Teacher Quotes

"Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know"

Vladimir Nabokov, Novelist

"To this end the greatest asset of a school is the personality of the teacher"

John Strachan, Clergyman

"I'm embarrassed every time I look a teacher in the eye, because we ask them to do so much for so little"

Phil McGraw, Psychologist

"Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task"

Haim Ginott, Teacher

"I've never considered myself a celebrity or even part of the entertainment business. I'm a cooking teacher"

Martin Yan, Celebrity

"When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books"

Norman MacCaig, Poet

"American teachers have one indisputable advantage over foreign ones; they understand the American temperament and can judge its unevenness, its lights and its shadows"

John Philip Sousa, Musician

"I have always believed that 98% of a student's progress is due to his own efforts, and 2% to his teacher"

John Philip Sousa, Musician

"The atmosphere at my school was very competitive. Young girls were competing with each other every day for status, for leadership, for the affection of the teachers. I hated it"

Zhang Ziyi, Actress

"No, I'm happy to go on living the life I've chosen. I'm a university teacher and I like my job"

Antonio Tabucchi, Writer

"Literature is my life of course, but from an ontological point of view. From an existential point of view, I like being a teacher"

Antonio Tabucchi, Writer

"I really enjoyed hanging out with some of the teachers. This one chemistry teacher, she liked hanging out. I liked making explosives. We would stay after school and blow things up"

Maya Lin, Architect

"Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers"

Simone Weil, Philosopher

"Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary"

Warren G. Bennis, Psychologist

"Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love"

Stevie Wonder, Musician

"Good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends"

Maria Callas, Musician

"When I was in nursery school, the teachers asked me, y'know, 'What does your dad do for a living?' So I said 'He helps women get pregnant!' They called my mom and they were like, 'What exactly does your husband do?'"

Natalie Portman, Actress

"That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends"

Maria Callas, Musician

"A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power"

Thomas Szasz, Psychologist

"A teacher is a person who never says anything once"

Howard Nemerov, Poet

"Why can't teachers end up owning schools, the way waiters can open their own restaurants?"

Peter Brimelow, Journalist

"Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses' interests, not the members"

Peter Brimelow, Journalist

"When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet"

Brian Ferneyhough, Composer

"Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students"

Charles Kuralt, Journalist

"My father was a writer and an acting teacher"

Noah Hathaway, Actor

"I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment"

James Levine, Musician

"South Koreans who have seen and praised the mass games should remember the hardship of tearful children. Teachers drive them hard with curses and orders to repeat and repeat. When the children return home in the evening, they can hardly walk"

Kim Il-sung, Leader

"He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was - I wouldn't say the "guru" - but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement"

Shimon Peres, Statesman

"Our educational results lag behind other states, and other nations, but worse still, behind the potential of the kids and the devoted teachers in our classrooms"

Mitch Daniels, Politician

"We have to provide good teachers, good environment, community involvement with schools"

David Selby, Actor

"We've heard from many teachers that they used episodes of Star Trek and concepts of Star Trek in their science classrooms in order to engage the students"

Patrick Stewart, Actor

"Nearly everyone I met, worked with, or read about was my teacher, one way or another"

Loretta Young, Actress

"When I had my first voice lesson I was 15 years old. And I had a really good teacher. This is what made all the difference. A good teacher will teach you the technique, but also how to listen to your voice"

Cecilia Bartoli, Musician

"When we become a really mature, grown-up, wise society, we will put teachers at the center of the community, where they belong. We don't honor them enough, we don't pay them enough"

Charles Kuralt, Journalist

"Vadim was both my teacher and my husband. I placed myself entirely in his hands"

Brigitte Bardot, Actress

"I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success"

Jack Welch, Businessman

"I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well"

Alexander the Great, Leader

"It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, with the possible exception of the teacher who backs him or the student who honors him"

Jean Rostand, Scientist

"I am not going to make any commitments to the teachers union to do anything until they do something that's other than in their own self- interest. And everything they have done so far is in their self-interests, and that's it"

Chris Christie, Politician

"I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way"

Neale Donald Walsch, Author

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