Teaching Quotes: Inspiring Words for Educators

"A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching"

"Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning how to learn"

Loris Malaguzzi, Teacher

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre"

Gail Godwin, Novelist

"The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others"

Solomon Ibn Gabriol, Poet

"Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition"

Jacques Barzun, Educator

"Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the "naturals," the ones who somehow know how to teach"

Peter Drucker, Businessman

"Then, there was Cary Grant. He spent three hours a week in hospitals teaching nervous people how to eat jello"

Red Buttons, Comedian

"A liberal education is at the heart of a civil society, and at the heart of a liberal education is the act of teaching"

A. Bartlett Giamatti, Educator

"Teaching is the royal road to learning"

Jessamyn West, Author

"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, Author

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense"

Edsger Dijkstra, Scientist

"Many students graduate from college and professional schools, including those of social work, nursing, medicine, teaching and law, with crushing debt burdens"

Jon Porter, Politician

"Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching"

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist

"It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well"

Henri Frederic Amiel, Philosopher

"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching"

Aristotle, Philosopher

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography"

Ambrose Bierce, Journalist

"The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher"

Elbert Hubbard, Writer

"Stand aside for a while and leave room for learning, observe carefully what children do, and then, if you have understood well, perhaps teaching will be different from before"

Loris Malaguzzi, Teacher

"Man is raw and wild, that is one of the reasons why he needs the Christian teaching"

Alfred A. Montapert, Philosopher

"It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn"

Eric Hoffer, Writer

"It is from the traditional family that we absorb those universal ideals and principles which are the teaching of Jesus, the bedrock of our religious faith. We are taught the difference between right and wrong, and about the law, just punishment and discipline"

Kamisese Mara, Statesman

"In the order I was in, each brother takes five vows, one of which is teaching the poor gratuitously. As a young person I was seized by this idea of social justice and I wanted very much to follow my vow of teaching the poor gratuitously"

Godfrey Reggio, Director

"Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women"

Margaret Mead, Scientist

"The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching"

Joseph Smith, Jr., Clergyman

"Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching"

Baltasar Gracian, Philosopher

"Teaching is not just a job, it is a calling. It takes a special kind of person to work with children who have special needs"

Mary MacCracken, Writer

"Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith"

Lord Acton, Historian

"The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead"

George Savile, Politician

"The only thing that mattered was what you were to do in life, and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching, or learning"

Maya Lin, Architect

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards"

Anatole France, Novelist

"I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching"

Twyla Tharp, Dancer

"I've traveled all over the country for years speaking in churches, teaching the Ten Commandments. It's amazing if 2 percent of any congregation knows the Ten Commandments"

Randall Terry, Celebrity

"I began teaching in New York because I needed to stay in the United States and didn't have my immigration papers in order, so working for a university was a way of resolving the issue"

Manuel Puig, Author

"We had two grand antique professors who had been teaching at Lombard since before I was born"

Carl Sandburg, Poet

"Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding"

Edsger Dijkstra, Scientist

"This rock thing got in the way of my teaching career"

Al Jourgensen, Musician

"But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That's what our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it's the same work, just different pieces of ourselves doing it"

Audre Lorde, Poet

"I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ"

Jimmy Carter, President

"Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants"

John W. Gardner, Educator

"At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching"

James Levine, Musician

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