"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."
Henry Brooks Adams

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

“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influences... “
--Amos Alcott

“Education is understanding relationships."
George Washington Carver

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Albert Einstein

“To stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, herein lies the first task of the teacher.”
Maria Montessori

“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."
Robert Maynard Hutchins

"Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth."
Helen Caldicott, author and peace activist

"The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth."
Dan Rather

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

“Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you will do best.”
Marva Collins

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. "
Gail Godwin

"If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others "
Tryon Edwards

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

"When a teacher calls a boy by his entire name, it means trouble."
Mark Twain

"Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of man...."
Horace Mann

"A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations."
Patricia Neal

"The mediocre teacher tells.” “Being able to help someone learn something is a talent.”
Margaret Riel

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.”
Mortimer Adler

“Education's responsibility is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”
Malcolm Forbes

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

"Compassionate teachers fill a void left by working parents who aren't able to devote enough attention to their children. Teachers don't just teach; they can be vital personalities who help young people to mature, to understand the world and to understand themselves. A good education consists of much more than useful facts and marketable skills."
Charles Platt

"The future of the world is in my classroom today, a future with the potential for good or bad... Several future presidents are learning from me today; so are the great writers of the next decades, and so are all the so-called ordinary people who will make the decisions in a democracy. I must never forget these same young people could be the thieves and murderers of the future. Only a teacher? Thank God I have a calling to the greatest profession of all! I must be vigilant every day, lest I lose one fragile opportunity to improve tomorrow."
Ivan Welton Fitzwater

“Knowing it and applying it are two different things.” Ignorance doesn't kill you, but it makes you sweat a lot.”
Haitian proverb

“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.”
Mary McLeod Bethune

“I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for ones self.”
George Washington Carver

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Derek Bok, President, Harvard University

“I touch the future. I teach.”
Christa McAuliffe

“The greatest discoveries all start with the question "WHY?"
Dr. Robert D. Ballard

“I see the mind of the five-year-old as a volcano with two vents: destructiveness and creativeness.”
Sylvia Ashton-Warner

“Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.”
Cardinal Wolsey

"There's no word in the language I revere more than 'teacher.' My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I've honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher."
Pat Conroy, Prince of Tides

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
William Arthur Ward

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery."
Mark Van Doren

"If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years, plant a tree. If for a hundred years, teach the people. When you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest. When you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests."
Kuan Chung

"There is an old saying that the course of civilization is a race between catastrophe and education. In a democracy such as ours, we must make sure that education wins the race."
John F. Kennedy

"Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."
Japanese proverb

"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

"Information is the currency of democracy."
Ralph Nader

"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."
Thomas Jefferson

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young."
Henry Ford

"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."
Carl Jung

"Education is light, lack of it darkness."
Russian proverb

"Whoever first coined the phrase 'you're the wind beneath my wings' most assuredly was reflecting on the sublime influence of a very special teacher."
Frank Trujillo

"In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less."
Lee Iacocca

"Be all that you can be. Find your future--as a teacher."
Madeline Fuchs Holzer