All 38 ‘Classroom of the Elite’ Opening Quotes in Order

‘Classroom of the Elite‘ is a popular Japanese light novel series that has been adapted into anime and manga. The story follows the students of Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing School, a prestigious institution that aims to create the future leaders of society. However, not everything is as it seems, as the school has a ruthless system of meritocracy that rewards the winners and punishes the losers.

One of the distinctive features of the series is the opening quotes that appear at the beginning of each episode or volume. These quotes are often philosophical, insightful, or provocative, reflecting the themes and characters of the story. They also serve as a hook for the audience, making them curious about what will happen next.

In this article, we will list all the opening quotes from ‘Classroom of the Elite’ in order, covering the three seasons in which the series used philosophical quotations as its episode title cards. Season 4, which premiered in April 2026, has departed from this format entirely, a development explained in the section below.

Editor’s Note: This list was updated on May 24, 2026.

Season 1 – 12 Quotes

1. Episode 1: “What is Evil? Whatever Springs From Weakness” – Friedrich Nietzsche

2. Episode 2: “It Takes a Great Deal and Skill to Conceal One’s Talent and Skill.” – François de La Rochefoucauld

3. Episode 3: “Man is an Animal that Makes Bargains: No Other Animal Does This – No Dog Exchanges Bones with Another.” – Adam Smith

4. Episode 4: “We Should Not be Upset that Others Hide the Truth from Us, When We Hide it from Ourselves.” – François de La Rochefoucauld

5. Episode 5: “Hell is Other People” – Jean-Paul Sartre

6. Episode 6: “There are Two Kinds of Lies; One concerns an Accomplished Fact, the Other concerns a Future Duty.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

7. Episode 7: “Nothing is as Dangerous as an Ignorant Friend; A Wise Enemy is to be Preferred.” – Jean de La Fontaine

8. Episode 8: “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.” – Dante Alighieri

9. Episode 9: “Man is Condemned to be Free.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

10. Episode 10: “Every Man has in Himself the Most Dangerous Traitor of All.” – Søren Kierkegaard

11. Episode 11: “What People Commonly call Fate is Mostly their Own Stupidity.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

12. Episode 12: “A Genius Lives Only One Story Above Madness.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

Season 2 – 13 Quotes

13. Episode 1: “Remember to Keep a Clear Head in Difficult Times” – Horace

14. Episode 2: “There Are Two Main Human Sins from Which All the Others Derive: Impatience and Indolence.” Franz Kafka

15. Episode 3: “The Greatest Souls Are Capable of the Greatest Vices as Well as the Greatest Virtues.” – René Descartes

16. Episode 4: “The Material Has to Be Created.” – Florence Nightingale

17. Episode 5: “Every Failure is a Step to Success” – William Whewell

18. Episode 6: “Adversity Is The First Path To Truth” – Lord Byron

19: Episode 7: “To Doubt Everything or To Believe Everything are Two Equally Convenient Solutions; Both Dispense with the Necessity of Reflection.” – Henri Poincaré

20. Episode 8: “The Wound Is at Her Heart.” – Aeneis

21. Episode 9: “If You Make a Mistake and Do Not Correct It, This Is Called a Mistake.” – The Analects

22. Episode 10: “People, Often Deceived by An Illusive Good, Desire Their Own Ruin.” – Niccolò Machiavelli

23. Episode 11: “A Man Who Cannot Command Himself Always Remains a Slave.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

24. Episode 12: “Force Without Wisdom Falls of Its Own Weight.” – Horace

25. Episode 13: “The Worst Enemy You Can Meet Will Always Be Yourself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Season 3 – 13 Quotes

26. Episode 1: “The Strongest Principle of Growth Lies in the Human Choice.” – George Eliot

27. Episode 2: “A Man is a Wolf to Another Man” – Latin Proverb

28. Episode 3: “We Never Forget What We Endeavor to Forget.” – Margenrote

29. Episode 4: “To Work You Have The Right, But Not To Fruits Thereof” – Bhagavad Gita

30. Episode 5: “Fortune Favours the Bold” – Vergilius

31. Episode 6: “It’s Better to Suffer an Injustice than To Do an Injustice.” – Cicero

32. Episode 7: “People Will Do Anything, No Matter How Absurd, In Order to Avoid Facing Their Own Souls” – Carl Gustav Yung

33. Episode 8: “Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It” – George Santayana

34. Episode 9: “Extreme Justice is Extreme Injustice” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

35. Episode 10: “The First Cause of Absurd Conclusions I Ascribe to the Want of Method.” – Thomas Hobbes

36. Episode 11: “There is only one rule for love. It is to lead the loved ones to happiness..” – Stendhal.

37. Episode 12: “Change Your Desires Rather than the Order of the World” – Descartes

38. Episode 13: “Love Is the Greatest Teacher” – Pliny the Younger.

Season 4: A New Arc, and the End of an Era

‘Classroom of the Elite’ returned for a fourth season on April 1, 2026, with studio Lerche producing a 90-minute premiere event that released the first four episodes simultaneously. The season, officially titled ‘Classroom of the Elite: Year 2, First Semester,’ adapts Volumes 1 through 4 of Shogo Kinugasa’s Year 2 light novel series and is scheduled to run for 16 episodes, airing weekly on Wednesdays.

Season 4 is directed by Noriyuki Nomata, with series composition handled by Yasushi Shigenobu and Kyoko Katsuya, the same writing team that worked on Season 3. Eir Aoi performs the opening theme, “Monster,” while ZAQ returns to handle the ending theme, “Liar Veil.” The season is streaming globally on Crunchyroll with subtitles, and an English dub has been announced.

Readers who arrive at this article looking for Season 4 philosophical opening quotes should know the format does not carry over. Unlike Seasons 1 through 3, where each episode title was itself a quotation drawn from a Western philosopher or literary figure, Season 4 uses plot-based episode titles such as “Assassin From the White Room” and “The Twenty-Million Man.” No philosophical quote title cards appear in Season 4’s episode run. The total count of philosophical opening quotes from the anime therefore remains 38, all drawn from the first three seasons.

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