Thank Your Teacher for Everything They Do With 40 Teacher Appreciation Quotes

Everything most of us know we owe to teachers (take for example, reading these words right now!). Which is why between May 4 and May 8, we come together to show our gratitude for our educators on the occasion of Teacher Appreciation Week.

While Teacher Appreciation Week looks different in 2020 than what we might have been used to in other years, parents who have been shuffled into the role of homeschooling their children and their students alike have come around to appreciating teachers more than ever before.

Between teaching over Zoom, keeping their kids connected, and naturally, all the work and love that goes into normal lesson planning, it's a tireless profession — and one that deserves some serious kudos.

So tell your teacher how much you value everything they do for you or your children, and celebrate Teacher's Appreciation Week with these thoughtful quotes.

1. "One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world." —Malala Yousafzai

2. "A good teacher is like a candle: it consumes itself to light the way for others." —Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

3. "The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows." —Sydney J. Harris

4. "I am not a teacher, but an awakener." —Robert Frost

5. "I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn." —Albert Einstein

6. "Children must be taught how to think, not what to think." —Margaret Mead

7. "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of becoming." —Goethe

8. "When one teaches, two learn." —Robert Heinlein

9. "In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn." —Phil Collins

10. "What we learn with pleasure we never forget." —Alfred Mercier

11. "A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops." —Henry Adams

12. "Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach." —Aristotle

13. "The teacher ... must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work." —Maria Montessori

14. "The best teachers are the ones that change their minds." —Terry Heick

15. "A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron." —Horace Mann

16. "Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives." —Andy Rooney

17. "If you can read this, thank a teacher." —Unknown

18. "Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together." —Scott Hayden

19. "The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, 'The children are now working as if I did not exist.'" —Maria Montessori

20. "The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don't tell you what to see." —Alexandra K. Trenfor

21. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." —Maya Angelou

22. "Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers." —Josef Albers

23. "Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil." —C.S. Lewis

24. "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." —Mark Twain

25. "Nine-tenths of education is encouragement." —Anatole France

26. "I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework." —Lily Tomlin

27. "Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher." —Japanese Proverb

28. "Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." —Voltaire

29. "Discover wildlife! Be a teacher!" —Unknown

30. "The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind." —Khalil Gibran

31. "What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?" —Cicero

32. "Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." —John Dewey

33. "Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me." —Fred Rogers

34. "Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today." —Malcolm X

35. "One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings." —Carl Jung

36. "The secret in education lies in respecting the student." —Ralph Waldo Emerson

37. "Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit." —John Steinbeck

38. "It is the supreme art of a teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." —Albert Einstein

39. "Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education." —Martin Luther King, Jr.

40. "When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts." —Dalai Lama

From all of us at Distractify, thank you teachers for everything you do!