148 Best Quotes For Teachers & Tutors (2024)

Updated: November 1st, 2022

148 Best Quotes For Teachers & Tutors (2024)

If there's one thing 2020 has taught us, it's that adapting to change quickly in the education industry is absolutely critical in order to survive.

However, with so much change in just one year, this has lead teachers and educators feeling burnt out, fatigued, and even the desire to give up.

Sometimes, all it takes is a quote or motivational speech to shift your mood and mindset.

We put together 148+ inspirational teaching & tutoring quotes to get you through 2020 and beyond.

Here they are:

Inspirational Quotes

‘Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire.’ –W.B. Yeats

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.’ –Jacques Barzun

‘A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.’ –Thomas Carruthers

‘I am not a teacher, but an awakener.’ –Robert Frost

‘I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.’ –Albert Einstein

‘Teaching is the highest form of understanding.’ –Aristotle

‘When one teaches, two learn.’ –Robert Heinlein

‘A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.’ –Henry Adams

‘I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.’ –Socrates

‘Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.’ –Aristotle

‘Teachers teach someone something, in that order.’ –Samuel Natale

‘I cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am.’ –Paulo Freire

‘Your work is not to drag the world kicking and screaming into a new awareness. Your job is to simply do your work… sacredly, secretly, silently … and those with “eyes to see and ears to hear’ will respond.’ –The Arturians

‘The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.’ –Amos Bronson Alcott

‘In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.’ –Lee Iacocca

‘The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.’ ― William Arthur Ward

‘The best teachers are the ones that change their minds.’ –Terry Heick

‘A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.’ –Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

‘Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.’ –Frank Herbet

‘A great teacher can teach Calculus with a paper clip and literature in an empty field. Technology is just another tool, not a destination.’ –Unknown

‘You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.’ –Aristophenes

‘Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions.’ —Unknown

‘A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.’ –Horace Mann

‘Good teaching is 1/4 preparation and 3/4 theatre.’ –Gail Goldwin

‘Your worst enemy is your best teacher.’ –Buddha

‘The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves.’ –Joseph Campbell

‘All teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life.’ –Ming-Dao Deng

‘The word ‘education’ comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.’ –Muriel Spark

‘To know how to suggest is the art of teaching.’ –Henri-Frédéric Amiel

‘Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.’ –Paulo Coelho

‘I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows.’ –Neil deGrasse Tyson

‘Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.’–Scott Hayden

‘You can teach a person all you know, but only experience will convince him that what you say is true.’ –Richelle E. Goodrich

‘There is no failure. Only feedback.’–Robert Allen

‘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

Ask ‘How will they learn best?’ not ‘Can they learn?’–Jaime Escalante (here’s a quick bio on Escalante if you’re not familiar with the movie based on his life, ‘Stand and Deliver’)

‘It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the heart…(people) respond to leadership in a most remarkable way and once you have won (their) heart, (they) will follow you anywhere.’ –Vince Lombardi

Professional Quotes

‘It takes a big heart to help shape little minds.’–Unknown

‘A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.’ —Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

‘Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.’ —Theodore Roosevelt

‘It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.’ –Albert Einstein

‘Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.’ –Unknown

‘The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.’ –Alexandra K. Trenfor

‘A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.’ –Thomas Carruthers

‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.’ –William Butler Yeats

‘Study without reflection is a waste of time; reflection without study is dangerous.’ –Chinese Proverb

‘If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.’–Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Estrada

‘The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.’ –Pablo Picasso

‘Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.’ –John Steinbeck

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai

“When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.”- Dalai Lama

“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.” – Brad Henry

“It is the supreme art of a teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”- Albert Einstein

“Intelligence plus character– that is the goal of true education.”- Martin Luther King Jr.

