Quotes about teachers
page 6

Albert Einstein photo

“The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Science and Religion (1941)

Camille Paglia photo
Peter M. Senge photo

“When executives lead as teachers, stewards, and designers, they fill roles that are much more subtle and long-term than those of power-wielding hierarchical leaders.”

Peter M. Senge (1947) American scientist

"Leading learning organizations," Training & Development, 50:12, (December 1996)

Stella Adler photo

“The teacher has to inspire, to agitate. You cannot teach acting. You can only stimulate what's already there.”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Obituary in New York Times

Michael Bloomberg photo
Clarence Darrow photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Pat Conroy photo
Confucius photo

“Reviewing what you have learned and learning anew, you are fit to be a teacher.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects, Chapter II

Aaron Copland photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Dana Gioia photo

“I want a poetry that can learn as much from popular culture as from serious culture. A poetry that seeks the pleasure and emotionality of the popular arts without losing the precision, concentration, and depth that characterize high art. I want a literature that addresses a diverse audience distinguished for its intelligence, curiosity, and imagination rather than its professional credentials. I want a poetry that risks speaking to the fullness of our humanity, to our emotions as well as to our intellect, to our senses as well as our imagination and intuition. Finally I hope for a more sensual and physical art — closer to music, film, and painting than to philosophy or literary theory. Contemporary American literary culture has privileged the mind over the body. The soul has become embarrassed by the senses. Responding to poetry has become an exercise mainly in interpretation and analysis. Although poetry contains some of the most complex and sophisticated perceptions ever written down, it remains an essentially physical art tied to our senses of sound and sight. Yet, contemporary literary criticism consistently ignores the sheer sensuality of poetry and devotes its considerable energy to abstracting it into pure intellectualization. Intelligence is an irreplaceable element of poetry, but it needs to be vividly embodied in the physicality of language. We must — as artists, critics, and teachers — reclaim the essential sensuality of poetry. The art does not belong to apes or angels, but to us. We deserve art that speaks to us as complete human beings. Why settle for anything less?”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Paradigms Lost," interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (Spring 1995)
Interviews

Immanuel Kant photo
Archibald Hill photo

“In the last few years there has been a harvest of books and lectures about the "Mysterious Universe." The inconceivable magnitudes with which astronomy deals produce a sense of awe which lends itself to a poetic and philosophical treatment. "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy hands, the moon and the starts, whuch thou hast ordained: what is man that thou art mindful of him? The literary skill with which this branch of science has been exploited compels one's admiration, but alos, a little, one's sense of the ridiculous. For other facts than those of astronomy, oother disciplines than of mathematics, can produce the same lively feelings of awe and reverence: the extraordinary finenness of their adjustments to the world outside: the amazing faculties of the human mind, of which we know neither whence it comes not whither it goes. In some fortunate people this reverence is produced by the natural bauty of a landscape, by the majesty of an ancient building, by the heroism of a rescue party, by poetry, or by music. God is doubtless a Mathematician, but he is also a Physiologist, an Engineer, a Mother, an Architect, a Coal Miner, a Poet, and a Gardener. Each of us views things in his own peculiar war, each clothes the Creator in a manner which fits into his own scheme. My God, for instance, among his other professions, is an Inventor: I picture him inventing water, carbon dioxide, and haemoglobin, crabs, frogs, and cuttle fish, whales and filterpassing organisms ( in the ratio of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 in size), and rejoicing greatly over these weird and ingenious things, just as I rejoice greatly over some simple bit of apparatus. But I would nor urge that God is only an Inventor: for inventors are apt, as those who know them realize, to be very dull dogs. Indeed, I should be inclined rather to imagine God to be like a University, with all its teachers and professors together: not omittin the students, for he obviously possesses, judging from his inventions, that noblest human characteristic, a sense of humour.”

Archibald Hill (1886–1977) English physiologist and biophysicist

The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=zaE1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (1960, Cap 1. Scepticism and Faith, p. 41)

Michelle Obama photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Religion and Science: Irreconcilable? (1948)

Edouard Manet photo

“It's a shame that pantyless party girls get more attention than the real heroes, the nurses and teachers and moms.”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter six, More is Less, p. 183

Narada Maha Thera photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
El Lissitsky photo
George William Curtis photo

“Mayor Macbeth, of Charleston, told General Howard that he did not believe that a bureau at Washington could manage the social relations of the people from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. But the answer to Mayor Macbeth is that he and his companions have managed those relations at a cost to the country of four years of civil war, three thousand millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives. The Freedmen's Bureau will hardly be as expensive as that. And while such a bureau merely defends the rights of a certain class under the laws, the aid societies give them that education which in the present state of local feeling would be inevitably withheld. The mighty arch of Sherman, wasting and taming the land, is followed by the noiseless steps of the band of unnamed heroes and heroines who are teaching the people. The soldier drew the furrow, the teacher drops the seed. There is many and many a devoted woman, hidden at this moment in the lowliest cabins of the South, whose name poets will not sing nor historians record, but whose patient toil the eye that marks the sparrow's fall beholds and approves. Not more noble, not more essential, was the work of the bravest and most famous of the heroes who fell in the wild storm of battle, than that of many a woman to us unknown, faithful through privation and exposure and disease, and perishing at the lonely outpost of duty in the act of helping the nation keep its word.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Charles Fort photo
Houston Stewart Chamberlain photo
Isaac Leib Peretz photo
Albert Einstein photo

“If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to the editor of The Reporter about the situation of scientists in America (13 October 1954)
1950s

Svetlana Alexievich photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Jean-François Millet photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Karl G. Maeser photo

“I would rather trust my child to a serpent than to a teacher who does not believe in God.”

