Last updated: 03/6/15
Learning is fundamental. Where would you be without all of the great teachers who spent time helping you learn about yourself and the world?
Here we have 50 of the greatest quotes about teachers, learning, and education. All of these quotes were hand picked by the social media team at Donor’s Choose, and shared with their followers over the past four years. If you like great quotes and great causes, consider following their Facebook page.
To see how you can help out teachers and students in your area, check out donorschoose.org.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.George Bernard Shaw
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre.Gail Goldwin
A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils.Ever Garrison
Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education…to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher.John Adams
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.Socrates
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
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.Joseph Addison
Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.Confucius
Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults.Abraham Lincoln
Every child deserves a champion – an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.Rita Pierson
If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.Jim Rohn
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.Benjamin Franklin
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.William A. Ward
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.John Dewey
A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.Anonymous
Education is not filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.William Butler Yeats
The best way to predict your future is to create it.Abraham Lincoln
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.Martin Luther King, Jr.
Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.Margaret Mead
Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts, it is acquiring understanding.William Arthur Ward
The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.Jean Piaget
See our Thank You Quotes for Teachers →
Friendship is a horizon – which expands whenever we approach it.E.R. Hazlip
The secret in education lies in respecting the student.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.B.F. Skinner
There is no friends as loyal as a book.Ernest Hemingway
Do you know the secret of the true scholar? In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him; and in that I am his pupil.Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you learn, teach. When you get, give.Maya Angelou
I am not a teacher, but an awakener.Robert Frost
Don’t just teach your kids to read, teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything!George Carlin
A child mis-educated is a child lost.John F. Kennedy
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.Mahatma Gandhi
What we learn with pleasure we never forget.Alfred Mercier
The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.B.B. King
Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacherJapanese Proverb
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.Albert Einstein
The hardest thing to teach is how to care.Unknown
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.Nelson Mandela
Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever.Walt Disney
Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.Mary Lou Retton
Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.Veronica A. Shoffstall
The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.Dr. Seuss
You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.Clay P. Bedford
Around here, we don’t look backwards for very long… We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.Walt Disney
Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.Chinese Proverb
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin
Once you have learned to ask questions – relevant and appropriate and substantial questions – you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship.Aeschylus
