We all have that one teacher who went above and beyond. They chose the best books, knew exactly how to explain things, and genuinely cared about their students’ lives. In short, they changed your life. Teaching is one of the most under-appreciated, yet meaningful, careers a person can choose. Every educator has the opportunity to make an impact, and it’s time we recognize their hard work with a list of the best teacher quotes.
Whether it’s kindergarten or a high-level collegiate course, teaching requires commitment and sacrifice. It’s taking work home, buying their own supplies, and worrying about their students long after the work day ends. These superstars deserve recognition every day of the year.
Here are the best teacher quotes to show just how much you appreciate the teachers in your life.
1. “A teacher affects eternity; he or she can never tell where their influence stops.” — Henry B. Adams
2. “Teachers are people who start things they never see finished, and for which they never get thanks until it is too late.” — Max Forman
3. “Teachers, who educate children, deserve more honor than parents, who merely gave them birth; for the latter provided mere life, while the former ensured a good life.” — Aristotle
4. “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” — Albert Einstein
5. “Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than giving of right answers.” — Josef Albers
6. “Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is.” — William Glasser
7. “Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.” — Haim Ginott
8. “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” — Colleen Wilcox
9. “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
10. “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” — John Steinbeck
11. “Education is much more than a matter of imparting the knowledge and skills by which narrow goals are achieved. It is also about opening the child’s eyes to the needs and rights of others.” — Dalai Lama
12. “When the untapped potential of a student meets the liberating art of a teacher, a miracle unfolds.” — Mary Hatwood Futrell
13. “Teaching is the essential profession, the one that makes all professions possible.” — David Haselkorn
14. “What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honorable, than that of teaching? — Harriet Martineau
15. “Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.” — Helen Caldicott
16. “To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching.” — George Bernard Shaw
17. “A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” — Thomas Carruthers
18. “Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.” — Aristotle
19. “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.” — Lee Lacocca
20. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” — William Arthur Ward
21. “A good teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others.” — Mustafa Kemel Atatürk
22. “The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” — Alexandra K. Trenfor
23. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” — William Butler Yates
24. “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids to work together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” — Bill Gates
25. “It’s the teacher that makes a difference, not the classroom.” — Michael Morpurgo
26. “Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” — Sidney Hook
27. “I touch the future. I teach.” — Christa McAuliffe
28. “If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.” — Guy Kawasaki
29. “To this end, the greatest asset of a school is the personality of the teacher.” — John Strachan
30. “Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.” — Joyce Meyer
Even the greatest minds in the world have been influenced by teachers. Celebrate the greatest educators in your life by sharing these teacher quotes any day of the year.
