Top 100 Teacher Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best teacher quotes ever written, picked out of the full teacher archive on QuoteForever. You will find Confucius, Dalai Lama, Albert Einstein and Andy Hargreaves among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

Experience is the best teacher, but a fool will learn from no other.

2

I'm very jealous of my daughter's education. She's been inspired by her teachers, and nobody inspired me as a teenager.

3

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.

4

My father was a teacher, my mama was a community worker, I taught in so many schools. So when you get that experience of how to communicate with younger people, put that hand on them and give them that old-school feeling, the maturity and adult, a lot of our kids just need the feeling of that love, and that's the frame of reference that I teach from and that's the frame of reference that all of our musicians in the Jazz at Lincoln Center.

5

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

6

Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.

7

Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, THAT is your teacher.

8

There's all kind of evidence that there is enormous corruption in the distribution of that money. For example, they gave about $100 to $150 dollars to each of the teachers. They gave about $500 dollars to those who were getting married. Through this process, they obviously collected a lot of votes, but these monies could not solve the structural problems that these people face. But the only result, the only consequence, was that a big sum from the budget was wasted this way.

9

Just what should a young man or woman know to be 'in the know'? Is there, in other words, some inside information, some special taboo, some real lowdown on life and existence that most parents and teachers either don't know or won't tell?

10

Love is a better teacher than duty.

11

Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life.

12

I enjoyed learning the poems, but I didn't understand of what use they might possibly be. ‘They'll keep you company on the day you have no books to read,' my teacher said.

13

There are very few real teachers. Teaching is not a job; it is a vocation. To be a great one many qualities must be combined: love of truth, knowledge, reverence, loving concern for one's students, clarity and patience.

14

Clergy had a vested interest in retaining the old, ways, which made few demands of them as teachers, as spiritual guides, or as moral examples or agents.

15

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.

16

I get scared when I approach teachers and tell them that I'll probably be able to attend only half the classes, .. I'm scared that they're going to drop me. In the fall of 2002 I signed up for five classes and had to drop three of them.

17

If you're a teacher, for instance, there are ways to have positive representation of gay people in the classroom. Making sure that, historically, people are noted and archived, and that kids are getting just positive images of people who are gay.

18

People who don't count won't count.

19

In preparing my thesis, I have had the pleasure of collecting testimonies from colleagues such as Placido Domingo but also from singing teachers and musicologists. The entire course of study has confirmed what I already thought, that the value and meaning of opera singing, at the beginning of the third millennium, remain intact.

20

Remember, young man, experience is not the best teacher. Other people's experience is the best teacher. By reading about the lives of great people, you can unlock the secrets to what made them great.

21

Teachers who believe they can make a real difference in their students lives REALLY do.

22

On teacher education: induction into current mandates must not turn into seduction away from best practice.

23

The teacher who knows the most about a subject isn't necessarily the one who can teach it best.

24

Everyone wins when children - and especially girls – have access to education. An educated girl is likely to increase her personal earning potential and prepare herself for a productive and fulfilling life, as well as reduce poverty in the whole community. Investing in girls' education also helps delay early marriage and parenthood. Our booming economies in Africa need more female engineers, teachers and doctors to prosper and sustain growth.

25

The best teacher lodges an intent not in the mind but in the heart.

26

The finest teaching touches in a student a spring neither teacher nor student could possibly have preconceived.

27

Our primary identity has become that of being consumers – not mothers, teachers, or farmers, but of consumers. We shop and shop and shop.

28

Every parent is a teacher... But not all parents teach.

29

When God means you to be a healer he sends you patients; when he makes you a teacher he sends you pupils; when he destines you to be a Master he sends you stories.

30

I was accorded the opportunity to learn by failing - albeit at the cost of a few honourable teachers' sanity - and now I realise what a rare and incredible luxury that is.

31

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.

32

Teenagers these days are out of control. They eat like pigs, they are disrespectful of adults, they interrupt and contradict their parents, and they terrorize their teachers.

33

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

34

The moving power of mathematical invention is not reasoning but imagination.

35

Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world, and (as a poet has said) "lighthouses erected in the sea of time." They are companions , teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.

36

A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil's environment who treats him with respect.

37

In our young minds houses belonged to women were their special domain, not as property, but as places where all that truly mattered in life took place - the warmth and comfort of shelter, the feeding of our bodies, the nurturing of our souls. There we learned dignity, integrity of being; there we learned to have faith. The folks who made this life possible, who were our primary guides and teachers, were black women.

