Top 100 Teacher Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Be observing constantly. Stay open-minded. Be eager to learn and improve.”

— John Wooden

52. “No matter what your current ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”

— Carol S. Dweck

53. “Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.”

— Confucius

54. “The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.”

— John Locke

55. “A good teacher explains, while a great teacher inspires.”

— William Arthur Ward

56. “The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

57. “Do not try to excuse your faults; try to correct them.”

— John Bosco

58. “Teachers are reservoirs from which, through the process of education, students draw the water of life.”

— Sathya Sai Baba

59. “By giving our students practice in talking with others, we give them frames for thinking on their own.”

— Lev S. Vygotsky

60. “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.”

— Laozi

61. “Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, THAT is your teacher.”

— Ajahn Chah

62. “I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.”

— Alexander the Great

63. “You are all searching for the silence of the mountain. But you’re looking for something outside. This silence is accessible to you right now, inside the center of your own being.”

— Ramana Maharshi

64. “When teachers stop learning, so do students.”

— Jim Knight

65. “The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.”

— Socrates

66. “When one teaches, two learn.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

67. “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

— Jonathan Swift

68. “I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.”

— Robert Frost

69. “There are no mistakes in life, only lessons. There is no such thing as a negative experience, only opportunities to grow, learn and advance along the road of self-mastery. From struggle comes strength. Even pain can be a wonderful teacher.”

— Robin S. Sharma

70. “A teacher should have a creative mind.”

— Abdul Kalam

71. “If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.”

— Bill Gates

72. “I’m not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.”

— George Bernard Shaw

73. “Success is a poor teacher. We learn the most about ourselves when we fail, so don’t be afraid of failing. Failing is part of the process of success. You cannot have success without failure.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

74. “The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

75. “Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.”

— Zig Ziglar

76. “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

— Francis Bacon

77. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

— Mary Oliver

78. “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

— Benjamin Franklin

79. “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

— Denis Waitley

80. “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”

— George Bernard Shaw

81. “When you’re going through something hard and you start wondering where Allah is, just remember, the Teacher is always quiet during a test.”

— Nouman Ali Khan

82. “True 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 their own.”

— Nikos Kazantzakis

83. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”

— Margaret Fuller

84. “Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”

— Tony Robbins

85. “Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.”

— Daniel J. Boorstin

86. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

— Aristotle

87. “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”

— Aristotle

88. “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.”

— Vern Law

89. “High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.”

— Charles F. Kettering

90. “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 raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.”

— C.G. Jung

91. “The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.”

— Ram Dass

92. “If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”

— Les Brown

93. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

— Bill Gates

94. “If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.”

— Confucius

95. “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”

— Alfred Tennyson

96. “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.”

— Ann Landers

97. “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”

— Sigmund Freud

98. “This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we go.”

— Pema Chödrön

99. “There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease.”

— Maria Montessori

100. “If we lose the forests, we lose our only teachers.”

— Bill Mollison