34 Meaningful Quotes for Music Educators | Ashley Danyew (2024)

Sometimes, it's important to remember why we started.

Indulge me for a moment and ask yourself the following:

What first drew you to music?
When did you know you wanted to teach?
What are the pivotal moments that stand out in your memory — those particular students or experiences or revelations that propelled you forward, that fed your soul, that inspired you to keep going?

We all have our own answers and a whole collection of stories we could tell. This is one of the things I love most about teaching.

It's the heart behind what we do and the reasons why we do it that make teaching such a wonderful, life-giving profession (but maybe I'm a little biased?).

If you're looking for a little inspiration in your week or a reminder of why you started teaching in the first place, I hope you find something encouraging in this collection of music quotes.

Today, I'm sharing 34 of my favorite inspiring and uplifting music teacher quotes + a free teaching reflection workbook for music educators. Enjoy!

34 Music Quotes for Music Teachers

1. “Tell me, and I forget. Show me, and I remember. Involve me, and I understand.” - Chinese proverb

2. “Music can change the world because it can change people.” - Bono

3. “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” - Judy Garland

4. “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” - Mark Van Doren

5. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” - William Butler Yeats

6. “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” - John Dewey

7. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” - William Ward

8. “I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.” - Robert Frost

9. “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” - Ignacio Estrada

10. “Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions.” - Anonymous

11. “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” - Socrates

12. “Never discourage anyone . . . who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” - Plato

13. “Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” - Confucius

14. “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” - John Dewey

15. “The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.” - Anonymous

16. “Spoon-feeding, in the long run, teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” - E. M. Forster

17. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” - Maya Angelou

18. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” - Steve Jobs

19. “Alone we can affect a few. But together, we can change the world.” - Jen Hatmaker

    See Also

    Want to celebrate the teachers in your life? Start by sharing these moving quotes90 Best Teacher Appreciation Quotes50 Inspirational Quotes For Music Teachers: Melodies of Encouragement, Guiding Harmonies - Lets Learn Slang50 Inspiring Quotes for Music Teachers - Cherthemusic

20. “It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.” - Ella Fitzgerald

21. “In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” -Phil Collins

22. “Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” -Lou Holtz

23. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney Company

24. “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” ― Karen Lamb

25. "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” -Albert Einstein

26. "A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning."- Brad Henry

27. "I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”- Albert Einstein

28. “The greatest sign of success for a teacher . . . is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” - Maria Montessori

29. "The principle goal of education is to create men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.”- Jean Piaget

30. "Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”- John Wooden

31. "The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.”- Richard Moss

32. "A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.”- Anonymous

33. "Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.”- Anatole France

34. "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

Looking for more? See these posts:

21 Inspirational Quotes for the 21st Century Musician
30 Inspiring Quotes for Church Musicians

What are your favorite teaching-related quotes?