Quotes and Wisdom about Teaching: My Favorite Quotes on Teaching

    These days I have been reflective about my role as a teacher, perhaps because of what is going on around my workplace. I don't want to say anything for the sake of the people around my workplace but based on what I observed so far, I realized that teaching is NEVER just teaching the subject matter, using "brilliant" teaching methods or accomplishing school paperworks. I believe that teaching is MORE than these. I don't want to prolong this intro because I will be consuming a whole page if I will discuss this matter. :-) May I present to you some of my favorite quotes about teaching/education or being a teacher. These quotes are actually my guiding philosophies as to being a teacher. I really hope that whoever read these quotes will also be reminded that to be a teacher is more than just teaching.  The quotes are retrieved form Quote Garden and  50 Inspirational Teaching Quotes.

"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


"Learning is finding out what we already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers." -- Richard Bach


"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming." -- Goethe

"A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron." -- Horace Mann

"They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel." - Carol Buchner

"If a seed of a lettuce will not grow, we do not blame the lettuce. Instead, the fault lies with us for not having nourished the seed properly." - Buddhist proverb


"A very wise old teacher once said: "I consider a day's teaching wasted if we do not all have one hearty laugh." He meant that when people laugh together, they cease to be young and old, master and pupils, jailer and prisoners. They become a single group of human beings enjoying its existence." -- Gilbert Highet


"It is not what is poured into a student that counts but what is planted." -Linda Conway


"The greatest sign of a success for a teacher...is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist." -- Maria Montessori


"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child." -- Carl Jung


A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ~Thomas Carruthers

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.  ~Henry Brooks Adams


A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others.  ~Author Unknown


Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more.  ~Bob Talbert


The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.  ~William Arthur Ward


A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.  ~Author Unknown


What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.  ~Karl Menninger

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.  ~Author Unknown


Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.  ~John Cotton Dana


Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first.  The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.  When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.  ~Marva Collins