The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.

You can't teach a hunter it's wrong to kill.

A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.

The schoolmaster is abroad! And I trust to him armed with his primer against the soldier in full military array.

There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech.

Housework is a breeze. Cooking is a pleasant diversion. Putting up a retaining wall is a lark. But teaching is like climbing a mountain.

Arrogance, pedantry, and dogmatism... the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the intellects of the young.

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.

First he wrought, and afterward he taught.

A wisely chosen illustration is almost essential to fasten the truth upon the ordinary mind, and no teacher can afford to neglect this part of his preparation.

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.

There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough -- the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not.

Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.

The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

Those who go to college and never get out are called professors.

The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where only one grew before.

To teach is to learn twice.

Why are we never quite at ease in the presence of a schoolmaster? Because we are conscious that he is not quite at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.

The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active, influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity and of absolute respect for the phenomenon which she wishes to observe. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

In teaching others we teach ourselves.

We must view young people not as empty bottles to be filled, but as candles to be lit.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

When teaching, light a fire, don't fill a bucket.

The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you just learned this morning.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.