Quotes about teaching
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“Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

“Those kids aren't dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don't get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.”

James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk

Source: If Beale Street Could Talk

People, School

“And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead / children out of the fields into the text / of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

Children, Grass

“War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

"War Is God's Way of Teaching Us Geography" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/19/geography/ at Quote Investigator <br class="br">"The comment 'War is God's way of teaching Americans geography,' is continually attributed to Ambrose Bierce. Biographer David E. Schultz, who has nearly all of Bierce's writing entered on his computer, cannot find this acerbic remark within that database." Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier (2007), p. 240 <br class="br">Misattributed

God, War, Way, Funny

“Learning is never wrong. Even learning how to kill isn't wrong. Or right. It's just a thing to learn, a thing I can teach you. That's all.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Learning

“… I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

Love, God

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

Gail Godwin (1937) Novelist, short story writer

“Life is a spiritual dance and that our unseen partner has steps to teach us if we will allow ourselves to be led. The next time you are restless, remind yourself it is the universe asking 'Shall we dance?”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

Life, Universe, Time, Dance

“Men were put into the world to teach women the law of compromise.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Women, Men, World, Law

“Kahlan guide me. Kahlan teach me. Kahlan protect me. In your light I thrive. In your mercy I am sheltered. In your wisdom I am humbled. I live only to love you. My life is yours.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Love, Life, Wisdom, Light

“… I would have let him go one finger at a time, until, without his realizing, he'd be floating without me. And then I thought, perhaps that is what it means to be a [parent] - to teach your child to live without you.”

Nicole Krauss (1974) American novelist

Parent, Time

“Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but a map.”

Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead

Source: Speaker for the Dead

Evil

“If you wish for something hard enough, the fairy tales teach us, you can get it in the end. But it's hardly ever the way you thought it would be, and the endings aren't always happy ones.”

Jennifer Weiner book Good in Bed

Source: Good in Bed

Happiness, Way

“We need our Arts to teach us how to breathe”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing

Art

“He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

“Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Children, World, Family, Communication

“If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain
We'd hunt down Love together,
Pluck out his flying-feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

Love, Pain, Pleasure, Flying

“Teach us…… that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Feeling

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing

“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

People, Beauty, Parent, Time

“Whether we write lyrics or craft legislation, sell homes or teach classes, design spaces or open franchises, prayer is a critical part of the creative process. Don’t just brainstorm; praystorm.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

Home, Parting

“[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Source: It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

“He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.”

Philip Roth book American Pastoral

Source: American Pastoral

Life, Sense, Learning

“School made us 'literate' but did not teach us to read for pleasure.”

Ambeth R. Ocampo (1961) Filipino historian

Pleasure, School, Reading

“Why the hell would I bring?" she exclaimed. All her anger turned at his presumption. It was a sign of her agitation that she'd sworn.
"Because," he said, face calm, "I can teach you how to stake a Strigoi."
"THE HELL YOU CAN," I said aloud to no one.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Hell, Anger

“Once you teach me something, it's mine to use.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

“And if those children are unresponsive, maybe you can't teach them yet, but you can love them. And if you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Love, Children

“So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Truth (1896)

Nature

“Teaching is a calling too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy - angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

Angels, Way, Teachers, Teachers' Day

“It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

Hate

“When I tell people I went to library school, the most common reaction is either “You’re joking, right?” or “They have schools for librarians? Do they teach you how to properly sssh people?”

Scott Douglas (1963) American wheelchair tennis player

People, School

“All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

World

“The study of doctrine and the teaching of doctrine will change behavior more than the study of behavior will change behavior.”

Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader

Behavior, Study, Change

“Men think that self-sacrifice is the most charming of all the cardinal virtues for women, and in order to keep it in healthy working order, they make opportunities for its illustration as often as possible. I would fain teach women that self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton book The Woman's Bible

The Woman's Bible (1898)
Source: The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective

Women, Men, Thinking

“Dogs are a gift to mankind. They are happy and joyful and loyal by nature. They are pure, positive energy and teach by example. That is all that's required of them.”

Alyson Nöel book Radiance

Source: Radiance

Happiness, Dogs, Nature

“Too often we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioural consequences.”

Daniel J. Siegel (1957) American psychiatrist

Source: The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive

Forgetting

“The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Love, Life, Law, Christ

“Dear God, teach me to be careless.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy

God

“It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Ring of Endless Light

Source: A Ring of Endless Light

Love, World

“I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

“Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Ash-Wednesday (1930)
Variant: Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care

“The worst thing you can do is nothing. (re: teaching children with autism)”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

Children

“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are all born selfish.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene

Selfishness

“Some parents let their young kids win at games, but mine never did.

I don't think it was because they were particularly competitive, they just wanted to teach me a valuable lesson.

Life is mostly just learning how to lose.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Saga, Vol. 3

Life, Game, Thinking, Parent

“Life, I've learned, is never fair. If they teach anything in schools, that should be it.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Life, School, Learning

“I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

People

“See… I knew baby Marissa was quality people, look how she's eating the head off the red-headed Artemis doll. Simi need to teach her to belch fire, then introduce her to the real heifer-Goddess herself(Simi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Night Play

People, Baby

“Picture this," said Magnus. "Me with a little monkey friend. I could teach him tricks. I could dress him in a cunning jacket. He could look just like me! But more monkey-shaped.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

“And what about magic?”
“What about it?”
“Will you teach me?”
“You don’t even know if you’re capable of doing magic.”
“How do I find out? Is there a test or something?”
“Yes, we cut off your head. If it grows back, you can do magic.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

God, Friendship, Disappointment, Question

“Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Truth, Beauty, Imagination, Literature

“Surely you’ve been sent from the heavens to teach us mortals what beauty is.”

Sidney Sheldon book Memories of Midnight

Source: Memories of Midnight

Beauty

“Right" he said "Let's get one thing clear. I am not here to teach you law-I am here to teach you loopholes.”

Catherine Jinks book Evil Genius

Source: Evil Genius

Law

“You teach combat, I guess.”

Aphros threw up his hands in exasperation. “Why does everyone assume that?”

Leo glanced at the massive sword on the fish-guy’s back. “Uh, I don’t know.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Guy, Fish

“You teach people how to treat you.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

People

“If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Life

“The most important part of education — to teach the meaning of to know”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

in the scientific sense
The last statement in her notebook
Waiting on God (1950)

Education, Parting

“When we put up with any situation we don’t have to put up with, it’s not because we’re dumb. We put up with it, because we want the lesson only that situation can teach, and we want it more than freedom myself.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit

Freedom

“Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Source: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Women, Men, Problem

“Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Ash-Wednesday (1930)

Death, Flying

“Cats are cats… the world over!
These intelligent, peace-loving, four-footed friends- who are without prejudice, without hate, without greed- may someday teach us something.
-James Mackintosh Qwilleran”

Lilian Jackson Braun (1913–2011) author

Source: The Cat Who Saw Stars

Love, Hate, World, Peace

“You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Life, People, Way

“What can she possibly teach you, twenty seven names for tears?”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Tear

“How can I find the words? Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do"
"Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Busman's Honeymoon

Source: Busman's Honeymoon

Time

“What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how; instruct them how the mind of man becomes a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells…”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Source: Lyrical Ballads

Love, Beauty, Time

“Walk neither faster nor slower than your own soul. Because it is your soul that will teach you the usefulness of each step you take.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Soul

“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

“What is a teacher? I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch of Portobello (2007), p. 78.
Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Teachers

“I prefer sinners and madmen, who can learn, who can change, who can teach-or people like myself, if I may say so, who are not afraid to eat a lobster alone as they take on their shoulders the monumental weight of thirty years”

James Baldwin book Just Above My Head

Source: Just Above My Head

People, Learning, Change

“All things which greatly hurt me greatly teach me”

Karen Salmansohn American writer

Hurt

“The six elements of her Fail Proof Broken-Heart Curing Treatment: "Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away from the person you loved, meditate and teach your heart that this is destiny.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, Travel, Drink, Sleep

“When something dies is the greatest teaching.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Pain, Pleasure, Time

“Teach her to question language. Language is the repository of our prejudices, our beliefs, our assumptions.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Source: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Question

“A woman at a certain age who is unmarried, our society teaches her to see it as a deep personal failure. And a man, after a certain age isn’t married, we just think he hasn’t come around to making his pick.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

Age, Failure, Thinking, Personality

“Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others. Indeed, it will teach him the way”

Barry Unsworth book Sacred Hunger

Source: Sacred Hunger

Way, Suffering

“Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

God

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

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

“If I am right, Thy grace import
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find that better way!”

Alexander Pope Moral Essays

The Universal Prayer (1738)
Source: Moral Essays

Way, Heart

“You are the most boring teacher ever."
He grinned and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, just as a knock sounded at the door. "It all depends on what you me to teach you.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Storm Born

Kiss, Teachers, Dependency

“What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn't thought he saw Peter Pan's sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you to see that ship.”

Roberto Cotroneo (1961) Italian journalist and writer

Sleep, Summer, Night

“Teach you to try marrying me, you idiot!”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

“The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: Living Dharma: Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters

Way

“An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end it's the learning that matters: what we've learned and how we've grown”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

Life, Learning

“All you have to do to educate a child is leave him alone and teach him to read. The rest is brainwashing.”

Ellen Gilchrist (1935) Fiction writer, poet

Education, Reading

“Parents, teachers, government - they all teach you how to live the dreary, deadening life of a slave, but nobody teaches you how to live normally.”

Ryū Murakami book In the Miso Soup

Source: In the Miso Soup (1997)

Life, Parent, Teachers

“Never tire to study. And to teach to others”

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

Study

“I do not teach anyone I only provide the environment in which they can learn”

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

Variant: I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Learning

“People either have comedy or they don't. You can't teach it to them.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

People

“Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die…”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

“Teach me to treat all that comes to me with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Peace, Soul

“In our secular society, school has become the replacement for church, and like church it requires that its teachings must be taken on faith.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

School, Faith

“A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Understanding, Knowledge, Teachers

“I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Books, Understanding, Learning

“I don’t have an issue with what you do in the church, but I’m gonna be up in your face if you’re gonna knock on my science classroom and tell me they’ve got to teach what you’re teaching in your Sunday school. Because that’s when we’re gonna fight!”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

School, Science, Fight

“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

When asked how the world had changed following the September 11, 2001 attacks <br class="br"> Has the world changed? http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)

People, Faith, Religion, Confidence

“When air is charged with emotions, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.”

Terry Tempest Williams book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Source: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Love, Fear, Bird

“I believe in teaching, but I don’t believe in going to school.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

School