50 Short Inspirational Teacher Quotes That Ignite Passion and Purpose

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

- Malcolm X

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

- William A. Ward

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

- Benjamin Franklin

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

- John Dewey

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

- Socrates

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

- Nelson Mandela

"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

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

- Malala Yousafzai

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Henry B. Adams

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

- Mark Van Doren

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

- F. Sionil Jose

"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

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

- Josef Albers

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

- Japanese Proverb

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

- Malala Yousafzai

"[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

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism."

- Colleen Wilcox

"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

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

- Joseph Addison

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

- Anne Frank

"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

"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

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

- Jacques Barzun

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

- William James

"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

"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

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

- Simone Weil

"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

"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 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

"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

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

- Cicero

"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

"I touch the future. I teach."

- Christa McAuliffe

"We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone."

- Ronald Reagan

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

"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

"What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Anonymous

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

- Solomon Ortiz

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

- Dalai Lama

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

- Carl W. Buechner

"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

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

- Ann Lieberman

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Joyce Meyer

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

- Guy Kawasaki

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

- Henry Adams

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

- C. S. Lewis

"The best thing about being a teacher is that it matters."

- Todd Whitaker

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

- Brad Henry

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

- Helen Caldicott

"If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow."

- John Dewey

"If you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

"Education is not to reform students or amuse them, or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible."

- Robert M. Hutchins

"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

"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

"Nothing can dim a light that shines from within."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Barbara Colorose

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

- Bob Talbert

"The art of being taught is the art of discovery, as the art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery to take place."

- Mark Van Doren

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

- Rainn Wilson

"If [the teacher] is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind."

- Kahlil Gibran

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

- J.D. Salinger

"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion."

- Paulo Coelho

"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

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

- Malcolm X

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

- Michael Morpurgo

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

- William Butler Yeats

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

- Barack Obama

"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

"Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults."

- Abraham Lincoln

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

- Kij Johnson

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

- Aristotle

"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

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."

- Pablo Picasso

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

- William Arthur Ward

"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

"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

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

- George Bernard Shaw

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go."

- Dr. Seuss

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

- Thomas A. Edison

"We never know which lives we influence, or when or why."

- Stephen King

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

- Jim Henson

"Don’t just teach your children to read, teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything!"

- George Carlin

"If you fell down yesterday, stand up today."

- H.G. Wells

"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you."

- B.B. King

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

- American proverb

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

- Lady Bird Johnson

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

- Max Forman

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

- Aaron Bacall

"The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character."

- Dorothea Dix

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

- Sidney J. Harris

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

- Althea Gibson

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

- Gail Godwin

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

- William Glasser

"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

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

- Alastair Cook

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

- A. Bartlett Giamatti

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

- John Warren

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

- Jacques Barzun

"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

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

- Nicholas A. Ferroni

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

- Thomas Carruthers

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

- Haim Ginott

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

- Michelle L. Graham

"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

"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 teach is to learn twice over."

- Joseph Joubert

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

- Chinese Proverb

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

- Michael Morpurgo

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

- Gail Godwin

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

- Anne Michaels

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

- Ally Carter

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

- Sidney Hook

"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity and is the torch which illuminates the world."

- Louis Pasteur

"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them."

- Sir William Lawrence Bragg

"Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking."

- Carl Sagan

"Nine-tenths of education is encouragement."

- Anatole France

"Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together."

- Scott Hayden

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

- Lily Tomlin

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

- Bob Talbert

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

- Guy Kawasaki

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

- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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

- H. L. Mencken

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

- Joyce Meyer

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

- John Strachan

"Sometimes the greatest PD is the teacher down the hall."

- Brian Aspinall

"Keep company mainly with teachers who uplift you."

- Robert John Meehan

"The world needs all kinds of minds."

- Temple Grandin

"Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society."

- Maria Montessori

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood."

- Fred Rogers

"Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her."

- Urie Bronfenbrenner

"Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn."

- O. Fred Donaldson

"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."

- Albert Einstein

"The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics."

- Paul Halmos

"Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about understanding."

- William Paul Thurston

"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas."

- G.H. Hardy

"Every student can learn, just not on the same day or in the same way."

- George Evans

"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."

- John Steinbeck

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."

- Pablo Picasso

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

- Edgar Degas

"Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them—a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement."

- Gerald Ford

"Education in music is most sovereign because more than anything else, rhythm and harmony find their way to the innermost soul and take strongest hold upon it."

- Plato

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

- Rick Smith

"Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody."

- Kid President

"I wasn’t born to “just teach.”"

- Author Unknown

"Lessons on kindness are just as important as academic ones."

- Author Unknown

"A teacher's job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded."

- Darwin D. Martin

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

- Nicholas A. Ferroni

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

- Heidi McDonald

"I’m just a teacher standing in front of my class …"

- Author Unknown

"Like a ~~boss~~ teacher."

- Author Unknown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Unknown

"To teach science is to teach people to question, experiment, and wonder."

- Unknown

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

"Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions."

"The best teachers are those who show you where to look."

- Unknown

"Teaching art is not just about skills, it’s about instilling the courage to break the rules."

- Unknown

"Do what you love."

- Unknown

"All the small moments with your students … it’s all important."

- Unknown

"Teachers plant seeds of knowledge that grow forever."

- Unknown

"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

"The trick to having happy students is to first be happy yourself."

- Unknown

"Every job has its ups and downs, but not every job can change a life."

- Unknown

"It starts on the inside."

- Unknown

"Not all superheros wear capes—some have teaching degrees."

- Unknown

"Be awesome, be amazing, be you."

"When you love your class, your students just know."

- Unknown

"Only the brave choose to teach."

- Unknown

"To your students, you are a hero."

- Unknown

"The art of teaching special education is the art of assisting discovery while embracing uniqueness."

- Unknown

"Be the leader in a school of fish."

"You are a great teacher."

- Unknown

"Teaching math is not just teaching math, it’s inspiring a mindset to solve problems."

- Unknown

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

"Teaching English is about not only imparting language but also sharing culture and human connection."

- Unknown

"Behind every successful person is a substantial amount of coffee and a good teacher."

- Unknown

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"May your coffee be strong and your students be calm."

- Unknown

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

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