Top 350 Stephen Colbert Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.”

— Stephen Colbert

Featured in: Sarcastic Quotes

2. “An apple a day keeps anyone away, if you throw it hard enough.”

— Stephen Colbert

3. “Attack life, it’s going to kill you anyway.”

— Stephen Colbert

4. “Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.”

— Stephen Colbert

5. “Don’t cry over spilled milk. By this time tomorrow, it’ll be free yogurt.”

— Stephen Colbert

6. “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

— Stephen Colbert

7. “Don’t be bitter. Everybody suffers. If you can accept your suffering then you will understand other people better. Be grateful for pain. Love life.”

— Stephen Colbert

8. “Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.”

— Stephen Colbert

9. “Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.”

— Stephen Colbert

10. “Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It’s certainty.”

— Stephen Colbert

11. “If you’re doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide from the giant surveillance apparatus the government’s been hiding.”

— Stephen Colbert

12. “You don’t look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.”

— Stephen Colbert

Featured in: Book Quotes

13. “You may learn sooner than most generations the hard lesson that you must always make the path for yourself. There is no secret society out there that will tap you on your shoulder one night and show you the way.”

— Stephen Colbert

Featured in: Quotes About Night

14. “I’m more American than apple pie. I’m like apple pie, with a hot dog in it.”

— Stephen Colbert

15. “If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself.”

— Stephen Colbert

16. “It is a well known fact that reality has liberal bias.”

— Stephen Colbert

17. “Never throw caution to the wind. It could whip back into your eyes and blind you.”

— Stephen Colbert

18. “Some say, ‘Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.’ I say, ‘Those who ignore history are in for a big surprise.’”

— Stephen Colbert

19. “Clearly, America has no shortage of metaphorical opportunities for the poor.”

— Stephen Colbert

20. “I’ve said it before: equations are the devil’s sentences. The worst one is that quadratic equation, an infernal salad of numbers, letters, and symbols.”

— Stephen Colbert

21. “There’s an old saying about those who forget history. I don’t remember it, but it’s good.”

— Stephen Colbert

22. “The pen is mightier than the sword, if you shoot that pen out of a gun.”

— Stephen Colbert

23. “Cynics always say no. Saying yes leads to knowledge. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.”

— Stephen Colbert

24. “The liberal Gluten-free agenda is turning our dogs lesbian.”

— Stephen Colbert

25. “I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible – I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical.”

— Stephen Colbert

26. “Global warming isn’t real because I was cold today! Also great news: world hunger is over because I just ate.”

— Stephen Colbert

Featured in: Real Quotes

27. “I’m a junkie for exhaustion, and I’m a junkie for setting up my expectations too high and then trying to meet them.”

— Stephen Colbert

28. “If someone does offer you a job, say ‘yes.’ You can always quit later. Then at least you’ll be one of the unemployed as opposed to one of the never-employed. Nothing looks worse on a resume than nothing.”

— Stephen Colbert

29. “Agnostics are just atheists without balls.”

— Stephen Colbert

30. “Take it from me, there’s nothing like a job well done. Except the quiet enveloping darkness at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam after a job done any way at all.”

— Stephen Colbert

31. “And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion – be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

— Stephen Colbert

32. “Folks, I don’t trust children. They’re here to replace us.”

— Stephen Colbert

33. “It warps the minds of our children and weakens the resolve of our allies.”

— Stephen Colbert

34. “The more you know, the sadder you get.”

— Stephen Colbert

35. “Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies.”

— Stephen Colbert

36. “You see, we’re America the Beautiful, not “America Well At Least She Has A Great Personality”.”

— Stephen Colbert

37. “Thankfully, dreams can change. If we’d all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.”

— Stephen Colbert

38. “I’ve said it a million times: Romance languages lead to premarital sex.”

— Stephen Colbert

Featured in: Romance Quotes

39. “I don’t like books, they’re all fact, no heart.”

— Stephen Colbert

Featured in: Book Quotes

40. “In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant. One motto on the show is, ‘Keep your facts, I’m going with the truth.’”

— Stephen Colbert

41. “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, I hope it lands on a philosophy professor.”

— Stephen Colbert

42. “What does Karl Marx put on his pasta? Communist Manipesto!”

— Stephen Colbert

43. “Opinions are like demo tapes. I don’t want to hear yours.”

— Stephen Colbert

44. “There is no food closer to my heart than cheese. In fact, according to my doctor, it has nearly filled my aorta.”

— Stephen Colbert

45. “I may not agree with what you have to say but I will fight you to the death for the right to fight you to the death.”

— Stephen Colbert

46. “They said you can’t go to the moon. They said you can’t put cheese inside a pizza crust, but NASA did it. They had to, because the cheese kept floating off in space.”

— Stephen Colbert

47. “In God’s eyes all children are beautiful but here on earth we have higher standards.”

— Stephen Colbert

48. “Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics.”

— Stephen Colbert

49. “I’m not a fan of the facts. Facts change; my opinion never does.”

— Stephen Colbert

50. “Try to love others and serve others and hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.”

— Stephen Colbert