Education Quotes | List & Tips

Education quotes are useful in a variety of situations, from classroom posters to teacher emails and teacher appreciation messages. When they’re poignant or insightful, they can be amazing conversation starters at faculty meetings and teacher training sessions.

They’re also ideal for informal writing prompts to help students reflect on their own educational experiences.

For whatever reason you’re seeking education quotes, the following list includes some of the most thought-provoking insights from renowned writers and world leaders.

20 quotes about education

1. “Education is the movement from darkness to light.” —Allan Bloom, US philosopher and founder of the Bloom’s taxonomy framework for understanding educational goals.
2. “I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create.” —Tara Westover, author of the best-selling 2018 memoir Educated
3. “It’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego.” —bell hooks, education theorist and writer
4. “Education is the key that unlocks the golden door of freedom to our people.” —George Washington Carver, early 20th century scientist and inventor
5. “Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” —Malcolm Forbes, 20th century US politician and former publisher of Forbes magazine
6. “The ability to read, write, and analyze; the confidence to stand up and demand justice and equality; the qualifications to get your foot in the door and take your seat at the table—all of that starts with education.” —Michelle Obama, former US first lady
7. “Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.” —Diane Ravitch, education historian, former US Assistant Secretary of Education
8. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” —Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid activist and former president of South Africa
9. “When someone takes away your pens, you realize quite how important education is.” —Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and female education activist
10. “Great schools don’t just teach you; they change you.” —Melinda French Gates, USphilanthropist and former Microsoft product developer
11. “Surprisingly enough, Quintilian’s recommendation for a lifelong education has never been more relevant than it is in the twenty-first century, as knowledge is increasing and changing so fast that most people must continue to be active learners long after they graduate from college.” —Andrea Lunsford, writing education expert and author of The Everyday Writer and Everyone’s an Author
12. “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.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., US civil rights leader
13. “I always say that the young people are the future of the world, and if we start with them first, if we educate and develop a sense of tolerance among them, our future, the future of this world, will be in good hands for generations to come.” —Erin Gruwell, teacher and founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation
14. “The classroom is a place of high drama. You’ll never know what you’ve done to, or for, the hundreds coming and going. You see them leaving the classroom: dreamy, flat, sneering, admiring, smiling, puzzled. After a few years, you develop antennae. You can tell when you’ve reached them or alienated them. It’s chemistry. It’s psychology. It’s animal instinct.” —Frank McCourt, Irish-American Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Angela’s Ashes and Teacher Man
15. “I think what education gives you is a voice. It gives you a way of talking to a judge. When a policeman pulls you off to the side of the road, you have a voice. When you cross a border, you have a voice. When you are writing to express your opinions, you have a voice.”  —Richard Rodriguez, author of Hunger of Memory
16. “Education is the key to preventing the cycle of violence and hatred that marred the 20th century from repeating itself in the 21st century.” —Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, author of Night, and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate
17. “… schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.” —Neil Postman, 20th century education and media theorist and author of The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
18. “True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.” —Mortimer J. Adler, 20th century US philosopher and author of How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
19. “Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas.” —Alfred North Whitehead, 19th/20th century British mathematician and philosopher and author of “The Aims of Education”
20. “From my experience, the most creative minds learn to educate themselves.” —Noam Chomsky, 20th century MIT linguistics professor and political activist

Writing tips for education quotes

The following tips will enhance the impact of education quotes in your writing:

• Before each quote, include a signal phrase with the author’s full name and a verb like “wrote” or “explained.”
• Use quotation marks to show where the quote begins and ends. This strategy helps readers tell the difference between your ideas and other writers’ ideas.
• Put the quote’s end punctuation (e.g., a period or question mark) before the final quotation marks (unless you need a parenthetical citation after the quotation).
• In formal writing (e.g., college essays), cite quotes by following the APA citation guide, MLA citation guide, or whichever format is required.

QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker and Citation Generator are also here to help you with quoting and citing education experts.

Frequently asked questions about education quotes

What are some special education quotes?

Some special education quotes include the following words from leaders and educators:

“Part of the problem is that we tend to think that equality is about treating everyone the same, when it’s not. It’s about fairness. It’s about equity of access.” —Judith Heumann, disability rights activist whose work led to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

“There is so much that able-bodied people could learn from the wisdom that often comes with disability. But space needs to be made. Hands need to reach out. People need to be lifted up.” —Alice Wong, disability rights activist and founder of the Disability Visibility Project

“Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.” —Diane Ravitch, education historian, former US Assistant Secretary of Education

“Inclusive education is not a privilege. It is a fundamental human right.” —Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General

When you’re writing with education quotes, QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker and Citation Generator are here to help you avoid errors and cite sources correctly.

Should I put a period before or after quotation marks?

Typically, a period goes before the ending quotation marks in American English.

The principal said the teacher was “an exemplar of the profession.”

She told me, “If I leave, I’m never coming back.”

However, in British English, the period only goes inside the quotation marks if the quotation itself is a full sentence. Otherwise, it goes outside. Additionally, British English typically uses single quotation marks instead of double.

The principal said the teacher was ‘an exemplar of the profession’.

She told me, ‘If I leave, I’m never coming back.’

Try QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker to make sure you’re using punctuation correctly.

How do you use quotes in an essay?

Correct use of quotes in an essay can lift it above the normal and attract higher grades. Quotes are vital in backing up your argument or illustrating your point. You should aim to integrate or embed your quotes in your writing.

Consider this comment on The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot:

“Prufrock realizes when he sees ‘the eternal Footman hold his coat,’ that he is approaching death, and he is overwhelmed by a sense of failure and fear. Failure because his achievements are no more than a ‘moment of …greatness’ that has flickered out, and fear because he has ‘seen the eternal Footman …snicker,’ suggesting that what he faces in the afterlife is to be feared. This is confirmed in the last half line of the stanza, ‘in short I was afraid.”

Here, the quotations flow naturally as part of the point that is being made. There’s lots more to be said on the subject of paraphrasing and summarizing which is worth researching.

QuillBot’s Notepad is a great place to note your quotations as you research your essay, making them easy to locate and use. Additionally, QuillBot’s Word Counter tool can help you effectively track the word count of your quotes to ensure your writing doesn’t rely on too many quotations.

What are some famous quotes about education?

Some famous quotes about education include the following:

“Education is the movement from darkness to light.” —Allan Bloom, US philosopher and founder of the Bloom’s taxonomy framework for understanding educational goals

“Education is the key that unlocks the golden door of freedom to our people.” —George Washington Carver, early 20th century scientist and inventor

“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., US civil rights leader

“Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty.” —19th century US abolitionist and orator

“When someone takes away your pens, you realize quite how important education is.” —Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and female education activist

When you’re writing with education quotes, QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker and Citation Generator can help you avoid errors.