Thursday, September 05, 2013

Inspirational advice from famous teachers

On Teacher's Day we bring you some of the most thought-provoking quotes by famous teachers from across the world. Read on and be inspired!
 
We begin with this quote from Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, on whose birthday we celebrate Teacher's Day in India. The philosopher President was first and foremost a teacher. He said:
 
"Wealth, power and efficiency are the appurtenances of life and not life itself." - Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
 
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default." - JK Rowling
 
"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life -- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success." - Swami Vivekananda
 
"My message, especially to young people, is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards." - India's "missile man" and former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
 
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." - Pulitzer prize-winning author Robert Frost
 
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself." - Pulitzer prize-winning author Robert Frost
 
"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water." - Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore
 
"Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence."
 
"Men are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die." - The architect of the Indian Constitution Dr B R Ambedkar
 
In her commencement address to the students at Harvard University, she emphasised that failure is a part of life that nudges us to move in a new direction:
"It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point, you are bound to stumble.
 
If you're constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will at some point fall.
 
And when you do, I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure.
 
Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.
 
Now, when you're down there in the hole, it looks like failure. When that moment comes, it's okay to feel bad for a little while.
 
Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost.
 
But then, here's the key: Learn from every mistake, because every experience, particularly your mistakes, are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are." - Media mogul and talk show host Oprah Winfrey
 
"Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear." - Socrates
 
"Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose -- not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember." - Anne Sullivan (Teacher to Helen Keller)
 
"We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realise their full potential." - American president Barack Obama
 
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." - American president Barack Obama
 
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein
 
"I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay." - Clarissa Barton was a famous American teacher and founder of the American Red Cross
 
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle (Greek philosopher and teacher of Alexander the Great)
 
 
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment