Being a teacher involves more than simply being able to convey knowledge to students. Teacher not only helped to simplify that the most complex equations but also helped us in understanding life. Famous teacher quotes will remind that teaching is about touching hearts, opening minds, and transforming lives.
If you’re searching for popular quotation that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of inspirational school quotes, best education quotes, and thank you note for teacher appreciation.
Good Teacher Quotes
A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning. — Brad Henry
A good teacher is like a candle— it consumes itself to light the way for others. — Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
A good teacher must be able to put himself in the place of those who find learning hard. — Eliphas Levi
A great teacher who is full of excitement and love for her students can make all the difference in their lives. — Deval Patrick
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. — Henry Brooks Adams
A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom. — Ever Garrison
A teacher is a person who never says anything once. — Howard Nemerov
A teacher should have a creative mind. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power. — Thomas Szasz
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron. — Horace Mann
A true teacher defends his students against his own personal influences. — Amos Bronson Alcott
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. — Henry Ford
As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I’m the least authoritarian professor you’ll ever meet. — Niall Ferguson
As teachers we spend little time focusing on what has been accomplished; we focus mainly on what remains to be done. — Robert John Meehan
Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher. — Japanese proverb
Death is not the greatest loss. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender. — Tupac Shakur
Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time. — Chinese Proverb
Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace. — Confucius
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. — Einstein
Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students. — Charles Kuralt
Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers. — Josef Albers
Good teaching is one — fourth preparation and three — fourths pure theatre. — Gail Godwin
Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon. — Ann Lieberman
Great teachers have high expectations for their students, but higher expectations for themselves. — Todd Whitaker
I am almost overwhelmed by the courage and dedication of teachers. — Sylvia Solomon
I am not a teacher, but an awakener. — Robert Frost
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. — Socrates
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. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. — John Steinbeck
I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. — Lily Tomlin
I wanted to be a Teacher with a big T: teach the whole planet. It led me into writing and speaking to large groups. — Jack Canfield
If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn. — Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Estrada
If kids come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important. — Barbara Colorose
If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow. — John Dewey
If you are a lousy teacher, you should be fired. — Geoffrey Canada
If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. — Chinese Proverb
If you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught. — Oscar Hammerstein II
If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes. — Guy Kawasaki
In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less. — Lee Iacocca
It shouldn’t matter how slowly some children learn as long as we are encouraging them not to stop. — Robert John Meehan
It takes a big heart to help shape little minds.
It’s the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom. — Michael Morpurgo
Itmay be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. — Wendell Berry
Learning is not a spectator sport. — D. Blocher
Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. — Malala Yousafzai
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. — Plato
No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection toward his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he believes to be of value. — Bertrand Russell
No one should teach who is not in love with teaching. — Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. — Carl Jung
Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help. — Bodhidharma
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. — Thomas Edison
Remember that failure is an event, not a person. — Zig Ziglar
Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. — Unknown
Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care. — Horace Mann
Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honor for me. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. — Jacques Barzun
Teaching is the greatest act of optimism. — Colleen Wilcox
Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions. — Unknown
Teaching kids to count is fine but teaching them what counts is best. — Bob Talbert
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. — Mark Van Doren
The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity. — Robert Brault
The best teacher is an entertainer. — Bob Keeshan
The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. — Edward G. Bulwer
The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth. — Dan Rather
The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another. — Marva Collins
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. — Henri Bergson
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
The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches but reveal to them their own. — Benjamin Disraeli
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. — William Ward
The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. — Dr. Seuss
The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know. — Simone Weil
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it. — Samuel Johnson
The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher. — Elbert Hubbard
The older I got, the smarter my teachers became. — Ally Carter
The road to freedom, here and everywhere, begins in the classroom. — Hubert H. Humphrey
The teachers who get burned out are not the ones who are constantly learning, which can be exhilarating, but those who feel they must stay in control and ahead of the students at all times. — Frank Martin
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
There is no failure. Only feedback. — Robert Allen
There is no recipe to be a great teacher, that’s what is unique about them. — Robert Sternberg
Thought flows in terms of stories–stories about events, stories about people, and stories about intentions and achievements. The best teachers are the best story tellers. We learn in the form of stories. — Frank Martin
To stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, herein lies the first task of the teacher. — Maria Montessori
To this end the greatest asset of a school is the personality of the teacher. — John Strachan
We learn geology the morning after the earthquake. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. — Karl Meninger
What we learn with pleasure we never forget. — Alfred Mercier
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. — George Bernard Shaw
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. — Pericles
When you study great teachers…you will learn much more from their caring and hard work than from their style. — William Glasser
Whoever first coined the phrase ‘you’re the wind beneath my wings’ most assuredly was reflecting on the sublime influence of a very special teacher. — Frank Trujillo
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. — Khalil Gibran
You can’t direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails. — Anonymous
You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it. — J.D. Salinger
You cannot teach a crab to walk straight. — Aristophanes
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. — Galileo Galilei
Your heart is slightly bigger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher. — Aaron Bacall
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child. — George Santayana
A good education is like a savings account; the more you put into it, the richer you are. — Anonymous
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world’s torrent. — Johann W. Goethe
An object in possession seldom contains the same charm that it had in pursuit. — Pliny the Younger
Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me. — Fred Rogers
Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark. — Anatole France
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact. — George Eliot Mary Ann Evans
By viewing the old we learn the new. — Chinese Proverb
Creative activity is not a superimposed, extraneous task against which the body, or brain protests, but an orchestration of … joyful doing. — Gyorgy Kepes
Don’t struggle to be a better teacher than everybody else. Simply be a better teacher than you ever thought you could be. — Robert John Meehan
Education can be dangerous. It is very difficult to make it not dangerous. In fact, it is almost impossible. — Robert M. Hutchins
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. — John Dewey
Education should turn out the pupil with something he knows well and something he can do well. — Alfred North Whitehead
Every artist was at first an amateur. — Ralph W. Emerson
Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system. — Sidney Hook
Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. — Chinese Proverb
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. — HG Wells
I have been maturing as a teacher. New experiences bring new sensitivities and flexibility. — Howard Lester
I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand. — Chinese Proverb
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. — Antoine de Saint Exupery
I will venture to maintain that where the teacher is not pleasing to the pupil, there is no education. — Xenophon
In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering. — William James
It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each other’s meaning. — St. Augustine
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. — Albert Einstein
It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Learning is never done without errors and defeat. — Vladimir Lenin
Let the potential artist in our children come to life that they may surmount industrial monotonies and pressures. — Barbara Morgan
No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest. — T.S. Eliot
One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try. — Sophocles
People learn more quickly by doing something or seeing something done. — Gilbert Highet
Reinventing the wheel is a process. — Rashid Elisha
So, what does a good teacher do? Create tension but just the right amount. — Donald Norman
Teacher appreciation makes the world of education go around.
Teachers affect eternity; no one can tell where their influence stops. — Henry Brooks Adams
Teachers are our greatest public servants; they spend their lives educating our young people and shaping our nation for tomorrow. — Solomon Ortiz
Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth. — Helen Caldicott
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
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.
The best way to know life is to love many things. — Vincent Van Gogh
The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character. — Dorothea Dix
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. — Winston Churchill
The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. — Pierre de Coubertin
The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future. — F. Sionil Jose
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. — Pablo Picasso
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
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. — Amos Bronson Alcott
There are two good reasons to be a teacher—July, and August!
There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies. — Robert Frost
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
There is no education like adversity. — Benjamin Disraeli
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach. — Aristotle
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well. — Aristotle
To define is to destroy, to suggest is to create. — Stephane Mallarme
To do just the opposite is a form of imitation. — Georg Lichtenberg
To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching. — George Bernard Shaw
To teach is to learn twice over. — Joseph Joubert
True teachers use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. — Nikos Kazantzakis
We expert teachers know that motivation and emotional impact are what matter. — Donald Norman
We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
We think too much about effective methods of teaching and not enough about effective methods of learning. — John Carolus S.J.
Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier. — Charles F. Kettering
Whoever neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead to the future. — Euripides
You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room. — Dr. Seuss
