85 Heartfelt Teacher Appreciation Quotes to Show Your Gratitude

Teachers shape lives, inspire dreams, and make a difference every day.

To honor their dedication, we’ve compiled the best teacher appreciation quotes for your next post.

And if you’re looking for heartfelt and meaningful sayings to show your gratitude, we also have you covered.

Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.

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Best Teacher Appreciation Quotes

“Teacher appreciation makes the world of education go around.”— Helen Peters

“One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world.”— Malala Yousafzai

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

“A good teacher is like a candle: It consumes itself to light the way for others.”— Unknown

“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.”— Thomas Carruthers

“If a teacher has any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”— Albert Einstein

“Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”— Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.”— Maria Montessori

“What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.”— Maria Montessori

“If you can read this, thank a teacher.”— American Proverb

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

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

“The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate “apparently ordinary” people to unusual effort.”— K. Patricia Cross

“If you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn.”— Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

“Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honor for me.”— APJ Abdul Kalam

“Summer vacation is the time when parents realize teachers are grossly underpaid.”— Unknown

“Teaching is not just a job. It is a human service, and it must be thought of as a mission.”— Dr. Ralph Tyler

“He who opens a school door closes a prison.”— Victor Hugo

“If the teacher is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”— Kahlil Gibran

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

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

“My teacher thought I was smarter than I was—so I was.”— Unknown 6-year-old child

“Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.”— Solomon Ortiz

“One good teacher in a lifetime may sometimes change a delinquent into a solid citizen.”— Philip Wylie

“When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.”— The Talmud

“A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, and touches a heart.”— Unknown

“Not all superheroes wear capes—some have teaching degrees.”— Unknown

“It takes a big heart to help shape little minds.”— Unknown

“Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.”— Unknown

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”— John Dewey

“Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.”— Lady Bird Johnson

“What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased.”— Unknown

“Teaching: the only profession where you steal things from home and bring them to work.”— Unknown

“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

“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.”— Sidney Hook

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”— John Steinbeck

“One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.”— Carl Jung

“Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.”— Marian Wright Edelman

“A good teacher isn’t someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed.”— Justin Trudeau

“Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.”— Helen Caldicott

Inspirational Quotes

“They inspire you, they entertain you, and you end up learning a ton even when you don’t know it.”— Nicholas Sparks

“Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.”— Frank Herbert

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.”— Joseph Addison

“The best thing about being a teacher is that it matters. The hardest thing about being a teacher is that it matters every day.”— Todd Whitaker

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”— Pericles

“Teaching is more than imparting knowledge; it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts; it is acquiring understanding.”— William Arthur Ward

“This Teacher Appreciation Week and every week, I’m thankful for America’s teachers. But they deserve more than thanks. Teachers go above and beyond their job for their students every day — they deserve higher wages and better working conditions.”— Vice President Kamala Harris

“Wherever you find something extraordinary, you’ll find the fingerprints of a great teacher.”— Arne Duncan

Quotes for Teachers, From Students

“Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world, and that’s you.”— Kij Johnson

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”— Henry Adams

“It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.”— Tom Brokaw

“The great teacher is not the man who supplies the most facts, but the one in whose presence we become different people.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.”— Confucius

“The influence of a good teacher can never be erased.”— Unknown

“Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.”— Bob Talbert

“A teacher’s purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.”— Unknown

“The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.”— Unknown

“A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, and touches a heart.”—

Quotes of Gratitude for Teachers

“My English teacher, Mrs. Bodey, was instrumental in the educational journey that carried me through school and into my career. Until her class, I hadn’t believed in my ability as a writer. She recognized my potential and showed me that I could write with creativity, with clarity, with passion.”— John Legend

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.”— Alexander the Great

“The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow Mr. Monte around for the rest of my life, learning everything he wished to share of impart, but I didn’t know how to ask.”— Pat Conroy, My Losing Season: A Memoir

“The human mind is an incredible thing. It can conceive of the magnificence of the heavens and the intricacies of the basic components of matter. Yet for each mind to achieve its full potential, it needs a spark. The spark of enquiry and wonder. Often that spark comes from a teacher… If you look behind every exceptional person there is an exceptional teacher. When each of us thinks about what we can do in life, chances are we can do it because of a teacher.”— Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions

“When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her. The action was so graceful and inclusively benign.”— Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’”— Dan Rather

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”— Henry Adams

“The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future.”— F. Sionil Jose

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

“To teach is to touch a life forever.”—

Short Quotes

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

“I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.”— John Wooden

“Invest in our teachers, and our children will succeed.”— Barack Obama

“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.”— Brad Henry

“Teaching is a creative profession.”— Sir Ken Robinson

“Show me a school where the teachers are happy, and I’ll show you a school where the teachers are trusted.”— Dwayne Reed

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

“[Teachers’] devotion to our children embodies the best of America — ready to serve and eager to see others thrive.”— President Joe Biden

“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”— John C. Maxwell

“Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care.”— Horace Mann

“Teachers play such an enormous role in forming, not just teaching them, but forming character in our kids. We really have to thank them for what they do. They are really the core that makes our society work.”— Jeanine Pirro

“You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.”— J.D. Salinger

“Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon.”— Ann Lieberman

“Teaching is a calling too. And I’ve always thought that teachers in their way are holy — angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.”— Jeannette Walls

“To me, there is nothing more exciting, fulfilling, and wonderful than watching a kid finally grasp a concept, then take the information and use it in the real world. Teachers make this happen. Teachers motivate. Teachers synthesize information to help students understand. Teachers listen, coach, and mentor. Teachers matter.”— George Lucas