100 Best Quotes About Education & Teachers

Looking for affirming, uplifting, or funny quotes to share with your students? Quotes about education can be used for a number of purposes, from classroom decoration, to thought-provoking discussion prompts. Below you can find 100 quotes about education, including those by famous scientists, authors, artists, activists, and world leaders. These teacher quotes are sorted into 10 categories. These include inspiring quotes, quotes about curiosity, quotes for special education, early childhood education quotes, high school education quotes. Additionally, we serve up art education quotes, literary quotes, STEM quotes, funny quotes, and thought-provoking quotes.

Inspiring Education Quotes/Teacher Quotes 

1) Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X (American human rights activist)

2) Change is the end result of all true learning. –Leo Buscaglia (American author and speaker)

3) When girls become educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous. -Michelle Obama (American attorney and author, and former First Lady of the U.S.)

4) The ability to read, write, and analyze; the confidence to stand up and demand justice and equality; the qualifications and connections to get your foot in that door and take your seat at that table—all of that starts with education. -Michelle Obama (American attorney and author, and former First Lady of the U.S.)

5) Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. –Marian Wright Edelman (former president of Children’s Defense Fund)

6) They cannot stop me. I will get my education if it is in the home, school, or any place. –Malala Yousafzai (Pakistani education activist)

7) Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. -George Washington Carver (American agricultural scientist and inventor)

8) Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. -Nelson Mandela (former president of South Africa)

9) Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. -John Dewey (American philosopher)

10) I never learned from a man who agreed with me. –Robert A Heinlein (American science fiction writer and engineer)

Education quotes about curiosity/ Teacher Quotes 

11) It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer. -Albert Einstein (German-born theoretical physicist)

12) Be curious, not judgmental. –Walt Whitman (American poet)

13) I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity. -Eleanor Roosevelt (former First Lady of the U.S.)

14) Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire. -W.B. Yeats (Irish poet)

15) Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. –Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi botanist and author)

16) The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. –Dorothy Parker (American poet and writer)

17) Education is supposed to juice your curiosity, not diminish or sate it. -Walter Isaacson (American author and journalist)

18) Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. -Franz Kafka (German-language writer)

19) Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on the forehead. –Susan Sontag (American writer and critic)

20) The secret to success is an absolute ungovernable curiosity. -Larry King (American author)

Special Education Quotes/Special Education Teacher Quotes 

21)The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you. –B.B. King (American blues musician)

22) A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers. -Helen Keller (American writer and disability rights activist)

23) That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (American essayist)

24) Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind. -Mahatma Gandhi (Indian activist and leader)

25) Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. –Robert Frost (American poet)

26) “What did you learn?” is always the first and best question. -Oprah Winfrey (American television host and producer)

27) With every mistake, we must surely be learning. -George Harrison (British musician)

28) A good teacher must be able to put himself in the place of those who find learning hard. -Eliphas Levi (French poet and writer)

29) Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, ‘I’m possible.’ -Audrey Hepburn (British actress)

30) Every student can learn, just not on the same day or in the same way. -George Evans (American educator and cartoonist)

Early Childhood Education Quotes/ Teacher Quotes 

31) To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul. -Muriel Spark (Scottish writer)

32) The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. -Dr. Seuss (American writer and cartoonist)

33) Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. -Barack Obama (former U.S. president)

34) Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin (British science writer)

35) When you learn, teach. When you get, give. –Maya Angelou (American poet and civil rights activist)

36) Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. – Maya Angelou (American poet and civil rights activist)

37) Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. -Ernest Dimnet (French priest and writer)

38) Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. –Margaret Mead (American anthropologist)

39) The more risks you allow your children to take, the better they learn to look after themselves. –Roald Dahl (British children’s author)

40) Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world. –Lois Lowry (American writer)

High School Education Quotes/ Teacher Quotes 

41) Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. -Abigail Adams (former First Lady of the U.S.)

42) Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. -Babe Ruth (American baseball player)

43) Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. –Auguste Rodin (French sculptor)

44) Education is everything—education is your power; education is your way in life for whatever you want to do. -Ciara (American musician)

45) Being a student is easy. Learning requires actual work. -William Crawford (American politician and judge)

46) Education must not simply teach work; it must teach life. –W.E.B. Du Bois (American sociologist)

47) I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday. –Misty Copeland (first African American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre)

48) Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. -Eleanor Roosevelt (former First Lady of the U.S.)