Karl G. Maeser (1828–1901) prominent Utah educator and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Sentence-Sermons from Brigham Young University Quarterly quoted in The Latter-Day Saints' Millenial Star, Vol. 70 https://books.google.com/books?id=eItJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA452&lpg=PA452&dq=He+that+cheats+another+is+a+knave;+but+he+that+cheats+himself+is+a+fool.&source=bl&ots=WBAQiPjQX6&sig=WLEdKN2_kXPXj8jZALKCp2dguaQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXmNeF_7HMAhUH42MKHdySDgsQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=fool&f=false

Glen Cook photo

“A teacher?”
“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which here is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”
“Interesting.”
“Well. Yes. There is god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger that cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”
“Death?”
“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”
The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death.
“I understand.”

“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”
Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 39, “A Guest at Charm” (p. 625)

Tanith Lee photo

“Uasti was a good teacher,” he said. “She made you look a little way into yourself, see what you could become.”

Book Three, Part III “Inside the Hollow Star”, Chapter 5 (p. 402)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Morton Feldman photo

“My teacher Stefan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue.... He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window, and he said, "What about the man on the street?"”

Morton Feldman (1926–1987) American avant-garde composer

At that moment . . . Jackson Pollock was crossing the street.
Quoted in in "AMERICAN SUBLIME : Morton Feldman's mysterious musical landscapes", by Alex Ross. in The New Yorker (19 June 2006)

Satchidananda Saraswati photo
Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Zakir Hussain (politician) photo

“Our sweat is the answer to all our problems, and that the tiller, the artisan and the teacher are the three agents who feed the body, mind and soul.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Source: Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997), p. 19.

Sören Kierkegaard photo
Gertrude Stein photo

“When General Osborne came to see me just after the victory, he asked me what I thought should be done to educate the Germans. I said there is only one thing to be done and that is to teach them disobedience, as long as they are obedient so long sooner or later they will be ordered about by a bad man and there will be trouble. Teach them disobedience, I said, make every German child know that it is its duty at least once a day to do its good deed and not believe something its father or its teacher tells them, confuse their minds, get their minds confused and perhaps then they will be disobedient and the world will be at peace. The obedient peoples go to war, disobedient people like peace, that is the reason that Italy did not really become a good Axis, the people were not obedient enough, the Japs and the Germans are the only really obedient people on earth and see what happens, teach them disobedience, confuse their minds, teach them disobedience, and the world can be peaceful. General Osborne shook his head sadly, you'll never make the heads of an army understand that.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Off we all went to see Germany. In: LIFE Magazine, Vol. 19, No. 6, August 6, 1945, S.56, ISSN 0024-3019. google books https://books.google.at/books?id=0EkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=%22gertrude+stein%22+%22off+we+all+went%22&source=bl&ots=xOi2_KGtgA&sig=rCjhy5aEb48I1LiWrDQNNVtw37c&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwij1sqZr7_cAhUFdcAKHQQhB_sQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22gertrude%20stein%22%20%22off%20we%20all%20went%22&f=false

Tom Robbins photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Noah Cyrus photo
Bill Bryson photo
John Ruskin photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo

“Affirmative action, rightly understood, would justify a wide variety of outreach programs for those whose lives have been stultified by poverty, broken families, bad schools, and neighborhoods filled with drugs, crime and gangs. One can heartily commend a program for tutoring young blacks, or young whites, who had never had a genuine teacher in a real classroom. One cannot, however, commend a program of raising the grades of young blacks, but not young whites, without having raised their skills. And what possible justification can there be there for giving scholarship assistance to the child of a black middle-class family, while denying it to a poor white? Can one imagine a more crass disregard for the genuine meaning of the Equal Protection Clause? The priests of this new religion of 'affirmative action' are not without material interests. Hundreds of millions of corporate dollars are spent annually on 'sensitivity training'. Within the universities, centers for black, brown and women's (i. e., feminist) studies are being established, with vast amount of patronage bestowed upon them. Traditional courses in Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Shakespeare and the Bible continue to appear in the catalogs, but they are increasingly taught by 'deconstructionists', who have no interest in the texts, but only in subjective reactions to the texts.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Gustave Courbet photo

“I, who believe that every artist should be his own teacher, cannot dream of setting myself up as a professor.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

