Quotes about teachers (1130 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils.
Source: Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils (1986) by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Roy Howat, Naomi Shohet, and Krysia Osostowicz, p. 23

Time , Patience

“Without teachers, no one would dream to do extraordinary things.”

Ahmed Omaar (1987)

Dreams

“Without teachers, no one would dream to do extraordinary things.”

Ahmed Omaar (1987)

Dreams

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Love , Life , World , Religion

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

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

UN speech, June 2013
Context: So let us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.

Inspirational , Hope , Powerful , Teachers' Day

“The teacher should not assume that he/she is always correct, or try to make the worst cases appear reasonable before his pupils. On the other hand, the teacher should accept the corrections as much as they love to do it to others.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Appearance , Love

“Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Source: Rhythms of Learning

Children , Books , Lying , Learning

“You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

“If today is Children's Day, yesterday I said that child… the children's day is mother's day, father's day and teachers' day, but is also the day of the animals. Whenever you look at a child, there is always a hidden figure, which is a dog behind, which is something very important.”

Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil

Speech in Porto Alegre http://www2.planalto.gov.br/acompanhe-o-planalto/discursos/discursos-da-presidenta/discurso-da-presidenta-da-republica-dilma-rousseff-na-cerimonia-de-anuncio-de-investimentos-do-pac-mobilidade-urbana-e-entrega-de-57-maquinas-motoniveladoras ( YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3IvZToSwgE), October 12.
2013

Children , Dogs , Animals

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a feather bed. ”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Love , World , Dreams , Courage

“Wherever they found magnificent temples of the Hindus ever since the establishment of Sayyid Salar Mas'ud Ghazi's rule, the Muslim rulers in India built mosques, monasteries and inns, appointed mu'azzins, teachers, and store-stewards, spread Islam vigorously and vanquished the Kafirs. Likewise, they cleared up Faizabad and Avadh, too, from the filth of reprobation (infidelity), because it was a great centre of worship and capital of Rama's father. Where there stood the great temple (of Ramjanmasthan), there they built a big mosque, and where there was a small mandap (pavilion), there they erected a camp mosque (masjid-i-mukhtasar-i-qanati). The Janmasthan temple is the principal place of Rama's incarnation, adjacent to which is the Sita ki Rasoi. Hence, what a lofty mosque was built there by king Babar in AH 923 (AD 1528) under the patronage of Musa Ashiqan! The mosque is still known far and wide as the Sita ki Rasoi mosque. And that temple is extant by its side”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

aur pahlu mein wah dair baqi hai
Hadiqah-i-Shuhadã by Mîrza Alî Jãn,, cited by Dr. Harsh Narain, "Rama-Janmabhumi Temple: Muslim Testimony", 1990, and quoted in Goel, S.R. Hindu Temples - What Happened to them.
Quotes from Muslim histories of early modern era

“I’m without a teacher. My teacher… God has sent me teachers: the angel that stands by me, stands by me and directs me what to do. Time for me to paint a picture and I be tired I say I’m going to rest up for a couple of days. He won’t let me. Come down grab my feet and shake me. Beat me.”

Minnie Evans (1892–1987) American artist

Cited in Allie Light, Irving Saraf (1983), "The Angel That Stands By Me"

God , Angels , Time , Painting

“Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Lincoln Hall Speech (1879)

Religion , Law , Penalty , Travel

“The student will always outshine the teacher at the end of the journey. Therefore, outshining the master.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Variant: If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 233.

Life , Guy , Moms

“Children learn best when they like their teacher and they think their teacher likes them.”

Gordon Neufeld (1947) Canadian psychologist

Source: Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

Children , Thinking , Learning

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Success , Children , Success

“A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Learning

“You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time. You lug around books and all and do homework. They give too much homework. You shouldn't be doing homework. Nobody's interested in it. The teachers are stupid. They shouldn't have any women in there. They don't know how to teach. And they shouldn't make anyone go to school. You don't want to go, you don't go, that's all. It's ridiculous. I don't remember one thing I learned in school. I don't listen to weakies. My two and a half years in Erasmus High I wasted. I didn't like the whole thing. You have to mix with all those stupid kids. The teachers are even stupider than the kids. They talk down to the kids. Half of them are crazy. If they'd have let me, I would have quit before I was sixteen.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1960s, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master (1961)

Women , Books , Stupidity , School

“An ordinary teacher instructs and leaves his disciple, but a great teacher strives to make his disciple see reason by pushing him to his limits.”

