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From a horde of screaming first-graders to a pack of hormone-overruled teenagers, teachers always have a tough audience. However, even after dealing with these wildlings day after day, an educator’s brilliance always shines through, as you’re about to see in these thought-provoking and motivating teacher quotes. And how could it not when teachers are probably the brightest among us with enviable patience and the smartest wit. Also, no need to be shy here, the same wildlings, whose faces educators see each year, often are quite inspiring themselves. But, without any further ado, let’s delve into the world of teachers and education by skipping right to the good part - our list of teacher quotes.
Naturally, if you yourself are a teacher, your interest in these intelligent quotes is evoked by your calling. But even if you are not a part of the educational system, chances are, you’ve been on the other side of the table for at least a decade in your life. In that case, these wise quotes might shine a new light on the world of learning and those responsible for it. Moreover, you’d be surprised how much education is similar to the school of life itself, so much so that these smart quotes might be even more relatable than you could’ve thought.
So, get your coconut ready to be a receptacle of intelligence and go straight to only the best teacher quotes that we’ve managed to locate. Once you find new thoughts buzzing inside your head and your life colored differently than it was before opening this article, it is time to vote for the wise words that touched you the most. After that, share this article with your fellow teachers or anyone at all who might be interested in reading something smart today!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
“If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” — Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Estrada
Ramirez rachael 2 years ago
Anyone can learn at anytime and any age. Teaching and learning are so profoundly important that it should be more dynamic in schools. I wonder how many things teachers learn from their students!
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#2
“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” – Mark Twain
Karin Gibson 2 years ago
I totally agree. I read every day for pleasure. My husband doesn't, I just don't understand.
#4
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” — William A. Ward
#5
“Once she knows how to read, there’s only one thing you can teach her to believe in—and that is herself.” — Virginia Woolf
#6
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.“ – Socrates
Nolan Meeks 2 years ago (edited)
The voice of a true educator And then they grade you on how they think.
#7
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”- Margaret Mead
#8
“No one should teach who is not in love with teaching.” — Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
#9
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” — Albert Einstein
#10
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#11
“Good teaching is 1/4 preparation and 3/4 theatre.“ – Gail Goldwin
Hannah Hudson-Lee 2 years ago
Lol. I always used to say that teaching was like playing six gigs a day, five days a week whilst simultaneously writing and recording albums.
#12
“Students don’t know how much you know until they know how much you care.” — John C. Maxwell
Huddo's sister 2 years ago
Maybe should be students don't CARE how much you know until they know how much you care.
#13
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.“ – Jacques Barzun
#14
“The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.“ – Alexandra K. Trenfor
#15
“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” – B.B. King
#16
“One good teacher in a lifetime may sometimes change a delinquent into a solid citizen.” — Philip Wylie
#17
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin
Mark Serbian, PK&RG,W 2 years ago
And, let's face it, Ben was a pretty involved guy, you know?
#18
“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” – Khalil Gibran
#22
“In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for less.” — Lee Iacocca
#24
“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.” — Lily Tomlin
#25
“A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank. But the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child.”- Forest Witcraft
#26
"It is not what is poured into the student, but what is planted, that counts."– E.P.Bertin
#28
“The best teachers are the ones that change their minds.” — Terry Heick
Zophra 2 years ago (edited)
Actually, as a teacher, I think a mindset that I continually aspire to is "how can I improve?" rather change my mind.Remembering and being secure enough to ask the students how I can do something better and listen to their comments and critcism. (Better explaination? Would a model help? Were the instructions clear? Was the test too hard?) Administrators will evaluate me and come up with these incredibly b******t ways to improve when the students really have the most helpful ideas.
#30
"In an effective classroom, students should not only know what they are doing, they should also know why and how."― Harry Wong
#32
“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” — Sidney Hook
#33
“Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon.” – Ann Liberman
#34
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey
#35
“The great teacher is not the man who supplies the most facts, but the one in whose presence we become different people.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Becky Burtis 2 years ago
Ah, here's one for my favorite quotes book. I have cherished that man since I first 'met' him 50 years ago.
#36
“The teacher… must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work.” — Maria Montessori
#37
“It is greater work to educate a child, in the true and larger sense of the world, than to rule a state.” — William Ellery Channing
#38
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” — Henry Brooks Adams
Nolan Meeks 2 years ago
My 10th grade English teacher told me that I could read anywhere. She told us she kept books anywhere and everywhere even in the bathroom next to the toilet.
#39
“To teach is to learn twice over.“ – Joseph Joubert
#40
“The fact that you worry about being a good teacher, means that you already are one.” — Jodi Picoult
#41
“The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.” — Alice Wellington Rollins
#43
“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.” — Amos Bronson
#44
“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” — Albert Einstein
#45
“Teaching is the highest form of understanding.“ – Aristotle
Eat Dirt Crow 2 years ago
How did teaching help Aristotle "understand" that eels don't reproduce, that they spontaneously generate from mud. Or that women have less teeth than men.
#46
“You can teach a person all you know, but only experience will convince him that what you say is true.“ – Richelle E. Goodrich
The Penguin Bandit 2 years ago
Parents of teenagers: don't worry that your teachings fall on deaf ears. When they go out into the real world, they will eventually come back and let you know that they heard you, it just took years of hands on experience for them to listen.
#47
“Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.“ – Confucius
#48
“Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.” — Edward Everett
#49
"Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."– Japanese Proverb
#50
"Educators are the only people who lose sleep over other people's kids." –Nicholas A. Ferroni
#51
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education."– Martin Luther King, Jr.
#52
“The teacher’s task is to initiate the learning process and then get out of the way.” ― John Warren
#53
"Teaching is the only major occupation...for which we have not developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the naturals, the ones who somehow know how to teach."― Peter Drucker
#54
“Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible. No one can do more.” — Loris Malaguzzi
#55
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher…is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” — Maria Montessori
#56
“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” — Aristotle
#57
“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within himself.” — Galileo Galilei
#58
“Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two together.” — Scott Hayden
#61
“To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.” — Muriel Spark
#62
“A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.“ – Horace Mann
#63
“If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.“ – Guy Kawasaki
#64
“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X
#66
“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.” – Brad Henry
#68
“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” — Robert M. Hutchins
#69
“When we strive to become better teachers than we are, everyone in our classroom becomes better too.”- Robert John Meehan
#70
“A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.”- D. Martin
#71
"The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught as that every child should be given the wish to learn."― John Lubbock
#72
“Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.” — Robert M. Hutchins
#75
“I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows.“ – Neil deGrasse Tyson
#76
“Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of the individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honor for me.” — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
#77
“The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet.”- Aristotle
Eat Dirt Crow 2 years ago
This coming from a guy that thought some birds transformed into other birds during winter.
#78
“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” ― C.S. Lewis
#80
“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids to work together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” — Bill Gates
#82
“What we instill in our children will be the foundation upon which they build their future.” — Steve Maraboli
#84
“Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.” — Frank Herbert
#86
“Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.” — Helen Caldicott
#89
“The word ‘education’ comes from the root ‘e’ from ‘ex’, ‘out’, and ‘duco’, ‘I lead’. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.“ – Muriel Spark
#90
“Everyone, in some respect, is a teacher; some just work harder to do it better.“ – Terry Heick
#92
“Being able to help someone learn something is a talent.” — Margaret Riel
#94
“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” – Josef Albers
#95
“I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.”- John Wooden
#96
“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” — John Dewey
Eat Dirt Crow 2 years ago
If you're yesterday's students wouldn't you feel like you missed out? And wouldn't today's students become yesterday's students tomorrow? And wouldn't yesterday's students become tomorrow's teachers teaching tomorrow's students today?