1860s, Realist Manifesto' - an open letter, 1861

Thomas Little Heath photo
Elaine Paige photo
Margaret Mead photo
Matthew Arnold photo
Albert Einstein photo

“If I would follow your advice and Jesus could perceive it, he, as a Jewish teacher, surely would not approve of such behavior.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Reply to a Roman Catholic student urging him to pray to Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and convert to Christianity.
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein's God (1997), p. 88

George W. Bush photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Van Morrison photo

“No Guru, no method, no teacher
Just you and I and nature
And the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost
In the garden wet with rain.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

In the Garden
Song lyrics, No Guru (1986)

Camille Paglia photo
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec photo
Hans Freudenthal photo

“No doubt once it was real progress when developers and teachers offered learners tangible material in order to teach them arithmetic of whole number… The best palpable material you can give the child is its own body.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: Mathematics as an Educational Task (1973), p. 75-76; As cited in: Anne Birgitte Fyhn (2007, p. 6)

John Frusciante photo
Ibn Battuta photo
Larry Niven photo
Dana Gioia photo
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo

“The messages our kids receive from teachers, coaches--and even, with the best intentions, from us — can push them toward pride or despair…toward self-righteousness or self-hatred.”

Phil Vischer (1966) American puppeter

From the postlogue, "Using This Book with Kids", in Sidney & Norman: a tale of two pigs (2006) published by Tommy Nelson in association with Jellyfish Labs. ISBN 1-4003-0834-8

John Lancaster Spalding photo
Regina Jonas photo

“Just as both female doctors and teachers in time have become a necessity from a psychological standpoint, so has the female rabbi.”

Regina Jonas (1902–1944) rabbi

Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According to Halachic Sources?

John Sloan photo

“I have nothing to teach you that will help you to make a living. [as art teacher, advising his students]”

John Sloan (1871–1951) American painter

Source: Loughery, John. John Sloan: Painter and Rebel. New York: Henry Holt, 1995. , pp. 224-225

Narada Maha Thera photo

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

Haim Ginott (1922–1973) psychologist

Ginott, H. G. (1972). Teacher and child. New York: Macmillan.

Hans Freudenthal photo
George Pólya photo
Katherine Paterson photo
William Luther Pierce photo
Tom Hanks photo
Amanda Lear photo

“I knew nothing when I first met him. He taught me to see things through his eyes. Dalí was my teacher. He let me use his brushes, his paint and his canvas, so that I could play around while he was painting for hours and hours in the same studio. Surrealism was a good school for me. Listening to Dalí talk was better than going to any art school.”

Amanda Lear (1939) singer, lyricist, composer, painter, television presenter, actress, model

http://www.3d-dali.com/centennial-magazine/e-9-muse.htm, Salvador Dali Centennial Magazine – Amanda Lear, 15 June 2004, 3d-dali.com, 15 July 2018

Max Beerbohm photo

“As a teacher, as a propagandist, Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Around Theatres, “A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S” (1924)

Chester W. Wright photo

“Every evening after dinner, a new life began. There was no hurry. Some walked in the garden. Others smoked. About nine o’clock we made our way alone or in twos and threes to the Study House. Outdoor shoes came off and soft shoes or moccasins were put on. We sat quietly, each on his or her own cushion, round the floor in the centre. Men sat on the right, women on the left; never together.

Some went straight on to the stage and began to practice the rhythmic exercises. On our first arrival, each of us had the right to choose his own teacher for the movements. I had chosen Vasili Ferapontoff, a young Russian, tall, with a sad studious face. He wore pince-nez, and looked the picture of the perpetual student, Trofimov, in The Cherry Orchard. He was a conscientious instructor, though not a brilliant performer. I came to value his friendship, which continued until his premature death ten years later. He told me in one of our first conversations that he expected to die young.

The exercises were much the same as those I had seen in Constantinople three years before. The new pupils, such as myself, began with the series called Six Obligatory Exercises. I found them immensely exciting, and worked hard to master them quickly so that I could join in the work of the general class.”

John G. Bennett (1897–1974) British mathematician and author

Source: Witness: the Story of a Search (1962), p. 90–91 cited in: "Gurdjieff’s Temple Dances by John G. Bennett", Gurdjieff International Review, on gurdjieff.org; About Fontainebleau 1923

Bob Dylan photo

“The book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), Jokerman

Jerry Pournelle photo
Frank McCourt photo
Larry the Cable Guy photo

“A buddy of mine was mad at his son the other day 'cause he got caught having sex with his teacher. I thought, "Hey, that's pretty cool!"”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Problem was, he was home-schooled.
Tailgate Party (2009)

Francis Escudero photo

“Government must provide the hardware - classrooms, desks, chairs, and the software - books, teacher retraining.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Ram Mohan Roy photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“I'm looking for the teacher who is simple enough to be great, and great enough to be simple.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Ich suche den Lehrer, der einfach genug ist, um groß zu sein und groß genug, um einfach zu sein.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Alfred Binet photo