Swami Samarpanananda Monk, Author, Teacher

Junglezen Sheru ( Page 140 )

Making love

“My teacher said once that every man faces seven enemies in his lifetime. Sickness, hunger, betrayal, envy, greed, old age, and then death…”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Death , Hunger , Age , Betrayal

“True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their
own.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

“There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own.”

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) American photographer

“What all good teachers have in common, however, is that they set high standards for their students and do not settle for anything less.”

Marva Collins (1936–2015) American schoolteacher

Source: Marva Collins' Way

“When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Appearance , Time , Patience

“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 The History Boys

Source: The History Boys

Boy , Learning

“I'm a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children.”

Marva Collins (1936–2015) American schoolteacher

Love , Children , Water , Parting

“…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.” (p.275)”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

Source: Facing the Lion, Being the Lion: Finding Inner Courage Where It Lives

Bird , Fish , Learning , Water

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Failure , Dead

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

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Leadership , Teachers' Day

“One of my teachers told me I was a nihilist. He meant it as an insult but I took it as a compliment.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted (1994)

“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change

Education

“Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

The Tables Turned, st. 4 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Nature , Light

“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Source: Me

School , Sister , Change

“The historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma. The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Savior. It loosed the bands by which He had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine, and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to meet it. But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His own. What surprised and dismayed the theology of the last forty years was that, despite all forced and arbitrary interpretations, it could not keep Him in our time, but had to let Him go. He returned to his own time, not owing to the application of any historical ingenuity, but by the same inevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to its original position.”

Albert Schweitzer book The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Source: The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), p. 397

Life , History , Study , Time

“Holy Christendom has, in my judgment, no better teacher after the apostles than St. Augustine.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

http://books.google.com/books?id=3sq6RaxZt3cC&pg=PA107&dq=%22no+better+teacher+after+the+apostles+than+st.+augustine%22&lr=&sig=r-kmHoDO6R6wwIs7krbtAS7Jv7E
Luther's Works, American Ed., Robert H. Fischer, Helmut T. Lehman, eds., Concordia Publishing House/Fortress Press, 1959, ISBN 0800603370 (Word and Sacrament III), vol. 37:107

“Do not demand love. Begin to love. You will be loved. It is the law and no statute can alter it. If we do not follow the law, and let the law die with the teacher, we shall become accomplices to the murderer. But if follow the law with our hearts, [Bapu] will live with us and through us.”

C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) Political leader

Rajagopalachari (12 February 1949), quoted in [Rajmohan Gandhi, Rajaji: A Life, http://books.google.com/books?id=JjPHeRd7_UYC&pg=PA475, 1997, Penguin Books India, 978-0-14-026967-3, 286]
Spoken by C.R when Mahatma Gandhi (Bapu) was assassinated.

Love , Law , Heart

“Military history, especially Russian, is being studied poorly. We have a lot of unfair ridiculing of the old army despite the fact that we had such notable tsarist army generals as Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bagration who will always remain in the minds of the people as great Russian military leaders and who are revered in the Red Army as a legacy of the finest military traditions of the Russian soldier. There exists a harmful cult of Civil War heroes, while previous Russian military achievements are ignored. All of this leads to the ignoring of concrete historical experience despite the fact that history is the best teacher.”

Lev Mekhlis (1889–1953) Soviet politician

Mekhlis in 1940. Quoted in The People Need a Tsar: The Emergence of National Bolshevism as Stalinist Ideology, 1931-1941, by D. L. Brandenberger & A. M. Dubrovsky, 1998

War , People , History , Study

“Fresh out the bank, it's the Birdman Junior, money too long. Teachers, put away your rulers.”

