These inspirational educational quotes are words of wisdom and positive attitudes about education, learning and reading. The quotes are on this page are from known sources and surnames A through to E. The other education quote pages are F to M and N to Z. Words from unknown sources are on the Education Sayings page. There are also pages of Teacher Quotes and Teacher Sayings, for more positive inspiration.
Inspirational educational quotes
are listed alphabetically on surname/source
Inspirational Educational Quotes: A
A Course In Miracles
There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach.
Abraham-Hicks
The little ones still remember how to use the power of their imagination. They are still engaged in the utilization of their imagination, that is one of the reasons that keeps them so exhilarated.
Henry Brooks Adams 1838 – 1918
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
Joseph Addison 1672 – 1719
Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human Soul.
Aeschylus 525BC
It is always the season for the old to learn.
Amos Bronson Alcott 1799 – 1888
Observation more than books, experience rather than persons, are the prime educators.
Eric Allen
Everyone is my teacher. Some I seek. Some I subconsciously attract. Often I learn simply by observing others. Some may be completely unaware that I’m learning from them, yet I bow deeply in gratitude.
Maya Angelou 1928 – 2014
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.
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
Aristotle 384BC – 322BC
All men by nature desire knowledge.
Educating the mind, without educating the heart, is no education at all.
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Education is the best provision for old age.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them… we learn by doing them!
If you would understand anything… observe its beginning and its development.
Intuition is the source of scientific knowledge.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
The more you know… the more you know you don’t know.
The pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more.
Isaac Asimov 1920 – 1992
A good question is, of course, the key by which infinite answers can be educed.
Any increase in knowledge anywhere helps pave the way for an increase in knowledge everywhere.
Isaac Asimov 1920 – 1992
Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well.
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka but ‘That’s funny…’
Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?
David Attenborough 1926
Education is not a matter of getting facts and sowing them within brains, but that it is an attitude of mind that you teach children to find out for themselves.
St Augustine 354 – 430
I learned most, not from those who taught me, but from those who talked with me.
Inspirational Educational Quotes: B
Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626
For also knowledge itself is power.
Natural abilities are like natural plants… they need pruning by study.
Clay P. Bedford
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.
Henry Ward Beecher 1813 – 1887
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770 – 1827
Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the Divine.
Polly Berrien Berends
The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins walking. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.
Black Elk 1863 – 1950
One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.
W. E. B. Du Bois 1868 – 1963
Children learn more from what you are, than what you teach.
Joey & Lucy (2013)
Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 – 1821
History is… The version of past events, that people have decided to agree on.
Show me a family of readers… And I will show you the people who move the world.
Bono 1960
Books are the greatest gift one person can give another.
Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.
Richard Branson 1950
I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.
Emilie Buchwald 1935
Children are made readers in the laps of their parents.
Buddha 624BC – 543BC
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I said it… Unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Teach this triple truth to all: a generous heart, kind speech and a life of service and compassion are things which renew humanity.
Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Frances Hodgson Burnett 1849 – 1924
To be able to learn things quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people.
Inspirational Educational Quotes: C
Sarah Caldwell 1924 – 2006
Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can. You will be grateful you did.
Julia Cameron 1948
Art is the imagination at play in the field of time.
Jack Canfield 1944
I think there is too much emphasis placed on learning things by rote that you don’t really care about. So what happens to students in school is that they eventually lose interest in learning, because they’ve been forced to learn the required course, rather than pursuing their passion.
George Carlin 1937 – 2008
Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach then to question everything.
inspirational educational quotes – Joey & Amy (2014)
Thomas Carlyle 1795 – 1881
A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
In books lies the Soul of the whole past time.
The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us.
May Ellen Chase 1887 – 1973
There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.
Deepak Chopra 1946
I teach people that, no matter what the situation is, no matter how chaotic, no matter how much drama is around you, you can heal by your presence. If you just stay within your centre.
Marcus Tullius Cicero 106BC – 43BC
Natural ability without education has oftener raised men to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
Sandra Cisneros 1954
I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school, but because my mother took me to the library.
St Bernard of Clairvaux 1090 – 1153
Believe one who knows; you will find something greater in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from Masters.
Sylvia Clare
Intuition is the highest form of intelligence, transcending all individual abilities and skills.
Arthur C. Clarke 1917 – 2008
We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40, and half the things he knows at 40 hadn’t been discovered when he was 20?
Confucius 551BC – 479BC
Education breeds confidence.
Confidence breeds hope.
Hope breeds peace.
Linda Conway
It is not what is poured into a student that counts, but what is planted.
Coolio 1963
I used to walk to school with my nose buried in a book.
Inspirational Educational Quotes: D
Roald Dahl 1916 – 1990
Don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.
Oh, books, what books they used to know
Those children living long ago
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray
Go throw your TV set away
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall
The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-days sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemmingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
There is little point teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.
“You seemed so far away,” Miss Honey whispered, awestruck. “Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings,” Matilda said. “It was wonderful.”
Anthony J. D’Angelo
Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant.
Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you’ll never cease to grow.
Learn not only to find what you like, learn to like what you find.
John Dewey 1859 – 1952
Education is not preparation for life… education is life itself.
Kate DiCamillo 1964
Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.
Charles M. Dickinson
It is the supreme art of the teacher to… Awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away.
Ernest Dimnet 1866 – 1954
Children have to be educated, but they also have to be left to educate themselves.
Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.
Benjamin Disraeli 1804 – 1881
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
There is no education like adversity.
Mark van Doren 1894 – 1972
The art of teaching is… the art of assisting discovery.
Frederick Douglas 1818 – 1895
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015
Be a student… By staying open and willing to learn from everyone and anyone.
Once you see a child’s self-image begin to improve, you will see significant gains in achievement areas, but even more important, you will see a child who is beginning to enjoy life more.
The wisest and most profound teachings on the planet today.
(talking about Abraham-Hicks)
Try viewing everyone who comes into your life as a teacher.
Inspirational Educational Quotes: E
Umberto Eco 1932 – 2016
I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
Arthur Eddington 1882 – 1944
I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.
Marian Wright Edelman 1939
Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
Creativity is intelligence having fun.
inspirational educational quotesAlbert Einstein 1879 – 1955
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man.
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know now and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
Do you know the secret of the true scholar?.. In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.
Knowledge exists to be imparted.
Science does not know its debt to imagination.
The secret in education lies in respecting the student.
Epictetus 55 – 135
It is impossible for a man to learn, what he thinks he already knows.
Ignacio Estrada
If a child can’t learn the way we teach…
maybe we should teach the way they learn.
