For in the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.
—Baba Dioum (b.1937) Senegalese Environmentalist
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
The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
—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 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
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
—Jacques Barzun (b.1907) American Cultural Historian, Philosopher
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
Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
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, Academic
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
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
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
We learn by teaching.
—Common Proverb
The number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.
—Randy Pausch (1960–2008) American Computer Scientist
I am not willing that this discussion should close without mention of the value of a true teacher. Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him.
—James A. Garfield (1831–81) American Head of State, Lawyer, Educator
A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
—Thomas N. Carruthers (1900–60) American Christian Priest
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
To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
There is no teaching to compare with example.
—Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857–1941) English Soldier, Founder of the Boy Scouts
The method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation, is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than even their parents, for these only give them life, those the art of living well.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
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
You don’t have to be a “person of influence” to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they’ve taught me.
—Scott Adams (b.1957) American Cartoonist
Teaching is the highest form of understanding.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Teaching has ruined more American novelists than drink
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
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
Why are we never quite at ease in the presence of a schoolmaster? Because we are conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
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
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