These are the quotes that every teacher needs. Wether you’re struggling to find meaning in your teaching or just want a pick me up to feel inspired again, these uplifting and inspirational quotes for teachers will stoke the teacher flame and get you (and your students) motivated for the day.
“Dreams come a size too big so that we can grow into them.” – Josie Bisset
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think” – Socrates
“What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.” – George Bernard Shaw
“You can’t really teach a kid anything: you can only show him the way and motivate him to learn it himself.” – Dave Cullen
“Being a student is easy. Learning requires actual work.” – William Crawford
“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.” – Marvin Phillips
“One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.” – Alan Bennett
“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” – Japanese proverb
“You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way!” – Dr. Seuss
“What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.” – Karl Menninger
“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.” – Lily Tomlin
“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein
“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
“I think school is a place where thinking should be taught.” – Edward de Bono
“Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way.” – George Evans
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” – Clay P. Bedford
“I’m not going to school just for the academics – I wanted to share ideas, to be around people who are passionate about learning.” – Emma Watson
“For the advice in a joke is sometimes more useful than the most serious teaching.” – Baltasar Gracián
“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.” – Anatole France
“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” – Oscar Wilde
“Of all the hard jobs around, one of the hardest is being a good teacher” – Maggie Gallagher
“Ask yourself: ‘Do I feel the need to laminate?’ Then teaching is for you.” – Gordon Korman
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” – Chinese Proverb
“To teach is to learn twice over.” – Joseph Joubert
“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre” – GailGodwin
“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
“A teacher is one who helps others and influences lives forever.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.” – Scott Hayden
“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” – Carl Rogers
“Knowing is not enough; We must apply. Willing is not enough; We must do.” – Bruce Lee
“The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves” – Joseph Campbell
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Dr. Seuss
“Cheating in school is a form of self-deception. We go to school to learn. We cheat ourselves when we coast on the efforts and scholarship of someone else.” – James E. Faust
“School is a place that provides education, and education is the key to life.” – Unknown
“But the purpose of a story is to teach and to please at once, and what it teaches is how to recognize the snares of the world.” – Umberto Eco
“Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions” – Unknown
“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” – Aristotle
“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” – Robert Frost
“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
“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy — I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” – Art Williams
“I taught you everything you know. But I didn’t teach you everything I know.” – Orson Scott Card
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.” – Robert T. Kiyosaki
“Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen.” – Conan O’Brien
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” – Mark Van Doren
“The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to close it again on something solid.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Be curious, not judgmental.” – Walt Whitman
“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.” – Kahlil Gibran
“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” – Phil Collins
“Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.” – Paulo Coelho
“School prepares you for the real world… which also bites.” – Jim Benton
“The chief reason for going to school is to get the impression fixed for life that there is a book for everything.” – Robert Frost
“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” – Alexander the Great
“If the school sends out children with a desire for knowledge and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done its work.” – Richard Livingstone
“The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Teaching is a little like weaving a piece of fabric. A weaver must have certain equipment and materials in order to create the desired design and color.” – Delia Halverson
“When you study great teachers… you will learn much more from their caring and hard work than from their style.” – William Glasser
“Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first.” – Ray Congdon
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Buddha
“We don’t stop going to school when we graduate.” – Carol Burnett
More Inspirational Quotes for Teachers and Students
- 33 Inspirational Quotes for Women of All Ages
- 25 Inspirational Quotes All Kids Should Hear
- 37 Dr. Seuss Quotes That Can Change the World
