“Teachers affect eternity: they can never tell where their influence stops.” – Henry Adams.
Children carry what they learned in their most impressionable years onward, into the rest of their lives. And they use what they’ve learned to shape their own futures – and those of everyone they meet. So, arguably, teachers have the most important job in the world, with the power not only to change lives in the present, but in the future.
With that in mind, we’ve put together over 80 quotes as a tribute to teachers everywhere, categorized as follows:
- Our top ten teacher quotes
- Inspirational teacher quotes
- Funny teacher quotes
- Teacher appreciation quotes
- Thank you teacher quotes
- Quotes from famous fictional teachers
Top ten teacher quotes
- “Teachers affect eternity: they can never tell where their influence stops.” – Henry Adams
- “Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire.” – B. Yeats
- “The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” – Alexandra K. Trenfor
- “I touch the future. I teach.” – Christa McAuliffe
- “My teacher thought I was smarter than I was – so I was.”- Six-Year-Old Child
- “Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them to count is best.” – Bob Talbert
- “Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” – Japanese Proverb
- “I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” – Alexander the Great
- “When one teaches, two learn.” – Robert Heinlein
- “One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai, Activist
Inspirational teacher quotes
“Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire.” – B. Yeats
- “The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” – Alexandra K. Trenfor
- “I touch the future. I teach.” – Christa McAuliffe
- “My teacher thought I was smarter than I was – so I was.”- Six-Year-Old Child
- “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William A. Ward
- “Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” – Confucius
- “A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge and wisdom in the pupils.” – Ever Garrison
- “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs, pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth’.” – Dan Rather
- “Be a wonderful role model because you will be the window through which many children will see their future.” – Thomas Mckinnon
- “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
- “The best education is not given to students; it is drawn out of them.” – Gerald Belcher
- “A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” – Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
- “Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” – Josef Albers
- “In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.” – Jacques Barzun
- “The great teacher is not the one who supplies the most facts, but the one in whose presence we become different people.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.” – Karl Menninger
- “The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate ‘apparently ordinary’ people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people.” – K. Patricia Cross
- “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” – Khalil Gibran
- “A gifted teacher is not only prepared to meet the needs of today’s child, but is also prepared to foresee the hopes and dreams in every child’s future.” – Robert John Meehan.
- “Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.” – Nikos Kazantzakis
- “Teaching is leaving a vestige of oneself in the development of another. And surely the student is a bank where you can deposit your most precious treasures.” – Eugene P. Bertin
- “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” – Colleen Wilcox
- A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” – Thomas Carruthers
- “The teacher’s task is to initiate the learning process and then get out of the way.” – John Warren
- “The best teachers are the ones that change their minds.” – Terry Heick
Funny teacher quotes
“Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them to count is best.” – Bob Talbert
- “Teaching seems to require the sort of skills one would need to pilot a bus full of live chickens backwards, with no brakes, down a rocky road through the Andes while simultaneously providing colorful and informative commentary on the scenery.” – Franklin Habit
- “There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fills you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod and you jump to the skies.” – Robert Frost.
- “A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.” – D. Martin
- “Teachers are the only professionals who have to respond to bells every forty-five minutes and come out fighting.” – Frank McCourt
- “Educators are the only people who lose sleep over other people’s children.” – Nicholas A. Ferroni
- A very wise old teacher once said: I consider a day’s teaching wasted if we do not all have one hearty laugh.” – Gilbert Highet
- “I can’t believe I just saw my teacher at the grocery store! I thought she lived in her classroom!” – Heidi McDonald
- “Not all super heros wear capes, some have teaching degrees.” – Unknown
- “Summer: The time of the year when parents realize just how grossly underpaid teachers actually are.” – Unknown
- “Teaching: the only profession where you steal things from home and bring them to work.” – Unknown
- “I had another wild night last night. I finished grading papers at 11:00 p.m. So I stayed up and partied until 11:02 p.m.” – Heidi McDonald
- “When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it’s our job to share our calm, not to join their chaos.” – L.R. Knost
Teacher appreciation quotes
“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” – Japanese Proverb
- “When one teaches, two learn.” – Robert Heinlein
- “A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry Adams
- “One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai, Activist
- “Your heart is slightly larger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher.” – Aaron Bacall
- “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
- “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.” – Aristotle
- “Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.” – Scott Hayden
- “Teachers can change lives with the right mix of chalk and challenges.” – Joyce Meyer
- “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.” – Barack Obama.
