Education is one of the many life forces of our generation! Without it, we’d run into a multitude of problems. Because our students don’t always see it this way, it’s important to take the time to reignite their passion for learning. To help you achieve this, we’ve collected 102 quintessential quotes about education. Decorate your classroom with them, consider implementing a quote of the day into your morning routine, or even print and laminate them to distribute amongst your students at the start of the year.
1. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats
2. “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain
3. “Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.” – Lyndon B. Johnson
4. “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” – Derek Bok
5. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker
6. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle
7. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
8. “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.
9. “Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.” – Abigail Adams
10. “Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It’s about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life.” – Shakuntala Devi
11. “The best education is not given to students; it is drawn out of them.” – Gerald Belcher
12. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
13. “Education is the movement from darkness to light.” – Allan Bloom.
14. “The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things.” – Jean Piaget
15. “The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.” – Alexandra K. Trenfor
16. “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X
17. “I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein
18. “The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” – Sydney J. Harris
19. “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” – Colleen Wilcox
20. “Education is the foundation upon which we build our future.” – Christine Gregoire
21. “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey
22. “The purpose of education is to an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Forbes
23. “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
24. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
25. “The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” – B.B. King
26. “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” – Carl Rogers
27. “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry Adams
28. “Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life.” – Brigham Young
29. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” – Socrates
30. “Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all questions.” – William Allin
31. “The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.” – Bill Beattie
32. “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” – Albert Einstein
33. “The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.” – William S. Burroughs
34. “Education is not received. It is achieved.” – Albert Einstein
35. “Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
36. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
37. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
38. “The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.” – Mortimer Adler
39. “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.” – W.B. Yeats
40. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
41. “Education is not about filling a pail, but about lighting a fire.” – W.B. Yeats
42. “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” – George Washington Carver
43. “The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” – B.B. King
44. “Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” – Albert Einstein
45. “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
46. “To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” – Theodore Roosevelt
47. “Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.” – Lyndon B. Johnson
48. “The future belongs to the educated.” – Barack Obama
49. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – W.B. Yeats
50. “Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It’s about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life.” – Shakuntala Devi
51. “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” – Abraham Lincoln
52. “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds.” – Plato
53. “Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or in the same way.” – George Evans
54. “A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.” – Brad Henry
55. “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” – G.K. Chesterton
56. “Upon the subject of education … I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.” – Abraham Lincoln
57. “A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers.” – Helen Keller
58. “The learning process continues until the day you die.” – Kirk Douglas
59. “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” – Oscar Wilde
60. “A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
61. “Education is the movement from darkness to light.” – Allan Bloom
62. “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” – Mark Twain
63. “Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci
64. “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.” – Edward Everett
65. “The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” – Robert Maynard Hutchins
66. “In the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.” – Baba Dioum
67. “The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think.” – James Beattie
68. “Education is the most effective way to break out of the poverty cycle.” – Charles B. Rangel
69. “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” – G.K. Chesterton
70. “Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” – Kofi Annan
71. “Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.” – Adelaide Hoodless
72. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
73. “Change is the end result of all true learning.” – Leo Buscaglia
74. “Education is the foundation upon which we build our future.” – Christine Gregoire
75. “Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.” – John Ruskin
76. “Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.” – Mark Twain
77. “I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on the planet is to encourage people to empower themselves.” – Oprah Winfrey
78. “Only the educated are free.” – Epictetus
79. “In education, we are striving not to teach youth to make a living, but to make a life.” – William Allen White
80. “The highest result of education is tolerance.” – Helen Keller
81. “Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo
82. “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” – Plato
83. “Education is the art of making man ethical.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
84. “The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” – Robert M. Hutchins
85. “Education is a work of self-organization by which man adapts himself to the conditions of life.” – Maria Montessori
86. “The education of a man is never completed until he dies.” – Robert E. Lee
87. “To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.” – Muriel Spark
88. “Education must lead us from irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgement. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
89. “Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects.” – Robert M. Hutchins
90. “Education makes a greater difference between man and man than nature has made between man and brute.” – John Adams
91. “Education is not a pail to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.” – Plutarch
92 . “Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.” – John Locke
93. “The future of the world is in my classroom today.” – Ivan Welton Fitzwater
94. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle
95. “The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.” – Wendell Phillips
96. “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” – Albert Einstein
97. “To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” – Theodore Roosevelt
98. “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” – Will Durant
99. “The best education I have ever received was through travel.” – Lisa Ling
100. “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” – Abraham Maslow
101. “Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth.” – Chanakya
102. “Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” – Confucius