educator quotes

Inspirational quotes and wise words from educators who shape minds and inspire hearts. Find guidance and motivation from the best in the field.

In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.

- Laurence J. Peter

He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence.

- Laurence J. Peter

Good followers do not become good leaders.

- Laurence J. Peter

As individuals we tend to climb to our levels of incompetence. We behave as though up is better and more is better, and yet all around us we see the tragic victims of this mindless escalation.

- Laurence J. Peter

Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.

- Laurence J. Peter

If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.

- Laurence J. Peter

You don't need to take a persons advice to make him feel good, just ask him for it.

- Laurence J. Peter

There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

- Laurence J. Peter

The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance.

- Laurence J. Peter

The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it.

- Laurence J. Peter

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

- Laurence J. Peter

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

- Laurence J. Peter

Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are.

- Laurence J. Peter

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

- Laurence J. Peter

An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to.

- Laurence J. Peter

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

- Laurence J. Peter

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.

- Laurence J. Peter

Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.

- James A. Garfield

The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others.

- James A. Garfield

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.

- James A. Garfield

The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves.

- James A. Garfield

Nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

- James A. Garfield

If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it’s the best possible substitute for it.

- James A. Garfield

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.

- James A. Garfield

I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.

- James A. Garfield

I have had many troubles, but the worst of them never came.

- James A. Garfield

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.

- James A. Garfield

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

- James A. Garfield

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.

- Harry Emerson Fosdick

No man need stay the way he is.

- Harry Emerson Fosdick