38

I never went to drama school. I went straight into the theater. We had the most extraordinary voice teacher. I worked with her when I was starting out in my career. How to place my voice from a very relaxed position was all wonderfully reminiscent of going back to the basics. But I always like to do that with any role that I do, to dismantle it and put it all back together again.

39

I had a teacher, he was 86 years old and his name was Luigi in New York City, and he said, 'Never stop moving. You get to reinvent yourself.' So you have to find ways to reinventing yourself. Especially today, because it's a whole different market - social media is so important.

40

Creativity: Take the obvious, add a cupful of brains, a generous pinch of imagination, a bucketful of courage and daring, stir well and bring to a boil.

41

Obey your bishop! "Obey those set over you [Heb 13:17]," the teachers of the Church... I remind you, my dear friends, of what I said when I was with you: do not receive any outside or unknown preacher, unless he be sent by your bishop or preaches with the permission of the pope. For "how shall they preach unless they are sent [Rom 10:15]?"

42

Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.

43

What a shame to be so afraid of failure that you stop living. My wife has a great one-liner about failure: "Never consider yourself a failure-you can always serve as a bad example." She is right. Failure can be a better teacher than success.

44

Teachers are more than any other group the guardians of civilization.

45

For a good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it seem almost like a live teacher.

46

As a teacher and parent, I've had a very personal interest in seeking new ways of teaching. Like most other teachers and parents, I've been well aware painfully so, at times that the whole teaching/learning process is extraordinarily imprecise, most of the time a hit-and-miss operation. Students may not learn what we think we are teaching them and what they learn may not be what we intended to teach them at all.

47

There is here, what is not in the old country. In spite of hard, unfamiliar things, there is here - hope. In the old country, a man can be no more than his father, providing he works hard. If his father was a carpenter, he may be a carpenter. He many not be a teacher or a priest. He may rise - but only to his father's state. In the old country, a man is given to the past. Here he belongs to the future. In this land, he may be what he will, if he has the good heart and the way of working honestly at the right things.

48

If we finished our work, the teacher would say, 'Now don't read ahead.' But sometimes I hid the book I was reading behind my geography book and did read ahead. You can hide a lot behind a geography book.

49

When I graduated from high school, the teacher said I was throwing my life away following music.

50

When I decided that I wanted to go to college, I wanted to be a school teacher for 7th and 8th grade boys because I felt that was an important time for them. I had gone astray at that point in my life and really wanted to help keep them from making the same mistake I had made.

51

Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.

52

If we lose the forests, we lose our only teachers.

53

The last thing we need to do, relating to teachers, is the key to a good education in this country is a strong teacher. I would have a minimum wage for all our teachers, $40,000 per year.

54

And she [Eleanor Roosevelt]loves being a star. And she loves being a teacher and a leader and a mentor and a big friend. Also, she's tall. She's one of the tallest girls in the school. And she's an athlete. And she writes many years later, at the end of her life, she writes that the happiest day, the happiest single day of her life was the day that she made the first team at field hockey. And I have to say, as a biographer, that's the most important fact. I

55

Good teachers realise that the students are the antenna; they are sensing things that the teachers don't yet sense.

56

I always very much enjoyed arts and it was so central in my family, my mother was also an art teacher, as well as founding the Henson Company with my dad, there was a lot of art going on in our household.

57

When I was at school I got lines for dropping a big squelchy, loud fart. My teacher, who was a priest, made me write 'I must not fart in class' 100 times. I left that school shortly afterwards.

58

If you are going to do anything, you must expect criticism. But it's better to be a doer than a critic. The doer moves; the critic stands still, and is passed by.

59

Teachers need to be more inspirational. But it's also up to engineering to make itself more interesting.

60

A good teacher is like a good artist. They go right to the most difficult part of whatever's going on.

61

It's a familiar story now: a meek and depressed high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer cooks up a scheme to make and market a superior grade of methamphetamine to provide a nest egg for his family after he's gone. But over the course of five seasons Walter White goes from milquetoast to murderous in order to survive.

62

Once we begin to question our thoughts, our partners-alive, dead or divorced-are always our greatest teachers. There's no mistake about the person you're with; he or she is the perfect teacher for you, whether or not the relationship works out, and once you enter inquiry, you come to see that clearly.

63

Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.

64

My musical background in Tyler, Texas was quite outstanding. Uh, I grew up with, uh, with high school teachers who were in bands, they could play music. And we had a nine piece band there in Tyler, and I joined them when I was about, oh, 15 years old and traveled all over Texas in that band, playing for the elite oil people. Hah. And um, I was making about 50 bucks a night, and uh, it taught me, they taught me how to find my timing and to learn the songs that I wanted.

