
36. "I was brought up to respect my elders, so now I don’t have to respect anybody." — George Burns
37. "A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday." — Erma Bombeck
38. "To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am." — Bernard Baruch
39. "If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself." — Eubie Blake
40. "Today is the oldest you have been, and the youngest you will ever be. Make the most of it!" — Nicky Gumbel
41. "Birthdays are nature’s way of telling us to eat more cake." — Edward Morykwas
42. "Like many women my age, I am 28 years old. — Mary Schmich
43. "Inside every older person is a younger person—wondering what the hell happened." — Jennifer Yane
44. "Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life." — Kitty Collins
45. "Youth is the gift of nature, but age is the work of art." — Garson Kanin
46. "The older you get the better you get, unless you are a banana." — Betty White
47. "I intend to live forever. So far, so good." — Steven Wright

Quotes About Birthday Cake

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48. "I like birthday cake. It’s so symbolic. It’s a tempting symbol to load with something more complicated than just ‘Happy birthday!’ because it’s this emblem of childhood and a happy day." — Aimee Bender
49. "All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much." — George Harrison
50. "My policy on cake is pro-having it and pro-eating it. " — Boris Johnson
51. "For me, the end of childhood came when the number of candles on my birthday cake no longer reflected my age, around 19 or 20. From then on, each candle came to represent an entire decade." — Yotam Ottolenghi
52. "When the candles on your cake burn down before they are all lit you know you are getting up there." — Catherine Pulsifer
53. "Birthdays are a great time to stop and appreciate gravity. Sure, it makes things sag as you get older, but it also keeps your cake from flying all over the room, so you don’t have to chase it." — Greg Tamblyn
54. "Cakes are special. Every birthday, every celebration ends with something sweet, a cake, and people remember. It’s all about the memories." — Buddy Valastro
55. "You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake." — Bob Hope
56. "I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn’t have one. So I got a cake." — Mitch Hedberg
57. "Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth." — Janet Evanovich

Birthday Quotes About Age

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58. "Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research." — Carl Jung
59. "Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young." — Fred Astaire
60. "Life isn't about your age. Life is about living. So when your birthday comes, be thankful for the year that has just passed and anticipate with a happy heart what the coming year will bring." — Catherine Pulsifer
61. "Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard, there is nothing you can do about it." — Golda Meir
62. "One of the shocks of a 50th birthday is realizing the fundamental fact that your youth is irrevocably over." — Marianne Williamson
63. "The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been. " — Madeleine L’Engle
64. "Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself." — Tom Wilson
65. "Everything I know, I learned after I was 30." — George Clemenceau
66. "The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything." — Oscar Wilde
67. "How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?" — Satchel Paige
68. "Your age isn’t you. Use today to feel your best, celebrate and be your very happiest." — M. Rivers
69. "Middle age is when you still believe you’ll feel better in the morning." — Bob Hope
70. "No wise man ever wished to be younger." — Jonathan Swift
71. "Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for old age." — Booth Tarkington
72. "To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn’t wish my teens and 20s on my enemies." — Lionel Blue
73. "Keep true to the dream of thy youth." — Friedrich Schiller
74. "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." — Les Brown
75. "At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment." — Benjamin Franklin
76. "Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs." — John Glenn
77. "I think all this talk about age is foolish. Every time I’m one year older, everyone else is too." — Gloria Swanson
78. "Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom. " — Joseph Joubert
79. "Don’t regret another birthday, the good news is that you are alive and can celebrate it." — Catherine Pulsifer
80. "You’ve heard of the three ages of man—youth, age, and 'you are looking wonderful.'" — Francis Spellman

Short and Simple Birthday Quotes

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81. "You don’t get older, you get better." — Shirley Bassey
82. "Nice to be here? At my age, it’s nice to be anywhere." — George Burns
83. "Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wings of time." — Jean Paul Richter
84. "Your birthday is my pleasure. You are my sweetest treasure."— Danny Demeersseman
85. "We turn not older with years, but newer every day." — Emily Dickinson
86. "Youth has no age." — Pablo Picasso
87. "Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words." – Plautus
88. "We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves." — Bernard Baruch
89. "Life is too short to be small." — Benjamin Disraeli
90. "The first hundred years are the hardest." — Wilson Mizner
91. "We are always the same age inside." — Gertrude Stein
92. "Every birthday is a gift. Every day is a gift." — Aretha Franklin
93. "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." — Groucho Marx
94. "Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed." — Charles Schulz
95. "Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new." — Sammy Hagar

