“At first we got along very well. Esipova even boasted outside the class that she had pupils who wrote sonatas (I completed Sonata, Op. 1, and played it to Esipova, who took it home and inserted pedaling). But before long trouble began. Esipova’s method of teaching was to try to fit everyone into a standard pattern. True, it was a very elaborate pattern, and if the pupil’s temperament coincided with her own, the results were admirable. But if the pupil happened to be of an independent cast of mind Esipova would do her best to suppress his individuality instead of helping to develop it. Moreover, I had great difficulty in ridding myself of careless playing, and the Mozart, Schubert and Chopin which she insisted on were somehow not in my line. At that period I was too preoccupied with the search for a new harmonic idiom to understand how anyone could care for the simple harmonies of Mozart.”

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 59
Context: Patterns of gene expression are to organisms as melodies and harmonies are to sonatas. It's all about which sets of proteins appear in a cell at the same time (the chords) and which sets come before or after other sets (the themes) and at what rate they appear (the tempos) and how they modulate one another (the developments and transitions). When these patterns go awry we may see malignancy. When they change by mutation we can get new kinds of organisms. When they work, we get a creature.

Letter from Prison (21 June 1919), translated by Hamish Henderson, Edinburgh University Student Publications.

As quoted in The Eclectic Magazine Vol. VII, (January - June 1868)
Variants:
The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
As quoted in School Arts (1935) by Art Study and Teaching Periodicals, p. 91
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on a cold iron.
As quoted in Making Minds Less Well Educated Than Our Own (2004) by Roger C. Schank, p. 151

That delighted me.
His letter to Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn. Paris, 12 December 1831.

LXXX. TEACHER
Orphic Sayings
Context: The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples. A noble artist, he has visions of excellence and revelations of beauty, which he has neither impersonated in character, nor embodied in words. His life and teachings are but studies for yet nobler ideals.

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

Source: The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements (1908), Ch. 1, p.2

The Art of Teaching http://books.google.com/books?id=DogFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Do+not+try+to+make+the+brilliant+pupil+a+replica+of+yourself%22&pg=PA50#v=onepage (1950)

Part VI, ch. 29 (Samuel Bester)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)