“Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach.”

— H.L. Mencken

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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H.L. Mencken 281

American journalist and writer 1880–1956

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“Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.”

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“Those who can kill themselves do, and those who can’t, teach philosophy.”

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“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

This and many similar quotes with the same general meaning are misattributed to Aristotle as a result of Twitter attribution decay. The original source of the quote remains anonymous. The oldest reference resides in the works of George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903): "Maxims for Revolutionists", where he claims that “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”. However, the related quote, "Those who can, do. Those who understand, teach" likely originates from Lee Shulman in his explanation of Aristotlean views on professional mastery: Source: Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4 - 14. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1175860
Misattributed
Variant: Those who can, do, those who cannot, teach.

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

“Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Post the Linux Kernel Mailing List, 2003-09-23, Torvalds, Linus, 2007-06-26, http://web.archive.org/20050226095919/kerneltrap.org/node/901, 2005-02-26 http://kerneltrap.org/node/901,
Torvalds did not originate this quote http://shlomif.livejournal.com/39215.html, and there are earlier records for it. This is a variation on "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches," which is also attributed to George Bernard Shaw.
2000s, 2000-04