Lil Wayne (1982) American rapper, singer, record executive and businessman

Fireman, written with Bigram Zayas and Matthew DelGiorno.
1990s, Tha Carter II (2018)

Money

“To run 100 miles and more is to bring the body to the point of breaking, to bring the mind to the point of destruction, to arrive at that place where you can alter your consciousness. It was to see more clearly. As my yoga teacher would say, “Injuries are our best teachers.” I'm convinced that a lot of people run ultramarathons for the same reason they take mood-altering drugs. I don't mean to minimize the gifts of friendship, achievement, and closeness to nature that I've received in my running career. But the longer and farther I ran, the more I realized that what I was often chasing was a state of mind — a place where worries that seemed monumental melted away, where the beauty and timelessness of the universe, of the present moment, came into sharp focus.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 18, p. 181

Friendship , People , Beauty , Mood

“The kind of mathematics foisted on children in schools is not meaningful, fun, or even very useful. This does not mean that an individual child cannot turn it into a valuable and enjoyable personal game. For some the game is scoring grades; for others it is outwitting the teacher and the system. For many, school math is enjoyable in its repetitiveness, precisely because it is so mindless and dissociated that it provides a shelter from having to think about what is going on in the classroom. But all this proves is the ingenuity of children. It is not a justifications for school math to say that despite its intrinsic dullness, inventive children can find excitement and meaning in it.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

Children , School , Game , Mathematics

“Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do appoint the last Thursday in September next, as a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the People, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship, in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our Country.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation of a Day of Fasting (12 August 1861) http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/proc-3.htm
1860s

People , Family , Religion , Country

“I like happy things, I'm really calm and peaceful. I like birds, bees, I like people. I like funny things that make me happy and gleeful… like when my teacher sucked my wee-wee in pre-school!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"I'm Shady" (Track 18).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

People , School , Peace , Bird

“If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulses of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavor is to subdue our children’s spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), pp. 185-186.

Love , Life , Children , Truth

“From the far reaches of the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River, the faithful approached the city of Mecca. All had the same objective to worship together at the most sacred shrine of Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca. One such traveler was Mansa Musa, Sultan of Mali in Western Africa. Mansa Musa had prepared carefully for the long journey he and his attendants would take. He was determined to travel not only for his own religious fulfillment, but also for recruiting teachers and leaders, so that his realms could learn more of the Prophet's teachings.”

Musa I of Mali (1280–1337) emperor of the Mali Empire

Chronicle of the Seeker by: Mahmud Kati

Faith , Travel , Learning , Sea

“To prepare teachers in the method of the experimental sciences is not an easy matter.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 1 : A Critical Consideration of the New Pedagogy in its Relation to Modern Science, p. 7.
Context: To prepare teachers in the method of the experimental sciences is not an easy matter. When we shall have instructed them in anthropometry and psychometry in the most minute manner possible, we shall have only created machines, whose usefulness will be most doubtful. Indeed, if it is after this fashion that we are to initiate our teachers into experiment, we shall remain forever in the field of theory. The teachers of the old school, prepared according to the principles of metaphysical philosophy, understood the ideas of certain men regarded as authorities, and moved the muscles of speech in talking of them, and the muscles of the eye in reading their theories. Our scientific teachers, instead, are familiar with certain instruments and know how to move the muscles of the hand and arm in order to use these instruments; besides this, they have an intellectual preparation which consists of a series of typical tests, which they have, in a barren and mechanical way, learned how to apply.
The difference is not substantial, for profound differences cannot exist in exterior technique alone, but lie rather within the inner man. Not with all our initiation into scientific experiment have we prepared new masters, for, after all, we have left them standing without the door of real experimental science; we have not admitted them to the noblest and most profound phase of such study, — to that experience which makes real scientists.

Science

“I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

" My Philanthropic Pledge http://givingpledge.org/pdf/letters/Buffett_Letter.pdf" at the The Giving Pledge (2010)
Context: Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.
My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. Both my children and I won what I call the ovarian lottery. (For starters, the odds against my 1930 birth taking place in the U. S. were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.) My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.
The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.