- “Teaching is the essential profession, the one that makes all professions possible.” – David Haselkorn
- “Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” – Jacques Barzun
- “The best thing about being a teacher is that it matters. The hardest thing about being a teacher is that it matters every day.” – Todd Whitaker
- “They may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” – Unknown
- “Teaching is the highest form of understanding.” – Aristotle
- “When the untapped potential of a student meets the liberating art of a teacher, a miracle unfolds.” – Mary Hatwood Futrell
- “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.” – Carl Jung
- “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” – Harry S. Truman
- “I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.” – Lily Tomlin.
- “The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where only one existed before.” – Elbert Hubbard.
- “Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.” – Andy Rooney
- “They inspire you, they entertain you, and you end up learning a ton even when you don’t know it.” – Nicholas Sparks.
- 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.” – Pat Conroy.
- “Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.” – Haim G. Ginott
- “Teachers don’t impact for a year, but for a lifetime.” – Anonymous
- “Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.” – Helen Caldicott
- “If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother, and the teacher.” – Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
Thank you teacher quotes
“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” – Alexander the Great
- “There was a math teacher, Fred Wright, who asked me to push a little bit harder. And Ann Stephens taught English and also drama—and I got to be the star of the play. There’s no way there’d be a Microsoft without them doing what they did.” – Bill Gates
- “She was so bloody cool. So engaging. She really made us care and we knew she cared about us.” – Adele describes her English teacher
- “Because of [my 4th Grade teacher], I felt I could take on the world. She did exactly what teachers are supposed to do, they create a spark for learning that lives with you from then on. It’s why I have a talk show today” – Oprah
- “My English teacher, Mrs. Bodey, was instrumental in the educational journey that carried me through school and into my career. Until her class, I hadn’t believed in my ability as a writer. She recognized my potential and showed me that I could write with creativity, with clarity, with passion.” – John Legend
- “When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her. The action was so graceful and inclusively benign.” – Maya Angelou on her teacher Bertha Flowers
- “My own journey began with a great English teacher. She revealed to me the power of literature and recognised my need to live in that world of imagination and poetry. She alone was the person who encouraged me to be an actor. When I met her some years ago, I thanked her and she said: I was just doing my job.” – Dame Helen Mirren
- “At the age of 14, I was inspired by my teacher Dikran Tahta to do mathematics, more mathematics, and physics.” – Stephen Hawking
- “It was Mr. Lang, my teacher, who loved physics, who got me excited about airplanes, mechanisms, and electronics.” – Bill Nye Science Guy
- “To me, there is nothing more exciting, fulfilling, and wonderful than watching a kid finally grasp a concept, then take the information and use it in the real world. Teachers make this happen. Teachers motivate. Teachers synthesize information to help students understand. Teachers listen, coach, and mentor. Teachers matter.” – George Lucas
- “You did more than prepare me academically, you prepared me for life. Thank you for all of the lessons you’ve taught me. I will remember them and you forever. Thank you, teacher.”- Unknown
- “You expected me to succeed, and this motivated me to keep trying until I did. You set the bar high, and I learned more than I thought I could. You taught me that I am smarter than I thought and that failure is okay as long as I pick myself up and try again. Thank you for believing in me.” – Unknown
- “Under your guidance, I’ve not only become a better student, but also a better child, sibling and a friend. Thank you for helping me grow.” – Unknown
Quotes from Fictional Teachers
“No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do.” – Mr. Miyagi
- I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.” – John Keating, Dead Poets society
- “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.” – Yoda
- “To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.” – Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- “Be careful. Everything you say, every single day, may be recorded in your students’ hearts forever.” – LouAnne Johnson Dangerous minds
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Liz Hurley has 30+ years of high school teaching experience and is one of our senior writers here at Learnopoly.