The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.
—Marva Collins (b.1936) American Educator
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
We love the precepts for the teacher’s sake.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
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
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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
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
Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
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
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
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
There is no teaching to compare with example.
—Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857–1941) English Soldier, Founder of the Boy Scouts
Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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
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
No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
Those who know how to think need no teachers.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
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
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
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
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
—Jacques Barzun (b.1907) French-born American Historian, Philosophers
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
There is no accountability in the public school system – except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.
—Ross Perot (1930–2019) American Businessman
Children should be led into the right paths, not by severity, but by persuasion.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
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
Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
—Chinese Proverb