Teacher quotes
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"The Four Reliances. First, rely on the spirit and meaning of the teachings, not on the words; Second, rely on the teachings, not on the personality of the teacher; Third, rely on real wisdom, not superficial interpretation; And fourth, rely on the essence of your pure Wisdom Mind, not on judgmental perceptions."
"Do not accept anything simply because it has been said by your teacher, or because it has been written in your sacred books, or because it has been believed by many, or because it has been handed down by your ancestors. Accept and live only according to what will enable you to see truth face to face."
"Find a good teacher, as I found for my sons. I feel the worst thing you can do is to try and teach your own children yourself, because there is a natural rebellion that occurs."
"We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master."
"The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child."
"There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease."
"There is a reason why Nelson Mandela went to Cuba to praise Castro and thank the Cuban people almost as soon as he got out of jail. That's a third world reaction and they understand it. Cuba played an enormous role in the liberation of Africa and the overthrow of Apartheid, sending doctors and teachers to the poorest places in the world, to Haiti, to Pakistan after the earthquake, almost everywhere. The internationalism is just astonishing. I don't think there has been anything like it in history."
"A teacher can only lead you to the threshold of your own mind."
"Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect ... Your have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary."
"I think when we talk about corporal punishment, and we have to think about our own children, and we are rather reluctant, it seems to me, to have other people administering punishment to our own children, because we are reluctant, it puts a special obligation on us to maintain order and to send children out from our homes who accept the idea of discipline. So I would not be for corporal punishment in the school, but I would be for very strong discipline at home so we don't place an unfair burden on our teachers."
"The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves"
"Teachers may think they are stuffing minds, but all they are ever affecting is the memory. Nothing can ever be forced into anyone's mind except by brainwashing, which is the very opposite of genuine teaching."
"The gateways to wisdom and learning are always open, and more and more I am choosing to walk through them. Barriers, blocks, obstacles, and problems are personal teachers giving me the opportunity to move out of the past and into the Totality of Possibilities."
"The enemy is a very good teacher."
"Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.... The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to see; like bringing a horse back and back to the fence it has refused to jump or bringing a child back and back to the bit in its lesson that it wants to shirk."
"We've got to make sure that teachers are respected, that they are rewarded, that young people like yourself who have talent and want to work with people, that you're able to support yourself and live out a great life being a teacher."
"One may have many teachers, but only one guru, who remains as one's guru even in many different lives, until the disciple reaches the final goal of emancipation in God. You must remember this, once that relationship is formed."
"To teach is part of the very fabric of learning."
"Teachers who do not take their own education seriously, who do not study, who make little effort to keep abreast of events have no moral authority to coordinate the activities of the classroom."
"When we live our lives with the authenticity demanded by the practice of teaching that is also learning and learning that is also teaching, we are participating in a total experience.... In this experience the beautiful, the decent, and the serious form a circle with hands joined."