Birthday Quotes About Life

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96. "You were born and with you endless possibilities, very few ever to be realized. It’s okay. Life was never about what you could do, but what you would do." — Richelle E. Goodrich
97. "There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." — George Santayana
98. "You were born an original. Don't die a copy." — John Mason
99. "The way I see it, you should live every day like it’s your birthday." — Paris Hilton
100. "The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." — Oprah Winfrey
101. "A birthday is just another day where you go to work and people give you love. Age is just a state of mind, and you are as old as you think you are. You have to count your blessings and be happy." — Abhishek Bachchan
102. "Another year comes to a close, and another begins. May the coming year be one that will be filled with laughter of friends, love of family, and the life that you dream of." — Catherine Pulsifer
103. "Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow." — Margaret Fuller
104. "Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act." — Truman Capote
105. "Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be." — Lauren Hutton
106. "Life seems to fade our memory, so on this birthday I will forget yours if you forget mine!" — Kate Summers
107. "Today you have added another candle of knowledge and wisdom to your life. May it give you the power to enlighten the whole world. On your birthday, I wish you joy and happiness." — Debasish Mridha
108. "Celebrate your journey of life." — Lailah Gifty Akita
109. "Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears." — John Lennon
110. "I was forced to live far beyond my years when just a child, now I have reversed the order and I intend to remain young indefinitely." — Mary Pickford
111. "Live not one’s life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last." — Marcus Aurelius
112. "Men are like wine: some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age." — Pope John XXIII

Sweet Happy Birthday Messages for Your Best Friend

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113. "Birthdays come every year, but friends like you only come around once in a lifetime. Best wishes on your special day."
114. "I am beyond grateful for your friendship. Hope you have a great birthday."
115. "I hope all your wishes come true. Happy birthday to a dear friend!"
116. "Happy birthday to my best friend in the whole wide world!"
117. "Happy birthday, best friend! I hope you enjoy your special day."
118. "Every year on this day, I am reminded to count my blessings because I get to call you a friend."
119. "I am so thrilled to be celebrating your birthday today. To many more walks around the sun."
120. "Another birthday means celebrating another of growth and prosperity. To the best birthday yet!"
121. "Wishing you a fantastic birthday filled with happy memories."
122. "We both know we won't make it past 10 p.m., so let's get this party started!"
123. "Happy birthday to the best friend I could ask for. Cheers to more precious memories together."
124. "Happy birthday to the only person I'd go out on a weekday for!"
125. "The only better thing than celebrating a birthday with friends is celebrating a birthday with old friends. To many more years ahead!"
126. "They say age is just a number, and they might be right. Happy birthday to my friend who is forever young at heart."

Birthday Greetings for Her

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127. "Happy birthday to the woman whose flame only grows brighter with time!"
128. "Today, we celebrate the birthday girl. Tomorrow, you’ll rest up, as an adventure-filled year awaits!"
129. "To that special woman in my life, I hope you have the best birthday ever."
130. "Wishing a very happy birthday to my [wife or girlfriend]. May I always be by her side to blow out the candles."
131. "Happy birthday, darling. May all your wishes come true today, tomorrow, and forever."
132. "Wishing you only love and happiness on your birthday. I am so lucky to have you in my life."
133. "Sending birthday wishes to my wife. May today bring you all the happiness you deserve."
134. "The older you get, the more space you have in my heart. Happy birthday, love."
135. "Every day, I count my blessings because I have you in my life. Happy birthday."
136. "Here's to another year on the books. May this one be the best one yet. Happy birthday, baby."
137. "Happy birthday, my love! I hope today brings you the same happiness you bring me."
138. "Hope your birthday is just like you... absolutely amazing!"
139. "Happy birthday, darling! Hope today brings just what you deliver to those around you; nothing but the best."
140. "Sending lots of love to the most amazing woman in my life. Like a fine wine, you just keep getting better with age!"

Happy Birthday Wishes for Him

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141. "Today we celebrate you! Happy birthday to a wonderful person."
142. "Happy birthday to one of the most special people in my life. Wishing you many more."
143. "Happy birthday to an amazing person. Wishing you endless possibilities in the year ahead."
144. "On this day, a very special person came into this world and I’m forever grateful for that. Happy birthday."
145. "No present can compete with the best gift of all—you. Happy birthday, sweetheart."
146. "Finally, proof the perfect guy does exist. Wishing him a very happy birthday."
147. "I'm so thankful to have you in my life. Happy birthday and cheers to an adventure-filled year ahead."
148. Birthdays come and go, but men like you only come around once in a lifetime. Happy birthday, darling."
149. "Wishing you the happiest of birthdays. Let’s make the most of this year, before we add another candle to the cake."
150. "Happy birthday to one of the best guys I know. May this year bring the best yet."
151. "Hope your special day brings everything your heart desires! Wishing you a day full of pleasant surprises! Happy birthday!"
152. "It's not about getting older, it's about getting wiser. Happy birthday, babe!"