65

The basic idea behind teaching is to teach people what they need to know.

66

The teachers tried everything, even pleading, but Tomas was in the habit of addressing them only in Latin, a language he spoke with papal fluency and in which he did not stammer. Sooner or later they all resigned in despair, fearing he might be possessed: he might be spouting demonic instructions in Aramaic at them, for all they knew.

67

We need teacher educators who regularly spend a great deal of time in classrooms so they have a deep understanding of where they students will teach.

68

[Students] are exposed to many things the majority of their teachers didn't encounter until much later in their growing up years.

69

What parents said they valued most were discussions with teachers and heads, and what they wanted was more descriptive information in their children's school reports. This is particularly true for primary schools. Parents wanted to know much more than just how their children were doing academically.

70

During McCarthyism, teachers feared for their jobs if they belonged to a left-wing group. Today teachers fear for their jobs if they hug a crying child. As in all moral panics, an accusation is enough to destroy a person's life. Hysteria trumps evidence.

71

The great want of our race is perfect educators to train new-born minds, who are infallible teachers of what is right and true.

72

I regard the effort to introduce women into colleges for young men as very undesirable, and for many reasons. That the two sexes should be united, both as teachers and pupils, in the same institution seems very desirable, but rarely in early life by a method that removes them from parental watch and care, and the protecting influences of a home.

73

We need to tap the resource of current and retiring science and math professionals that have both content mastery and the practical experience to serve as effective teachers.

74

I had a hole in my voice. It's an area in the voice where it's air. It's just - there's no - it's just very airy. And my classical teachers were just so frustrated with me because I would have these deep, low notes that were really strong, and the higher register was strong, but right in that middle area, it was really hard. It was like a passage. And many singers go through this and work it out. But I realized in jazz, I could just take advantage of that and take advantage of having a voice that was very different in different areas.

75

Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other." "Choose a friend," I said. "Yes. You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul." I nodded. "Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend." "I like him a lot, abba." "No. Listen to me. I am not talking about only liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend.

76

We ought to reverence books; to look on them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion, politics, farming, trade, law, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things - the teacher of all truth.

77

When we become a really mature, grown-up, wise society, we will put teachers at the center of the community, where they belong. We don't honor them enough, we don't pay them enough.

78

Some teachers had been trained to work out at Southern because I carried two out there. I carried a lady down here from Palmer's Crossing, used to play piano, and Billy Carter.

79

In all the works on pedagogy that ever I read — and they have been many, big, and heavy — I don't remember that any one has advocated a system of teaching by practical jokes, mostly cruel. That, however, describes the method of our great teacher, Experience.

80

Both of my parents are actually music teachers.

81

I didn't know you were having a hard time. I really am unqualified to be a teacher. Hurting you there...I'm really sorry.

82

I won't say I was slow developer, but our teacher was quite pleased to have someone her own age in the class to talk to.

83

I had accepted a job being a math teacher for Teach For America. So, that's what I would have done at least in the two years after I graduated.

84

The clergy profession is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church - a valuable goal. In actuality, however; it accomplishes the opposite by nurturing a permanent dependence of the laity on the clergy. Clergy become to their congregations like parents whose children never grow up, like therapists whose clients never become healed, like teachers whose students never graduate.

85

Not to belittle what we do as actors, but my wife Helen is a teacher, and she makes a real difference to kids. So it's unusual to see people thinking of us as something special.

86

Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have, you know, they're not ready to learn. And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they're behind.

87

One's enemy is often the best teacher of tolerance.

88

Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.

89

If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.

90

Every piece of marble has a statue in it waiting to be released by a person of sufficient skill to chip away the unnecessary parts. Just as the sculptor is to the marble, so is education to the soul. It releases it. For only educated people are free people. You cannot create a statue by smashing the marble with a hammer, and you cannot by the force of arms release the spirit or the soul of people.

91

With the help of technology, teachers will be leaders in the transformation of education around the world.

92

Computers aren’t magic; teachers are.

93

The Christian community has a golden opportunity to train an army of dedicated teachers who can invade the public school classrooms and use them to influence the nation for Christ.

94

I don't know that I'd want to do acting as a job, not as a proper job. I'd like to do it as a hobby. I want to be a supply teacher. I'd like to be one of those teachers that kids really like.

95

The enemy is a very good teacher.

96

Our enemies are our greatest teachers.

97

Infinite altruism is the basis of peace and happiness. If you want altruism, you must control hate and you must practice patience. The main teachers of patience are our enemies.

98

There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

99

This planet is a divine school, and daily life a classroom. Our choice of teachers depends on what we need to learn.

100

Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.

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