Teacher Quotes

A good teacher changes lives, often without realizing it until years later. These quotes honor educators — their patience, dedication, creativity, and the underappreciated truth that teaching is one of the most demanding and important professions there is.

“There are ways we can go do a better job of educating young moms and dads about the vital role they have as the child's first teacher. I think there are ways in which we can partner with local school districts and states to do a better job to provide nutrition options at school.”

Tom Vilsack

More Teacher Quotes

“I kind of fell backwards into acting. I was studying to be a high school teacher. I look now and I understand completely, or actually barely, how much work it is to be a teacher. It's an incredible amount of work.”

Nathan Fillion

“No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.”

William Osler

“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

“Ask everyone whether they're an actor or a doctor or a teacher or whatever is entitled to his or her opinion. But unfortunately, because actors are in the public eye, whether we want it or not, sometimes our opinions carry more weight or influence than they deserve.”

Debra Messing

“I was on Oprah's show recently talking about the people who impacted me the most. One was a teacher and one was my soccer coach. I didn't even go into my family, who had the most influence.”

Andrew Shue

“I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.”

Vin Diesel

“I could never have a better teacher in those days than my father.”

Tony Visconti

“I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.”

James Levine

“A little girl who finds a puzzle frustrating might ask her busy mother (or teacher) for help. The child gets one message if her mother expresses clear pleasure at the request and quite another if mommy responds with a curt 'Don't bother me - I've got important work to do.'”

Daniel Goleman

“A teacher affects eternity he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Henry Adams

“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

“My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life, but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar.”

Gus Van Sant

“I think once you're in the public eye, whether you're a boss, a teacher or whatever you do, that you're automatically in the position of role model. You have people looking up to you, so whether you choose to accept it or not is a different question.”

Talib Kweli

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

Brigitte Bardot

“I'd never been a teacher before, and here I was starting my first day with these eager students. There was a shortage of teachers, and they had been without a math teacher for six months. They were so excited to learn math.”

Andrew Shue

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