"I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria - when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers"
About this Quote
The subtext is political even when it’s not trying to be. Coming from a celebrity who became a governor, this is a quiet rebuttal to the idea that success is purely self-made grit. He’s building a bridge between his personal brand (discipline, ambition, the self as a project) and a communal investment (public education, competent professionals, the state doing its job). “Great teachers” is the key phrase: it shifts credit away from charisma and toward expertise. In a culture that loves lone heroes and distrusts credentialed authority, he’s sanctifying the people who shape you before you’re famous.
Context matters here, too. Schwarzenegger often speaks as an immigrant success story, and immigrants invoking education is rarely just nostalgia; it’s a claim about what the host country should protect if it wants its myths to stay true. The repetition reads less like eloquence than insistence, as if he’s trying to anchor a simple point against a noisy backdrop: you don’t get exceptional outcomes without ordinary, sustained institutions - and teachers are the front line.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teacher Appreciation |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Schwarzenegger, Arnold. (2026, January 17). I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria - when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-am-a-big-believer-in-education-because-when-i-29924/
Chicago Style
Schwarzenegger, Arnold. "I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria - when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-am-a-big-believer-in-education-because-when-i-29924/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria - when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-am-a-big-believer-in-education-because-when-i-29924/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.









