If ever I am an instructress, it will be to learn more than to teach.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
Benevolence alone will not make a teacher, nor will learning alone do it. The gift of teaching is a peculiar talent, and implies a need and a craving in the teacher himself.
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933) American Biographer, Poet, Essayist, Writer
In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection, otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called “truth.”
—Dan Rather (b.1931) American Newscaster, Author
I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
I am quite sure that in the hereafter she will take me by the hand and lead me to my proper seat.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace the day’s disasters in his morning face.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
There have been periods when the country heard with dismay that “the soldier was abroad.” That is not the case now. Let the soldier be abroad; in the present age he can do nothing. Let the soldier be abroad if he will, he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage,—a personage less imposing in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array, for upholding and extending the liberties of his country.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) Scottish Jurist, Politician
We love the precepts for the teacher’s sake.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.
—Benjamin Jowett (1817–93) British Theologian, Translator
Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers.
—Richard Bach (b.1936) American Novelist, Aviator
Be understood in thy teaching, and instruct to the measure of capacity.—Precepts and rules are repulsive to a child, but happy illustration wins him.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) English Poet, Writer
My object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make.
—Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) English Educationalist
To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Whatever you teach, be brief; what is quickly said the mind readily receives and faithfully retains, while everything superfluous runs over as from a full container. Who knows much says least.
—Common Proverb
The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The one exclusive sign of a thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
To teach well, we need not say all that we know, Successful teachers are effective in spite of the psychological theories they suffer under.
—Common Proverb
A good schoolmaster minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
There is no teaching to compare with example.
—Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857–1941) English Soldier, Founder of the Boy Scouts
Never offer to teach a fish to swim.
—Common Proverb
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
If you’re teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn’t do any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you can’t think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you’re rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.
The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I’ve thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while. It wouldn’t do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It’s not so easy to remind yourself of these things.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honourable, than that of teaching?
—Harriet Martineau (1802–76) English Sociologist, Economist, Essayist, Philosopher
Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It IS education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching. There are no uneducated people; only most people are educated wrong. The true task of culture today is not a task of expansion, but of selection-and rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Essayist, Drama Critic
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.
—Jacques Barzun (b.1907) French-born American Historian, Philosophers
I believe that the testing of the student’s achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.
—Carl Rogers (1902–1987) American Psychologist
A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it through a funnel, but induce him to think, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and so accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Unless we do his teachings, we do not demonstrate faith in him.
—Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) American Mormon Religious Leader
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
We learn by teaching.
—Common Proverb
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
—Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie (1837–1919) English Novelist, Biographer
I swear… to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
The fear of losing one’s job has kept education in America fifty years behind its possible improvement.
—Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) American Educationalist
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
You teach best what you most need to learn.
—Richard Bach (b.1936) American Novelist, Aviator
Your Master Teacher knows all you need to learn, the perfect timing for your learning it, and the ideal way of teaching it to you. You don’t create a Master Teacher—that’s already been done. You discover your Master Teacher.
—Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American Author, Activist
The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Of what unspeakable importance is her education who pre-occupies the unwritten page of being; who produces impressions which only death can obliterate, and mingles with the cradle-dream what shall be read in eternity!
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
The number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.
—Randy Pausch (1960–2008) American Computer Scientist
Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Teaching is the highest form of understanding.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
In teaching others we teach ourselves.
—Common Proverb