181 Inspirational School Quotes and Sayings

During your student years, you will learn and discover lots of things and ideas in school. Being able to go to school is a valuable life experience, which often brings both joy and hardships. So to keep doing your best as you learn more, here are 181 inspirational school quotes.

Inspirational School Quotes

1. Don’t let schooling interfere with your education. – Mark Twain

2. You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun. – Josephine Baker

3. The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson. – Tom Bodett

4. In some parts of the world, students are going to school every day. It’s their normal life. But in other parts of the world, we are starving for education…it’s like a precious gift. It’s like a diamond. – Malala Yousafzai

5. All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think. – Ken Robinson

6. What makes a child gifted and talented may not always be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning. – Chuck Grassley

7. Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school. – Beverly Cleary

8. I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message. – Steve Irwin

9. Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity. – Cesar Chavez

10. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. – Aristotle

11. The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. – Herbert Spencer

12. He who opens a school door, closes a prison. – Victor Hugo

13. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. – Andy McIntyre

14. Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. – Kofi Annan

15. Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. – George Washington Carver

16. If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around. – Jim Rohn

17. Your library is your paradise. – Desiderius Erasmus

18. When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts. – Dalai Lama

19. School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside. – Lon Watters

20. Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. – William Butler Yeats

Inspirational School Quotes

21. 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

22. Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand. – Chinese proverb

23. A man’s mind, stretched by new ideas, may never return to its original dimensions. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

24. Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each. – Plato

25. A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers. – Helen Keller

26. Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. – John Keats

27. The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. – B.B. King

28. We know what we are but know not what we may be. – Shakespeare

29. I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. – Edward Everett Hale

30. Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. – Edwin Hubbel Chapin

31. So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you’ll move mountains. – Dr. Seuss

32. To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life. – T.S. Eliot

33. In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. – Theodore Roosevelt

34. The time is always right to do what is right. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

35. School prepares you for the real world… which also bites. – Jim Benton

36. When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it’s make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who’s in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you’re investing your time in that. – Nick Saban

37. What is the most important thing one learns in school? Self-esteem, support, and friendship. – Terry Tempest Williams

38. While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

39. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. – Steve Jobs

40. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. – Beverly Sills

41. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe

42. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. – Gandhi

43. The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will. – Vince Lombardi

44. Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good. – Malcolm Gladwell

45. Success means having the courage, the determination and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be. – George Sheehan

46. There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure. – Colin Powell

47. Change your thoughts and you change your world. – Norman Vincent Peale

48. Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. – Malcolm Forbes

49. I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world. – Michelle Obama

50. You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. – A.A. Milne

51. Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. – Ernest Hemingway

52. Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. – Calvin Coolidge

53. Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. – Anthony J. D’Angelo

54. It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed. – Harvey S. Firestone

55. Change is the end result of all true learning. – Leo Buscaglia

56. You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward. – Conrad Hall

Inspirational School Quotes

57. We don’t stop going to school when we graduate. – Carol Burnett

58. Education is our passport to the future. For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare it today. – Malcolm X

59. You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great. – Les Brown

60. I’ve got a theory that if you give 100 percent all the time, somehow things will work out in the end. – Larry Bird

61. Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya Angelou

62. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you’ll be doomed if you don’t try. – Beverly Hills

63. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. – Robert Collier

64. Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. – Pablo Picasso

65. I’m not going to school just for the academics. I wanted to share ideas, to be around people who are passionate about learning. – Emma Watson

66. You learn something every day if you pay attention. – Ray LeBlond

67. No matter what you do, no matter how many times you screw up and think to yourself “there’s no point to carry on”, no matter how many people tell you that you can’t do it – keep going. Don’t quit. Don’t quit, because a month from now you will be that much closer to your goal than you are now. Yesterday you said tomorrow. Make today count. – Anonymous

68. You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give. – E.O. Wilson

69. Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you. – John Green

70. Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. – Albert Einstein

71. If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. – Michael Jordan

72. Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. – John Wooden

73. Learning is never done without errors and defeat. – Vladimir Lenin

74. Never let the fear of striking out stop you from playing the game. – Babe Ruth

75. You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. – Zig Ziglar

76. The expert in anything was once a beginner. – Helen Hayes

77. The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. – Walt Disney

78. I think it’s possible to ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary. – Elon Musk

79. I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. – Thomas Jefferson

80. Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration. – Thomas Edison

Inspirational School Quotes

81. The best way to predict your future is to create it. – Abraham Lincoln

82. None of us is as smart as all of us. – Ken Blanchard

83. Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much. – Francis Bacon

84. A dull mind gets bored easily. A curious mind expands forever. – Maxime Lagacé

85. Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. – Margaret Mead

86. The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. – Plutarch

87. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. – United Negro College Fund

88. You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation. – Brigham Young

89. Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t. – Bill Nye

90. Learning never exhausts the mind. – Leonardo da Vinci

91. If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place. – Nora Roberts

92. Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later. – Og Mandino

93. The ideal school would teach health, wealth, and happiness. It‘d be free, self-paced, and available to all. It‘d show opposing ideas and students would self-verify truth. No grades, no tests, no diplomas – just learning. Actually, you’re already here. Careful who you follow. – Naval Ravikant

94. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. – Confucius

95. Every child deserves a champion: an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists they become the best they can possibly be. – Rita Pierson

96. Instruction does much, but encouragement everything. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

97. Nine tenths of education is encouragement. – Anatole France

98. Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen. – Lee Iacocca

99. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. – William James

100. Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. – Norman Vincent Peale

Inspirational School Quotes

101. Resiliency is a skill that cannot be overlooked. In fact, it can be a skill that is the difference between surviving and thriving. – Laurie A. Namey

102. Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

103. What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers. – Martina Horner

104. Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn. – Alice Miller

105. The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live. – Mortimer Adler

106. Getting a job is not the purpose of school. – Terry Heick

107. The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. – William S. Burroughs

108. If teaching has any purpose, it is to implant true insight and responsibility. 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

109. Intelligence and proper education will give you independence of spirit. – Charlotte Bronte

110. In youth we learn; in age we understand. – Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

111. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass

112. If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. – Margaret Fuller

113. Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson

114. There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. – Buckminster Fuller

115. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. – C.S. Lewis

116. A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind. – James Allen

117. One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world. – Malala Yousafzai

118. You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you. – Barack Obama

119. In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first. – Harry S. Truman

120. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. – Theodore Roosevelt

121. I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship. – Aeschylus

122. A learned man has always riches in himself. – Phaedrus

123. Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten. – Pythagoras

124. All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind. – Martin H. Fischer

125. We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn. – Peter Drucker

126. The whole point of life is to learn love. Life is the school, love is the lesson and we are all here to teach each other. – Kate McGahan

127. Every beginner possesses a great potential to be an expert in his or her chosen field. – Lailah Gifty Akita

128. Have faith that your child’s brain is an evolving planet that rotates at its own speed. It will naturally be attracted to or repel certain subjects. Be patient. Just as there are ugly ducklings that turn into beautiful swans, there are rebellious kids and slow learners that turn into serious innovators and hardcore intellectuals. – Suzy Kassem

129. Education is the preparation of a child intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically for life and for eternity. – Kevin Swanson

130. Your comfort zone is a place where you keep yourself in a self-illusion and nothing can grow there but your potentiality can grow only when you can think and grow out of that zone. – Rashedur Ryan Rahman

131. You can’t have a goal without determination, because without the determination the goal will die. – Patrick L. Turner

132. A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it. – Mike Rose

133. After you hear and listen. First must come desire. Second must come willingness. Third should come understanding. Fourth should come progression and with progression will come more understanding. – Hyrum Yeakley

134. Your grades and degrees doesn’t reflects your true education. – Inu Etc

135. I couldn’t care less about good marks. I want to learn. – Maude Julien

136. Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. – Gail Devers

137. Being different is one of the most beautiful things on earth. – Unknown

138. Creativity is intelligence having fun. – Albert Einstein

139. The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

140. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu

Inspirational School Quotes

141. Work alone is noble. – Thomas Carlyle

142. If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade. – Thomas Peters

143. Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th. – Julie Andrews

144. An obstacle is often a stepping stone. – PRESCOTT

145. Always desire to learn something useful. – Sophocles

146. Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. – Tony Robbins

147. Zeal without knowledge is fire without light. – Henry Huxley

148. I think I can. I know I can.

149. You always pass failure on the way to success. – Mickey Rooney

150. Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. – Pamela Vaull Starr

151. No one is perfect – that’s why pencils have erasers. – Wolfgang Riebe

152. Anything is possible. Anything can be. – Shel Silverstein

153. Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve done before. – Bonnie Blair

154. You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

155. I don’t love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful. – Natalie Portman

156. All students can learn and succeed, but not on the same day in the same way. – William Spady

157. Alone we are smart. Together we are brilliant. – Steven Anderson

158. Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. – Ken Robinson

159. Knowledge overcomes ignorance as sunlight overcomes darkness. – Atmabodha Prakasika

160. Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best. – Bob Talbert

161. Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds. – Author Unknown

162. Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. – Lou Holz

163. All things are difficult before they are easy. – Thomas Fuller

Inspirational School Quotes

164. Children need to be challenged and pushed, not to the point where they give up but to the point where they think: Wow, look at me go! – Robert John Meehan

165. Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. – William A. Ward

166. Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon. – Paul Brandt

167. Energy and persistence conquer all things. – Ben Franklin

168. Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you will do best. – Marva Collins

169. I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. – Pablo Picasso

170. Ideas are, in truth, force. – Henry James

171. If you try to do your best there is no failure. – Mike Farrell

172. In order to be big, you have to think big. If you think small, you’re going to be small. – Emeril Lagasse

173. I think someone should explain to the child that it’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how we learn. When we compete, we make mistakes. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

174. I think you learn more if you’re laughing at the same time. – Mary Ann Shaffer

175. It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers — they help us to learn. – John Bradshaw

176. It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. – Harry S. Truman

177. Observe and reflect, and become a little wiser every day. – Doe Zantamata

178. Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars. – Les Brown

179. There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps. – Peter A. Cohen

180. Try and fail, but don’t fail to try. – Stephen Kaggwa

181. We aim above the mark to hit the mark. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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