Parent

“Three things give the student the possibility of surpassing his teacher: ask a lot of questions, remember the answers, teach.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Question

“Let the main object… to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners learn more.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Learning

“Every person might not be a teacher, yet has no right not to be an educator, for we are talking about the importance of moral education.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Education , Personality

“Practice is necessary. You can't learn to swim just by reading a book about swimming. Otherwise, you will continue to look for teachers at each stop.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Reading , Learning , Books

“The secret of passing in every subject is to never hate it or hating the teacher who's teaching it. It's the correct time to overcome your fears.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Hate , Time , Secret , Fear

“The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Fight

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Thinking , Universe

“There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Teachers' Day

“You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.”

Ajahn Chah (1918–1992) thai Buddhist monk

Truth

“It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Love , Understanding , Universe

“A parent gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

Source: The Education of Henry Adams

Life , Parent

“The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Parent

“no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop your books and run like hell”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Books , Hell

“Remember, young man, experience is not the best teacher. Other people's experience is the best teacher. By reading about the lives of great people, you can unlock the secrets to what made them great.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

People , Secret , Reading

“Teachers wondered why I didn't speak up more in class. Why would I when I knew how precarious words could be, how betraying they were, how vulnerable they made you?”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

“One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

My stomach lurched. “What do you mean? How does he look at me?”

“Like you’re not a student and he’s not a teacher.”

P. C. Cast book Chosen

Source: Chosen

Way

“Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Christmas , School , Birthday , Tree

“Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“What kind of grad student do you take? “I never take a straight A student. A real scientist tends to be critical, and somewhere along the line, they had to rebel against their teachers.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

“It's the student who makes the teacher, not the other way around.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Way

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) French Romantic composer

Le temps est un grand maître, dit-on; le malheur est qu'il soit un maître inhumain qui tue ses élèves.
Letter written in November 1856, published in Pierre Citron (ed.) Correspondance générale (Paris: Flammarion, 1989) vol. 5, p. 390; Paul Davies About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996) p. 214.

Time

“The best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Misattributed
Source: Often attributed to Kerouac's On the Road, the quote cannot be found in that book, nor in any of Kerouac's other published works.

“I asked a teacher what the opposite of a miracle was and she, without thinking, I assume, said it was an act of God.
You shouldn't say something like that to the kind of kid who will grow up to be a writer; we have long memories.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)

God , Thinking , Memory

“We have things like protected properties. We have abstract methods. We have all this stuff that your computer science teacher told you you should be using. I don't care about this crap at all.”

Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) Danish programmer and creator of PHP

Itconversations.com http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3298.html

Science

“We must speak up for the children of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan who are suffering from terrorism, poverty, child labour and child trafficking. Let us help them through our voice, action and charity. Let us help them to read books and go to school. And let us not forget that even one book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Inauguration of Library of Birmingham, Jan 2013

Children , Books , World , School

“Once centenarian teacher who had the body of an adolescent told me he had studied martial arts. "Me, too," I answered. We were in Notre Dame, and he said, "Attack me." I put myself in a combat position, and he moved his left hand in such an incredibly beautiful way that while I looked at it, fascinated, he gave me a big slap. "Beauty is the most dangerous weapon," he warned. It took me a long time to understand. He used a secret Chinese practice, which consists of drawing a snake in the air with your hand to distract the enemy. And that is how beauty is: the most awful weapon.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Secret , Beauty , Art , Way

“The dreary alternative of agnosticism, which the young students are taught to accept as the final word of science on the grave mysteries of life and thought, and man’s hopes of personal communion with God are laughed away to make room for an inane faith in evolution and the law of collective development and progress…. Hindu students especially need the strengthening influence which faith in God, and in Conscience as His voice in the human heart alone, can give. The national mind can not live in agnosticism. The experiment was tried once on a large scale by the greatest moral teacher of this or any other age. The failure of Buddhism is a warning that such teaching can have no hold on the national thought.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

Religion had important place in his life is indicated in his admonishing Professor Selby (also a professor in the Deccan College) notes on a published ”Notes of Lectures on Butelr’s Anaology and Sermons" quoted in pages=105-106

Life , God , Age , Faith

“I envision a society without any physical or psychological barriers towards the blind – a barrier-free environment where the blind can walk freely, can travel, can work, think for themselves, and live proud and dignified lives like other citizens. Society thinks that we can only sing sweet songs, only become teachers and telephone operators in the bank. But we can do more. We can dance, we can fire juggle, we can do martial arts, we can become managers and directors of companies. But society is constantly interpreting what we can do and what we can’t. This has to change very soon.”

