87 Inspiring Teachers Learning Quotes

In an educational environment that always changes, one thing is constant: great teachers and tutors never stop learning. Our journey is a continuous growth and discovery of new things. And to do our best we need to be flexible and quickly adapt to changes.

In today’s article, I decided to collect all my favorite teachers’ learning quotes. Each of them was said by a great person at different times. But they are as relevant as decades and centuries ago.

Moreover, they constantly remind me of the importance of staying curious and open to new ideas. As well as the profound impact we have on people’s lives and even generations.

I have divided the quotes into different areas we as teachers need to embrace and be skillful at. I hope you will enjoy it and get inspired.

Continuous Learning

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” - Brian Herbert

“I am still learning.” - Michelangelo (at age 87)

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” - Clay P. Bedford

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” - Henry Ford

Growth Mindset

“The expert in anything was once a beginner.” - Helen Hayes

“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” - Albert Einstein

“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” - B.B. King

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr. Seuss

Adapting to Change

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler

“Change is the end result of all true learning.” - Leo Buscaglia

“Learning never exhausts the mind.” - Leonardo da Vinci

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” - Carl Rogers

Accepting Mistakes

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” - Albert Einstein

“The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake - you can't learn anything from being perfect.” - Adam Osborne

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” - Thomas A. Edison

“Failure is success if we learn from it.” - Malcolm Forbes

Empowering Students

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

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” - Benjamin Franklin

“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.

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

Collaboration and Teamwork

“Alone we are smart. Together we are brilliant.” - Steven Anderson

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

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” - Ken Blanchard

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” - African Proverb

Passion for Teaching

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

“What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” - Alfred Mercier

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

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

Continuous Improvement

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.” - Abigail Adams

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” - Brian Herbert

“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.” - Michel Legrand

Technology and Learning

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” - Bill Gates

“We need to bring learning to people instead of people to learning.” - Elliot Masie

“The real power of interactive technologies is that they let us learn in ways that aren't otherwise possible or practical.” - David Lassner

“The world is changing so rapidly that it's not just about learning anymore, it's about learning how to learn.” - Amin Toufani

Humor in Learning

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain

“The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate.” - Doug Larson

“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” - Franklin P. Jones

“I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like 'What I'm Going to Be if I Grow Up.” - Lenny Bruce

Reflection and Self-Improvement

“We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.” - John Dewey

“The highest form of learning is to learn from your own experiences. The second highest form of learning is to learn from other people's experiences.” - Desmond Tutu

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” - Confucius

“It's what we think we know that keeps us from learning.” - Claude Bernard

Creativity in Education

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” - Albert Einstein

“The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.” - Jean Piaget

“Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” - Sir Ken Robinson

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein

Diversity and Inclusion in Learning

“Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.” - Malcolm Forbes

“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.

“In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” - Maya Angelou

“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” - Stephen Covey

The Role of Curiosity

“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” - Albert Einstein

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” - Albert Einstein

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” - William Arthur Ward

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” - Dorothy Parker

Overcoming Challenges in Learning

“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” - Molière

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” - Joshua J. Marine

“The biggest challenge in teaching is to make the difficult easy, and the easy interesting.” - Anonymous

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” - Michael John Bobak

The Power of Questions

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” - Voltaire

“The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.” - Thomas Berger

“Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.” - Robert Half

“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.” - Chinese Proverb

Building Relationships in Education

“Kids don't learn from people they don't like.” - Rita Pierson

“The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.” - Simone Weil

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

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

The Joy of Discovery

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” - Albert Szent-Györgyi

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” - Oprah Winfrey

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

Adapting Teaching Methods

“If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” - Ignacio Estrada

“The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you learned this afternoon.” - Anonymous

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre.” - Gail Godwin

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

The Impact of Mentorship

“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” - Steven Spielberg

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” - Oprah Winfrey

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” - John C. Crosby

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” - Plutarch

Embracing Failure

“Failure is success in progress.” - Albert Einstein

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” - Henry Ford

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston S. Churchill

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” - Thomas A. Edison

The Importance of Listening

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” - Stephen Covey

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” - Bryant H. McGill

“The art of conversation lies in listening.” - Malcolm Forbes

I let these quotes be your source of inspiration too. Maybe even a call to action and a reminder of the impact we have as teachers and tutors.

As William Arthur Ward once said: "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." I wish you to be that great teacher or tutor, forever learning, and inspiring.