100+ Inspiring Quotes from Teachers to Students: Wisdom to Motivate and Empower

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

- William A. Ward

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

- Henry B. Adams

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

- Josef Albers

"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

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

- Benjamin Franklin

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

- Jacques Barzun

"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

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Gerald Belcher

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

- Nelson Mandela

"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

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

- Harry Wong

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

- Bob Talbert

"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

"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

"I touch the future. I teach."

- Christa McAuliffe

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Thomas Edison

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

- Albert Einstein

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

- Vidal Sassoon

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

- Thomas A. Edison

"The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda."

- John C. Maxwell

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

- A.A. Milne

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think."

- Albert Einstein

"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

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

- Winston Churchill

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

- Rainn Wilson

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

- J.D. Salinger

"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

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

- Stephen Hawking

"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

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

- Gail Godwin

"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

"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

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

- William James

"Skill is only developed by hours and hours of work."

- Usain Bolt

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

- Max Forman

"If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door."

- Milton Berle

"True education is about getting the best out of oneself."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"The road to success is always under construction."

- Lily Tomlin

"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

- Maya Angelou

"Opportunities don’t happen, you create them."

- Chris Grosser

"Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working."

- Henri Matisse

"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

- Sylvia Plath

"Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you meant to be."

- George Sheehan

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."

- Henry Ford

"Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day."

- Dalai Lama

"There is no substitute for hard work."

- Thomas A. Edison

"Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work."

- Albert Einstein

"Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Life’s failures are stepping stones to success."

- Thomas Edison

"The difference between try and triumph is a little umph."

- Marvin Phillips

"Dreams come a size too big so that we can grow into them."

- Josie Bisset

"Nothing is impossible; the word itself says ‘I’m possible!'"

- Audrey Hepburn

"You can never be overdressed or overeducated."

- Oscar Wilde

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

- Albert Einstein

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

- Socrates

"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

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

- John Dewey

"The best way to predict your future is to create it."

- Peter Drucker

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

- Confucius

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

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

- Mark Van Doren

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

- Karl Menninger

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

- Japanese Proverb

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

- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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

- William Butler Yeats

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

- William Arthur Ward

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

- Margaret Mead

"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

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

- A.A. Milne

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

- George Bernard Shaw

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

- Anonymous

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow."

- Albert Einstein

"It always seems impossible until it’s done."

- Nelson Mandela

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

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

- Jacques Barzun

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

- Dr. Seuss

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated."

- R Collier

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

- Ken Blanchard

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

- Michelle L. Graham

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"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 mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."

- Plutarch

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you."

- BB King

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Dr. Seuss

"Education is the key to unlocking the golden door of freedom."

- George Washington Carver

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

- Dr. Seuss

"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

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

- Alastair Cook

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

- William Glasser

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader."

- Margaret Fuller

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."

- Frederick Douglass

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

- Walt Disney

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

- Malcolm X

"Teachers can open the door, but you must enter it yourself."

- Chinese proverb

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

- B.B. King

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

- Nelson Mandela

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited."

- Plutarch

"Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John R. Wooden

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

- Albert Einstein

"Never let the fear of striking out stop you from playing the game."

- Babe Ruth

"Procrastination makes easy things hard and hard things harder."

- Mason Cooley

"You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."

- Zig Ziglar

"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

"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 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

"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

"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

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

- Helen Caldicott

"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

"The man who does not read books has no advantage over the one who cannot read them."

- Mark Twain

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."

- Beverly Sills

"I think it’s possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

- Elon Musk

"Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration."

- Thomas Edison

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."

- Jim Ryun

"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

"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

"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

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

- George Bernard Shaw

"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

"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

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."

- Helen Hayes

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

- Cicero

"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

"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

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

- Malcolm Forbes

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

- Gandalf

"If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you."

- Fred DeVito

"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

"Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud."

- Maya Angelou

"I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday."

- Misty Copeland

"If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough."

- Muhammad Ali

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

- Kid President

"Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up."

- Brené Brown

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

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

- Joseph Addison

"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

"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

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You cannot change your future, but you can change your habits, and surely your habits will change your future."

- A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."

- William Shakespeare

"Nine-tenths of education is encouragement."

- Anatole France

"To teach is to learn twice."

- Joseph Joubert

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

- Malcolm S. Forbes

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

- Derek Bok

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence."

- Abigail Adams

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Pujols

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t."

- Bill Nye

"Dream big and dare to fail."

- Norman Vaughan

"A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers."

- Helen Keller

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty."

- Henry Ford

"Change is the end result of all true learning."

- Leo Buscaglia

"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

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary."

- Pablo Picasso

"You have to be odd to be number one."

- Dr. Seuss

"teaching is a peculiar talent, and implies a need and a craving in the teacher himself."

- John Jay Chapman

"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 matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you."

- Althea Gibson

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."

"A little progress each day adds up to big results."

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

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

"It’s a good day for a good day."

"Even if hate has a bullhorn, love is louder."

"Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out."

"Kind is the new cool."

"From small beginnings come great things."

"Make today so awesome yesterday is jealous."

"Look with kindness and you will find wonder."

"Be awesome, be amazing, be you."

"You are loved."

"Broken crayons still color."

"In our class we don’t do easy. We make easy happen through hard work and learning."

"You’re here. You take up space. You matter."

"Your voice matters."

"Throw kindness around like confetti."

"The earth without art is just eh."

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

"Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world in the eye."

"Let’s root for each other and watch each other grow."

"To have good friends, you need to be one."

"Misfits we may be, but we will rewrite history."

"Be the reason someone smiles today."

"You’re going to rattle the stars, you are."

"Everything you don’t know is something you can learn."

"Mistakes help me learn better."

"We may all be different fish, but at this school we swim together."

"Say what you mean but don’t say it mean."

"You belong here."

"You will never regret being kind."

"Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming."

"Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well."

"It doesn’t matter what others are doing, it matters what _you_ are doing."

"Wake up and be awesome."

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

- Unknown

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

"Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth."

"Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise."

"Today a reader. Tomorrow a leader."

"Once a beginner, forever a learner. Embrace the journey, for greatness awaits those who persist."

"If the words you spoke appeared on your skin, would you still be beautiful?"

"Be a pineapple. Stand tall, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside."

"Be the leader in a school of fish."