Tiffany Brar (1988) Indian Social Activist

As quoted in They Say the Blind Should Not Lead the Blind. She Proves Them Wrong. https://www.thebetterindia.com/40485/tiffany-brar-working-for-blind/ (December 22, 2015) by Ranjini Sivaswamy, The Better India.

Art , Travel , Thinking , Change

“Why not make me an Hon. teacher in the Religion Department for teaching the cult of Lord Caitanya which is the living religion of the world. All other religions of the world are carried by more sentiments than philosophy but Caitanya cult is full of philosophy and transcendental sentiments or emotions.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Letter to Kirtanananda, New York, 14 April, 1967 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/letters/new_york/april/14/1967/kirtanananda?d=1
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Religious and Cultural Elitism

World , Religion

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love , Men , God , Children

““Culture” means … the cultivation of the mind, the taking care and improving of the native faculties of the mind in accordance with the nature of the mind. Just as the soil needs cultivators of the soil, the mind needs teachers. But teachers are not as easy to come by as farmers. The teachers themselves are pupils and must be pupils. But there cannot be an infinite regress: ultimately there must be teachers who are not in turn pupils. Those teachers who are not in turn pupils are the great minds.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

“What is liberal education,” p. 3
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)

Nature

“Surely, no patriot can fail to see the fearful brutalization and debasement which the indulgence of such a spirit and such practices inevitably portend. Surely, all public men, all writers for the daily press, all clergymen, all teachers, all who in any way have a right to address the public, should, with every energy, unite to denounce such crimes and to support those engaged in putting them down.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)

Men , Fear , Way , Support

“Ethics could teach us only those purposes and ideals. If the teachers seeks insight into the means by which the aim can be reached, into the facts by which the child can be molded, his way must lead from ethics to psychology. (…) Water flows downhill, anyhow, but to bring the water uphill hydraulic forces are indeed necessary. To overcome nature and instead to prepare for a life of ideals, to inhibit personal desires and instead to learn to serve the higher purposes indeed demands most serious and most systematic efforts. It is the teachers' task to make these efforts with all his best knowledge of mind and body, of social and of cultural values.”

Hugo Munsterberg (1863–1916) German-American psychologist, philosopher and agitator

Hugo Munsterberg, Psychology and the Teacher, 1909 (new edition, 2006), pp. 64-65.

Life , Way , Nature , Knowledge

“… what is there in the subject of psychology to demand the attention of the manager?
Psychology, in the popular phrase, is " the study of the mind." It has for years been included in the training of all teachers, and has been one of the first steps for the student of philosophy; but it has not, usually, been included among the studies of the young scientific or engineering student, or of any students in other lines than Philosophy and Education. This, not because its value as a " culture subject " was not understood, but because the course of the average student is so crowded with technical preparation necessary to his life work, and because the practical value of psychology has not been recognized. It is well recognized that the teacher must understand the working of the mind in order best to impart his information in that way that will enable the student to grasp it most readily. It was not recognized that every man going out into the world needs all the knowledge that he can get as to the working of the human mind in order not only to give but to receive information with the least waste and expenditure of energy, nor was it recognized that in the industrial, as well as the academic world, almost every man is a teacher.”

Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972) American psychologist and industrial engineer

Source: Psychology of management, 1914, p. 1-2

Life , World , Education , Way

“The self-taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers;”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Taming the Bicycle" (1917)

“It is of course a familiar precept that the teacher must try to arouse the interest of his pupils in all that he teaches. However, this precept is generally meant and understood to denote the idea that learning is the end and interest the means to attain it. I wish to reverse that relationship. Learning must serve the purpose of creating interest. Learning is transient, but interest must be lifelong.”

Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841) German philosopher, psychologist, and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline

Herbart (1982c, p. 97), as cited in: Norbert Hilgenheger, "Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841)." Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny 3-4 (1999): 5-26.

Idea , Learning

“There is no God-Creator, but there is the Cosmos, which creates suns, planets and living beings. There is no omnipotent God, but there is the Universe, which governs the fates of all celestial bodies and their inhabitants. There are no sons of God, but there are mature and thus rational and perfect sons of the Cosmos. There are no personal gods, but there are elected leaders of planets, solar systems, stellar groups, milky ways, islands of ether and the whole Cosmos. There is no Christ, but there is a brilliant man and a greater teacher of mankind.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

Нет бога-творца, но есть космос, производящий солнца, планеты и живых существ. Hет всемогущего бога, но есть вселенная, которая распоряжается судьбой всех небесных тел и их жителей. Нет сынов божьих, но есть зрелые и потому разумные и совершенные сыны космоса. Нет личных богов, но есть избранные правители: планет, солнечных систем, звёздных групп, млечных путей, эфирных островов и всего космоса. Нет Христа, но есть гениальный человек, великий учитель человечества.
from Нет ничего (Мысли безбожника) [There is nothing (Atheist's thoughts)], quoted in Л.В. Шапошникова, Вестники космической эволюции.

God , Fate , Way , Universe

“310. A pupil and a teacher. The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, for instance as to the existence of things, the meaning for words, etc. The teacher says "Stop interrupting me and do as I tell you. So far your doubts don't make sense at all."”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book On Certainty

On Certainty (1969)

Sense

“The teacher of love teaches struggle. The teacher of lifeless isolation from the world teaches peace.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Der Lehrer der Liebe lehrt den Kampf, der Lehrer der lieblosen Isolierung von aller Welt aber die Ruhe.
Psychology of World Views (1919)

Love , World , Peace

“BASIC is to computation what QWERTY is to typing. Many teachers have learned BASIC, many books have been written about it, many computers have been built in such a way that BASIC is "hardwired" into them. In the case of the typewriter, we noted how people invent "rationalizations" to justify the status quo. In the case of BASIC, the phenomenon has gone much further, to the point where it resembles ideology formation. Complex arguments are invented to justify features of BASIC that were originally included because the primitive technology demanded them or because alternatives were not well enough known at the time the language was designed.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 1, Computers and Computer Cultures

People , Books , Way , Learning

“!-- Your kind letter of the 25th ult., and the express package containing the bronze medal of -->Mr. Clay, during my whole political life, I have loved and revered as a teacher and leader.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to Daniel Ullmann (1 February 1861); quoted in "Why Abraham Lincoln Was a Whig" by Daniel Walker Howe, The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Volume 16, Issue 1 (Winter 1995) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0016.105?view=text;rgn=main; also in We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860-April 1861 (2013) by William J. Cooper, p. 72 http://books.google.com/books?id=meYLTCRlHaQC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=Lincoln+%22I+have+loved+and+revered%22&source=bl&ots=A-QLTNlkSN&sig=F0MdGo6rkAVKc3tIQSs0Xp4AdSY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fmpQUv22LpCi4APhj4HoDQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Lincoln%20%22I%20have%20loved%20and%20revered%22&f=false
1860s

Love , Life

“To Ehrenfest I owe a great deal. I studied physics at a time when a number of fascinating persons were there together. Ehrenfest would not instruct as such, as he preferred dialogue. Thanks to him I could participate in discussions with Albert Einstein. Also Kamerling Onnes, Lorentz and Zeeman were present. Being a student in the hands of such teachers, you are very fortunate indeed.”

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist

Source: NRC-Handelsblad in 1987; as quoted in: Jan Tinbergen http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Tinbergen.html at MacTutor History of Mathematics, 2009: Quote about one of his teachers at the University of Leiden

Study , Time , Personality

Quotes about teachers

Best quotes about teachers

Quotes about teachers