Great Teaching Quotes

• Natural ability is by far the best, but many men have succeeded in winning high renown by skill that is the fruit of teaching.

  Pindar

  Teacher, Teaching, Winning

  7 Copy quote

• Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

  Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar

  Inspirational, Education, Attitude

  Quoted in Evan Esar, The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949). Usually attributed to Dewar, but it should be noted that the line "mind like parachute - only function when open!" appears in the 1936 film Charlie Chan at the Circus (screenplay by Robert Ellis and Helen Logan).

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Mistake, Teaching

  Albert Einstein (2008). “The Essential Einstein: His Greatest Works”, Penguin Group(CA)

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Education, Learning, Knowledge

  13 Copy quote

• No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Education, Teaching, Men

  11 Copy quote

• Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Graduation

  40 Copy quote

• To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.

  Benjamin Jowett

  Educational, Men, May

  19 Copy quote

• Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.

  Zhuangzi

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  Zhuangzi (1927). “Musings of a Chinese Mystic: Selections from the Philosophy of Chuang Tzŭ”

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

  John W. Gardner

  Education, Flower, Teaching

  51 Copy quote

• I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.

  Haim Ginott

  Inspirational, Teacher, Children

  "Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom". Book by Rick Wormeli, p. 9, 2006.

  101 Copy quote

  Show source

• Education is the best provision for old age.

  Aristotle

  Graduation, Education, Teaching

  Aristotle (2015). “The Aristotle Collection [50 Books]”, Catholic Way Publishing

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Song, Teacher, Art

  17 Copy quote

• What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.

  Karl A. Menninger

  Teacher, Appreciation, Retirement

  71 Copy quote

• Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.

  Albert Einstein

  Teacher, Educational, Teaching

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.67, Broadway Books

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Inspirational, Motivational, Friendship

  "My Country", Volume 2, No. 3, published by Litchfield Historical Society, p. 23, September 1968.

  67 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  "The Absorbent Mind" by Maria Montessori, Ch. 27, (p. 283), 1949.

  984 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Dance, Education

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.52, St. Martin's Press

  416 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.

  Brad Henry

  Hope, Teacher, Teaching

  77 Copy quote

• 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

  Thank You, Education, Dream

  Dan Rather (1984). “The Camera Never Blinks”, Ballantine Books

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

  Plutarch

  Inspirational, Leadership, Education

  162 Copy quote

• I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

  John Steinbeck

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.123, Penguin

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves

  Joseph Campbell

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  14 Copy quote

• I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Education, Appreciation

  80 Copy quote

• I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

  Lily Tomlin

  Education, Appreciation, Teacher

  162 Copy quote

• The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

  William Arthur Ward

  Motivational, Leadership, Basketball

  William Arthur Ward (1968). “Thoughts of a Christian Optimist: The Words of William Arthur Ward”

  315 Copy quote

  Show source