Knowledge exists to be imparted.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
—Jacques Barzun (b.1907) French-born American Historian, Philosophers
The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.
—Marva Collins (b.1936) American Educator
The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
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
I cannot think but that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as the Happiness of Duty.
—John Lubbock (1834–1913) English Politician, Biologist
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
Teaching isn’t one-tenth as effective as training.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
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
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
An educator should think of a child as a garderner thinks of a plant, as something to be made to grow by having the right soil and the right kind amount of water. If your roses fail to bloom, it does not occur to you to whip them, but you should try to find out what has been amiss in your treatment of them… The important thing is what the children do, and not what they do not do. And what they do, if it is to have value, must be a spontaneous expression of their own vital energy.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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
A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.
—Patricia Neal (1926–2010) American Stage, Movie Actress
I am sure it is one’s duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one’s own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.
—A. C. Benson (1862–1925) English Essayist, Poet, Author
A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Never offer to teach a fish to swim.
—Common Proverb
We learn by teaching.
—Common Proverb
Instruction in things moral is most necessary to the making of the highest type of citizenship.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
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
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
Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change.Learning is more than absorbing facts, it is acquiring understanding.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
During the Middle Ages Europe was far too much influenced by celibate men. Today much too big a part in public life is played by celibate women, and too little by mothers. I find no new ideas more genuinely disgusting than that held by many educated authorities that a woman ceases to be suitable as a teacher when she becomes a mother.
—J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) British Biologist, Geneticist
A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
—Thomas N. Carruthers
To believe in a child is to believe in the future. Through their aspirations they will save the world. With their combined knowledge the turbulent seas of hate and injustice will be calmed. They will champion the causes of life’s underdogs, forging a society without class discrimination. They will supply humanity with music and beauty as it has never known. They will endure. Towards these ends I pledge my life’s work. I will supply the children with tools and knowledge to overcome the obstacles. I will pass on the wisdom of my years and temper it with patience. I shall impact in each child the desire to fulfill his or her dream. I shall teach.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American Novelist
In teaching others we teach ourselves.
—Common Proverb
Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the “naturals,” the ones who somehow know how to teach.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
The one exclusive sign of a thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Unless we do his teachings, we do not demonstrate faith in him.
—Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) American Mormon Religious Leader
There is no teaching to compare with example.
—Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857–1941) English Soldier, Founder of the Boy Scouts
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.
—John Lubbock (1834–1913) English Politician, Biologist
Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when the students become teachers.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
—Gail Godwin (b.1937) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
We love the precepts for the teacher’s sake.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
A gifted teacher is as rare as a gifted doctor, and makes far less money.
—Unknown
We think of our efficient teachers with a sense of recognition, but those who touched our humanity we remember with gratitude. Learning is the essential mineral, but warmth is the life-element for the child’s soul, no less than for the growing plant.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
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 first duty of a lecturer is to hand you after an hour’s discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece forever.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
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
Let our teaching be full of ideas. Hitherto it has been stuffed only with facts.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
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
To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Those who know how to think need no teachers.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
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