Quotes about teachers and teaching

1. The Master said, "The cautious seldom err.

2. The Master said, "The accomplished scholar is not a utensil.

3. The Master said, "The study of strange doctrines is injurious indeed!

4. Mencius said, 'The evil of men is that they like to be teachers of others.'

5. The Master said, "If the will be set on virtue, there will be no practice of wickedness.

6. When the Master was unoccupied with business, his manner was easy, and he looked pleased.

7. The Master said, "It is only the (truly) virtuous man, who can love, or who can hate, others.

8. Mencius said, 'There are many arts in teaching. I refuse, as inconsistent with my character, to teach a man, but I am only thereby still teaching him.'

9. Mencius said, 'Yi, in teaching men to shoot, made it a rule to draw the bow to the full, and his pupils also did the same. A master-workman, in teaching others, uses the compass and square, and his pupils do the same.'

10. The officer Chu said to Mencius, 'Master, the king sent persons to spy out whether you were really different from other men.' Mencius said, 'How should I be different from other men? Yao and Shun were just the same as other men.'

11. Mencius said to the disciple Gao, 'There are the footpaths along the hills; if suddenly they be used, they become roads; and if, as suddenly they are not used, the wild grass fills them up. Now, the wild grass fills up your mind.'

12. Mencius said, 'The influence of a sovereign sage terminates in the fifth generation. The influence of a mere sage does the same. Although I could not be a disciple of Confucius himself, I have endeavoured to cultivate my virtue by means of others who were.'

Wikiquote quotations are available under CC BY-SA 4.0 (links on each author page); classics passages are public-domain translations.

Data: Wikiquote (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0); English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.