23 teaching quotes to energize you this semester

The semester is well and truly underway; bringing highs (student light bulb moments, a surprisingly great class, supportive colleague network) and a few lows (jammed photocopiers, that unmotivated student, and too-little coffee). However you’re feeling at this point in the year, we’ve compiled a mini collection of quotes for teachers – some well-known, others a little funkier – to energize, entertain, and inspire.

“Our job is to teach the student we have. Not the ones we would like to have. Not the ones we used to have. Those we have right now. All of them.”

– Dr. Kevin Maxwell

“Teachers who love teaching teach children to love learning.”

– Anonymous

“They may forget what you said, but they will not forget how you made them feel.”

– Carl W B

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.”

– Thomas Carruthers

“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.”

– Japanese proverb

“Teacher? I prefer the term educational rockstar.”

– Anonymous

“Don’t struggle to be a better teacher than everybody else. Simply be a better teacher than you ever thought you could be.”

– Robert John Meehan

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”

– Phil Collins

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”

– Malala Yousafzai

“I’m not sayin’ I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will.”

– Tupac Shakur

“The only thing in your control is effort. That’s all and that’s everything.”

– Mark Cuban

“To teach is to learn twice over.”

-Joseph Joubert

“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.”

– Alan Cohen

“The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you learned this afternoon.”

– Anonymous

“Never discourage anyone…who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”

– Plato

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.”

– Gail Goldwin

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

– Einstein

“The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity.”

– Robert Brault

“There is no failure. Only feedback.”

– Robert Allen

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime; educate people.”

– Chinese proverb

“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.”

– Lily Tomlin

“He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”

– Richard Henry Dann