Inspiring Words: A Curated Collection of Quotes About Teachers and Students

"The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future."

- F. Sionil Jose

"One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world."

- Malala Yousafzai

"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best."

- Bob Talbert

"Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students."

- Solomon Ortiz

"I touch the future. I teach."

- Christa McAuliffe

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."

- Malcolm X

"Teachers can change lives with the right mix of chalk and challenges."

- Joyce Meyer

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

- Albert Einstein

"When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts."

- Dalai Lama

"Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges."

- Joyce Meyer

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

- Brad Henry

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

- Henry Adams

"Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them."

- Lady Bird Johnson

"Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon."

- Ann Lieberman

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Carl W. Buechner

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

- W.B. Yeats

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire."

- William Butler Yeats

"If you look behind every exceptional person there is an exceptional teacher."

- Stephen Hawking

"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world."

- Malala Yousafzai

"I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think."

- Socrates

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Every child deserves a champion—an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be."

- Rita Pierson

"Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts; it is acquiring understanding."

- William Arthur Ward

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

- John Dewey

"It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts...it is to teach them to think, if that is possible, and always to think for themselves."

- Robert Hutchins

"A teacher affects eternity; he [or she] can never tell where his influence stops."

- Henry B. Adams

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

- William A. Ward

"Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition."

- Jacques Barzun

"Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring."

- Sidney J. Harris

"In an effective classroom, students should not only know what they are doing, they should also know why and how."

- Harry Wong

"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

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

- Albert Einstein

"The teacher’s task is to initiate the learning process and then get out of the way."

- John Warren

"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years."

- Jacques Barzun

"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

"Teachers, who educate children, deserve more honor than parents, who merely gave them birth; for the latter provided mere life, while the former ensured a good life."

- Aristotle

"The best education is not given to students; it is drawn out of them."

- Gerald Belcher

"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 which he finds it hard to answer."

- Alice Wellington Rollins

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contented and happy."

- Anatole France

"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

"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 the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit."

- John Steinbeck

"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

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."

- Malcolm Forbes

"Among the many purposes of schooling, four stand out to us as having special moral value: to love and care, to serve, to empower and, of course, to learn."

- Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan

"The most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure."

- Grayson Kirk

"No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure."

- Emma Goldman

"The object of teaching a child is to enable him [or her] to get along without his [or her] teacher."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone’s knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier."

- John Dewey

"The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community -- these are the most vital things education must try to produce."

- Virginia Gildersleeve

"Education is much more than a matter of imparting the knowledge and skills by which narrow goals are achieved. It is also about opening the child’s eyes to the needs and rights of others."

- Dalai Lama

"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 a vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."

- Carl Jung

"The future of the world is in my classroom today, a future with the potential for good or bad... Several future presidents are learning from me today; so are the great writers of the next decades, and so are all the so-called ordinary people who will make the decisions in a democracy."

- Ivan Welton Fitzwater

"When the untapped potential of a student meets the liberating art of a teacher, a miracle unfolds."

- Mary Hatwood Futrell

"[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are."

- Jim Henson

"Teaching is the essential profession, the one that makes all professions possible."

- David Haselkorn

"The work of a teacher -- exhausting, complex, idiosyncratic, never twice the same -- is at its heart an ethical enterprise. Teaching is the vocation of vocations."

- William Ayres

"What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honorable, than that of teaching?"

- Harriet Martineau

"Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth."

- Helen Caldicott

"What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?"

- Cicero

"If kids come to educators and teachers 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

"To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching."

- George Bernard Shaw

"At the desk where I sit, I have learned one great truth. The answer for all our national problems -- the answer for all the problems of the world -- comes to a single word. That word is education."

- Lyndon B. Johnson

"Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."

- Japanese Proverb

"If you can read this, thank a teacher."

- American proverb

"[Kids] don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are."

- Jim Henson

"I am not a teacher, but an awakener."

- Robert Frost

"In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn."

- Phil Collins

"Those who know do. Those that understand, teach."

- Aristotle

"Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honor for me."

- P. J. Abdul Kalam

"A gifted teacher is not only prepared to meet the needs of today’s child but is also prepared to foresee the hopes and dreams in every child’s future."

