79 Teacher Appreciation Quotes That Say What We Often Forget To

Some people change your life without making a big deal about it. Teachers are like that.

They show up, they explain, they push a little, and somehow you end up better than before.

We don’t always stop to thank them the way they deserve. These teacher appreciation quotes are a small way to do that.

Teacher Appreciation Quotes

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” — Henry Adams

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” — William Arthur Ward

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” — Albert Einstein

“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.” — Carl Jung

“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

“The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth.” — Dan Rather

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” — Khalil Gibran

“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

“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” — William Butler Yeats

“The great teacher is not the man who supplies the most facts, but the one in whose presence we become different people.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.” — Brad Henry

“Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual.” — Abdul Kalam

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” — Mark Van Doren

“To teach is to learn twice.” — Joseph Joubert

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.” — C.S. Lewis

“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

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” — Maria Montessori

“Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” — Colleen Wilcox

“He who opens a school door closes a prison.” — Victor Hugo

“When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” — Maya Angelou

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” — Alexander the Great

“The best teacher in the world is someone who loves what he or she does, and just loves it in front of you.” — Fred Rogers

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

“Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.” — Marian Wright Edelman

“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” — John Cotton Dana

“Teachers are to inspire; librarians are to fulfill.” — Ray Bradbury

“What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.” — Karl Menninger

“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” — Sidney Hook

“Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.” — Andy Rooney

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” — Alexandra K. Trenfor

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” — Margaret Fuller

“When one teaches, two learn.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.” — Joyce Meyer

“A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils.” — Ever Garrison

“It’s the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom.” — Michael Morpurgo

“Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change.” — William Arthur Ward

“The teacher must be an actor, an artist, passionately in love with his work.” — Anton Chekhov

“A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils.” — Bill Bowerman

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” — Rachel Carson

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” — Josef Albers

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” — John Dewey

“Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.” — Bob Talbert

“Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.” — Anatole France

“The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate apparently ordinary people to unusual effort.” — K. Patricia Cross

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” — Voltaire

“The influence of a good teacher can never be erased.” — Unknown

“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” — Japanese Proverb

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” — Frederick Douglass

“In teaching others we teach ourselves.” — Proverb

“A good teacher, like a good entertainer, first must hold his audience’s attention, then he can teach his lesson.” — John Henrik Clarke

“Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults.” — Abraham Lincoln

“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.” — Amos Bronson Alcott

“Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.” — Solomon Ortiz

“A good teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others.” — Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” — Malala Yousafzai

“If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society’s heroes.” — Guy Kawasaki

“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” — Robert Frost

“They inspire you, they entertain you, and you end up learning a ton even when you don’t know it.” — Nicholas Sparks

“A truly special teacher is very wise, and sees tomorrow in every child’s eyes.” — Unknown

“A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, and touches a heart.” — Unknown

“Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon.” — Ann Lieberman

“Teaching is the essential profession, the one that makes all other professions possible.” — David Haselkorn

“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

“Every child deserves a champion—an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” — Rita Pierson

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” — Chinese Proverb

“The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.” — Dorothea Dix

“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” — Chinese Proverb

“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — John C. Maxwell

“A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.” — Darwin D. Martin

“Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life.” — Frederick W. Robertson

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” — Jacques Barzun

“Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet found substitutes or any surrogate.” — George Steiner

“The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds.” — Frederick William Robertson

“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” — Aristotle

“Your heart is slightly larger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher.” — Aaron Bacall

“Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students.” — Charles Kuralt

“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” — Robert Maynard Hutchins