“The secret in education lies in respecting the student.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon.”- Ann Liberman

“A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils.”- Ever Garrison

“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”- William Butler Yeats

“One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.” – Carl Jung

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” – Sidney Hook

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

“Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.” – Lady Bird Johnson

“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” – Robert M. Hutchins

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” – B.B. King

“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.” – Fred Rogers

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” – Alexander the Great

“What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.” – Karl Menninger

“Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.” – Bob Talbert

“Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.” – Chinese Proverb

“A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, and touches a heart.” – Unknown

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey

“Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of the individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honor for me.” – APJ Abdul Kalam

“A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank. But the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child.”- Forest Witcraft

Life Quotes

“Being able to help someone learn something is a talent.” – Margaret Riel

“It takes a big heart to help shape little minds.” – Unknown

“Summer vacation is the time when parents realize teachers are grossly underpaid.”- Unknown

“Teaching is not just a job. It is a human service, and it must be thought of as a mission.”- Dr. Ralph Tyler

“Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.”- Unknown

“The great teacher is not the man who supplies the most facts, but the one in whose presence we become different people.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” – Eric Hoffer

“Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.”- Aristotle

“What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?” – Marcus T. Cicero

“When we strive to become better teachers than we are, everyone in our classroom becomes better too.”- Robert John Meehan

“Your heart is slightly bigger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher.” – Aaron Bacall

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

“Teacher appreciation makes the world of education go around.” – Helen Peters

“He who opens a school door closes a prison.” – Victor Hugo

“What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased.” – Unknown

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” – Khalil Gibran

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” – Jacques Barzun

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre.” – Gail Godwin

“Discover wildlife! Be a teacher!”- Unknown

“I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.” – William Shakespeare

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” – Voltaire

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” – Mark Van Doren

“If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.”- Guy Kawasaki

Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.” – Solomon Ortiz

“One good teacher in a lifetime may sometimes change a delinquent into a solid citizen.” – Philip Wylie

“Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care.” – Horace Mann

“Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world.” – Maria Montessori

“Not all superheroes wear capes, some have teaching degrees.” – Unknown

“I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.” – James Levine

“Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” – Confucius

“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” – John C. Dana

“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.”- Japanese Proverb

“Students don’t know how much you know until they know how much you care.” – John C. Maxwell

“Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students.”— Charles Kuralt

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.”- Joseph Addison

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”- John Dewy

Positive Quotes

“To teach is to learn twice.”- Joseph Joubert

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”- Benjamin Franklin

“The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet.”- Aristotle

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” ― C.S. Lewis

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” – Mark Twain

“Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.”- Edward Everett

“Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.” – Anatole France

“A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.”- D. Martin

“Cheers to all of the teachers who give out pencils every single day who know that they’ll never get them back.”- Unknown

“Don’t judge a teacher until you’ve walked a mile in her shoes.”- Unknown

“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.”- Lily Tomlin

“The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.” – Unknown

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” – Josef Albers

“I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.”- John Wooden

“Be a wonderful role model because you will be the window through which many children will see their future.”- Thomas Mckinnon

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”- Maya Angelou

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.”- Alexandra K. Trenfor

“Teachers appreciate being appreciated, for teacher appreciation is their highest award.”- William Prince

“If you can read this, thank a teacher.” – American proverb

“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” Cynthia Ozick

“Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.”- Andy Rooney

“A good criterion for measuring success in life is the number of people you have made happy.” – Robert Lumsden

“The teacher … must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work.”- Maria Montessori

“What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” – Alfred Mercier

“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.” – Michel Legrand

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”- Phil Collins

“To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator.”- Maria Montessori

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”- Margaret Mead

“Without teachers, life would have no class.”- Unknown

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” —Marcel Proust

“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”- GK Chesterton

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of becoming.”- Goethe

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.”- Sydney J. Harris

“A truly amazing teacher is hard to find, difficult to part with, and impossible to forget.”- Unknown

“A teacher nourishes the soul of a child for a lifetime.”- Unknown

“A truly special teacher is very wise and sees tomorrow in every child’s eyes.”- Unknown

meet the author
Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.