- Robert John Meehan

"Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace."

- Confucius

"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

"Children must be taught how to think, not what to think."

- Margaret Mead

"Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task."

- Haim Ginott

"We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to know in order to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact we haven't so far."

- Ron Edmonds

"The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know."

- Simone Weil

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism."

- Colleen Wilcox

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery."

- Mark Van Doren

"What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul."

- Joseph Addison

"I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work."

- Thomas Edison

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

- Thomas A. Edison

"A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils."

- Ever Garrison

"I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well."

- Alexander the Great

"Teachers can make such a profound impact on our lives and should be honored as heroes."

- Rainn Wilson

"If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around."

- Jim Rohn

"A good teacher isn’t someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed."

- Justin Trudeau

"It’s the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom."

- Michael Morpurgo

"Invest in our teachers, and our children will succeed."

- Barack Obama

"A good teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others."

- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

"A good teacher is like the rising sun that comes to fill the empty and dark minds with the light of the education"

- Anamika Mishra

"Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world, and that’s you."

- Kij Johnson

"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

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child."

- George Bernard Shaw

"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

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"It is the teacher that makes the difference. Not the classroom."

- Michael Morpurgo

"Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the education system."

- Sidney Hook

"The secret in education lies in respecting the student."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes."

- Guy Kawasaki

"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts."

- C. S. Lewis

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

- Karl Menninger

"Give me a fish, and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish, and I eat for a lifetime."

- Chinese Proverb

"A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others."

- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

"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

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."

- Albert Einstein

"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

- A.A. Milne

"You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it."

- J.D. Salinger

"Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'"

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"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

"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

"Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is."

- William Glasser

"Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Teaching is truth mediated by personality."

- Phyllis Brooks

"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

"What greater joy can a teacher feel than to witness a child’s success?"

- Michelle L. Graham

"Teaching is an instinctual art, mindful of potential, craving of realizations, a pausing, seamless process."

- A. Bartlett Giamatti

"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

"The greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."

- William James

"Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

- Anonymous

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."

- Gail Godwin

"No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you."

- Althea Gibson

"Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers."

- Josef Albers

"Teachers are people who start things they never see finished, and for which they never get thanks until it is too late."

- Max Forman

"Nine-tenths of education is encouragement."

- Anatole France

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary."

- Thomas Carruthers

"A pro is someone who can do great work when he doesn't feel like it."

- Alastair Cook

"If kids come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job easier. Our job is more critical if they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families."

- Barbara Colorose

"None of us is as smart as all of us."

- Ken Blanchard

"The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike."

- H. L. Mencken

"To this end, the greatest asset of a school is the personality of the teacher."

- John Strachan

"Your heart is slightly bigger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher."

- Aaron Bacall

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theater."

- Gail Godwin

"Educators are the only people who lose sleep over other people’s kids."

- Nicholas A. Ferroni

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever."

- Chinese Proverb

"The older I got, the smarter my teachers became."

- Ally Carter

"Being a new teacher is like trying to fly an airplane while building it."

- Rick Smith

"You have to be odd to be No.1."

- Dr. Seuss

"Being a teacher is a lot like being a rock star."

- Heidi McDonald

"It takes a big heart to shape little minds."

"Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions."

"Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning."

"My teacher gave me the best gift of all… Believing in me!"

"It takes a big heart to help shape little minds."

- Unknown

"A teacher presents the past, reveals the present, and creates the future."

"Every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times."

"Teachers are those who help find strengths, wipe away tears, overpower demons and conquer fears."

"Children learn more from who you are than what you teach."

"A good education can change anyone. A good teacher can change everything!"

"Teacher: A person who helps you solve problems you’d never have without them."

"Good teachers are the ones who can challenge young minds without losing their own."

"To survive as a teacher you need 3 bones: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone."

"Teaching is a walk in the park. If that park is Jurassic park."

"Teaching: the only profession where you steal things from home and bring them to work."

"There are three good reasons to be a teacher –June, July, and August."

"Teachers are like candles — they consume themselves to light the way for others."

"Inspiring minds, touching hearts, shaping futures."

"The influence of a good teacher can never be erased."