“Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.”

And that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.

People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.

Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.

Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.

Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.

I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a long time, you get all this attention. Just because you survived? Of course, I survived a lot.

A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.

Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.

One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.

I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe

Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me to get out of the room and never come back, which I did.

My mother, for example, has the pleasant notion that my day consists of nodding graciously to the rustle of starched curtsies and a chorus of respectful voices bidding me good morning.

To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.

You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.

I’ll never retire as long as I live—that’s like retiring from life! I’ll never stop writing, teaching, lecturing. If you’re in good health, living is exciting on its own.

The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn’t it a magnificent day today?

Are the leaders more dependable? Are our peace treaties more durable? Are our ethics more honorable? Time is running out… We must hurry.

Between [Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan, [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump’s team, I don’t see a lot of openings for making real progress.

People won’t give their best unless their leader challenges them to do so.

Leaders should interact with everyone in their organization as if the interaction is being recorded and will be used as a training film on how to treat colleagues, coworkers, and customers.

Leaders should be collaborative, modest, and generous

A leader or mentor gives credit to others when things go right, and accepts the blame when things go wrong.

When every company’s service is shoddy, doing a few things well can earn you a reputation as the customer’s savior. But when a competitor emerges from the pack as a service leader, you have to do a lot of things right.

Whatever deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence, fortunately, was not one of them.