#97
“What all good teachers have in common, however, is that they set high standards for their students and do not settle for anything less.” — Marva Collins
#99
“I cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am.“ – Paulo Freire
Eat Dirt Crow 2 years ago
“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.“– Amos Bronson Alcott. Some of these are contradictory.
#100
“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.” — Amos Bronson Alcott
#101
“All teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life.“ – Ming-Dao Deng
#102
“Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.“ – John Steinbeck
#103
“One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.” – Carl Jung
#104
“Teaching is not just a job. It is a human service, and it must be thought of as a mission.” — Dr. Ralph Tyler
#105
“Your heart is slightly bigger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher.” – Aaron Bacall
#108
“Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.” — Solomon Ortiz
#109
“Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care.” – Horace Mann
#110
“Be a wonderful role model because you will be the window through which many children will see their future.”- Thomas Mckinnon
#111
“Teachers appreciate being appreciated, for teacher appreciation is their highest award.”- William Prince
#112
“To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator.” — Maria Montessori
#113
"Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts; it is acquiring understanding."— William Arthur Ward
#114
"The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called 'truth'. – Dan Rather
#115
"I can't believe I just saw my teacher at the grocery store! I thought she lived in her classroom!" – Heidi McDonald
#116
“Thirty-one chances. Thirty-one futures, our futures. It’s an almost psychotic feeling, believing that part of their lives belongs to me. Everything they become, I also become. And everything about me, they helped to create.” ― Esme Raji Codell
#117
"Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task."― Haim Ginott
#118
"Benevolence alone will not make a teacher, nor will learning alone do it. The gift of teaching is a peculiar talent, and implies a need and a craving in the teacher himself."― John Jay Chapman
#119
"One of the beauties of teaching is that there is no limit to one’s growth as a teacher, just as there is no knowing beforehand how much your students can learn."― Herbert Kohl
#120
“Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.” — Paulo Coelho
#121
“Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.“ – Frank Herbet
#122
“I am a teacher born and bred, and I believe in the advocacy of teachers. It’s a calling. We want our students to feel impassioned and empowered.“ – Erin Gruwell
#123
“Teachers believe they have a gift for giving; it drives them with the same irrepressible drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building.“ – A. Bartlett Giamatti
#124
“The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.” — Dorothea Dix
#125
“To this end, the greatest asset of a school is the personality of the teacher.“
– John Strachan
#126
“Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.“ – Joyce Meyer
#127
“A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils.”- Ever Garrison
#128
“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” — Alexander the Great
#129
“What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?” – Marcus T. Cicero
#130
“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”- John Dewy
#131
“Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.”- Andy Rooney
#132
“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” — G. K. Chesterton
#133
"Teaching is a calling too. And I’ve always thought that teachers in their way are holy—angels leading their flocks out of the darkness."— Jeannette Walls
#134
"The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike." –H. L. Mencken
#135
"The need for imagination, as a sense of truth, and as a feeling of responsibility - these are the three forces which are the very nerve of education."― Rudolf Steiner
#136
“Education... is a painful, continual, and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning... by praise, but above all, by example.” ― John Ruskin
The Penguin Bandit 2 years ago
My favorite quote on teaching: "The greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself chained to fate." - Live (the band)
#138
"I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer... education that connects the will to know with the will to become."― Bell Hooks
#140
“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” — Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
#141
“The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves.“ – Joseph Campbell
#142
“I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.” – James Levine
What do you think ?
Jo Choto 2 years ago
I haven't read these. With the best will in the world, nobody has the time or mental fortitude to absorb 142 different pearls of wisdom!
Eat Dirt Crow 2 years ago
"I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you." Edward I. Koch
Jo Choto 2 years ago
I haven't read these. With the best will in the world, nobody has the time or mental fortitude to absorb 142 different pearls of wisdom!
Eat Dirt Crow 2 years ago
"I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you." Edward I. Koch
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