49) I have come to believe over time that what is most important must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. -Audre Lorde (American writer and activist)

50) How wonderful that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank (German diarist)

Music, Dance, and Visual Art Education Quotes

51) I am still learning. -Michelangelo (Italian sculptor and painter)

52) I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. –Pablo Picasso (Spanish painter)

53) Learn by practice. -Martha Graham (American modern dancer and choreographer)

54) Music changes, and I’m gonna change right along with it. -Aretha Franklin

55) I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for. –Georgia O’Keeffe (American painter)

56) Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there. -Miles Davis (jazz music legend)

57) If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. -Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch painter)

58) If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting. -David Bowie (British musician)

59) Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in. –Leonardo da Vinci (Italian painter and scientist)

60) Because my musical training has been limited, I’ve never been restricted to what technical musicians might call a song. -Neil Diamond (American musician)

Literary Education Quotes/Teacher Quotes 

61) Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything. -George Carlin (American social critic and comedian)

62) The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. -Voltaire (French Enlightenment writer)

63) It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, not from our own time—for we are bound by that—but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time. –T.S. Eliot (American poet)

64) The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. –Jhumpa Lahiri (British-American author)

65) Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions. -Jane Austen (British novelist)

66) Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences. –Sylvia Plath (American poet and novelist)

67) The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, read, read, read. -Ernest Gaines (American author)

68) As for ‘Write what you know,’ I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I wrote about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, and the Napa Valley in 22002. (Continued) I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. -Ursula K. Le Guin (American author)

69) If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word. –Margaret Atwood (Canadian author)

70) If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. –Toni Morrison (American author)

STEM Education Quotes/ STEM Teacher Quotes 

71) You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way. –Marvin Minsky (American computer scientist)

72) I became an astronomer because I could not imagine living on Earth and not trying to understand how the universe works. –Vera Rubin (American astronomer)

73) Any fool can know. The point is to understand. -Albert Einstein (German-born theoretical physicist)

74) Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. -Albert Einstein (German-born theoretical physicist)

75) Learning is synthesizing seemingly divergent ideas and data. -Terry Heick (American educator and poet)

Quotes Continued

76) Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. –Stephen Hawking (British theoretical physicist)

77) An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only great curiosity but great fulfillment. –David Attenborough (British broadcaster, biologist, and natural historian)

78) Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t. -Bill Nye (American science television presenter)

79) Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us. -Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi botanist and author)

80) Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less. –Marie Curie (Polish-French physicist and chemist) 

Funny or Clever Education Quotes/ Teacher Quotes 

81) Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. -Henry Ford (American motor engineer)

82) Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. -Zig Ziglar (American author and motivational speaker)

83) Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough. -Alain de Botton (British author and public speaker)

84) Education is a continual process. It’s like a bicycle…if you don’t pedal, you don’t go forward. -George Weah (Liberian politician and footballer)

85) You can never be overdressed or overeducated. –Oscar Wilde (Irish poet and playwright)

Quotes Continued

86) You’re lucky. When I went to school, my teachers discouraged every dream I ever had…remember, a ‘no’ is free. Ask for the world and pay no mind if you are initially turned down. A career in the arts is like a hitchhiking trip: All you need is one person to say ‘Get in’ and off you go. -John Waters (American filmmaker, writer, actor, and producer)

87) There’s more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island. -Walt Disney (American animator and film producer)

88) The road to success is always under construction. -Lily Tomlin (American actress and comedian)

89) If you think your teachers are tough, wait ‘til you get a boss. -Bill Gates (American businessman)

90) Education can get you the only thing that matters in today’s world: an assigned parking space. -Gene Perret (American comedy writer)

Thought-Provoking Education Quotes/Teacher Quotes 

91) Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -Mahatma Gandhi (Indian activist and leader)

92) Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. -G.K. Chesterton (British author and philosopher)

93) By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is the noblest; Second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. –Confucius (Chinese philosopher)

94) Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. -Arthur Ashe (American tennis player)

95) I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma. -Eartha Kitt (American singer and actress)

Quotes Continued

96) He who opens a school door, closes a prison. –Victor Hugo (French poet, novelist, and dramatist)

97) The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King Jr. (American minister and civil rights activist)

98) Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. –Socrates (Greek philosopher)

99) The first half of my life I went to school, the second half of my life I got an education. -Mark Twain (American writer)

100) The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -Eleanor Roosevelt (former First Lady of the U.S.)

Additional Resources 

Lastly, we hope that you’ve found some quotes in this mix that can serve as inspiration for you and your students. For more classroom resources, check out the following articles:

• 124 Good Icebreaker Questions for Students/Adults (perfect for first day of school planning)
• 102 Last Day of School Activities (and last day planning, of course)
• 60 Team Building Activities for Middle & High School Students 
• 141 Fun, Weird, & Interesting Facts (trivia, anyone?)
• 150 Journal Prompts for Kids, Middle School, & High School Students (useful topics for any age, any time of year)
• 60 Best Short Stories for High School Students 
• 60 Easy Science Experiments for Kids