I like quotes. They inspire, they encourage and often show up when you need them the most. I have collected the following quotes over the years. Not all of them are specific to homeschooling, but they have inspired our home education journey over these last several years. I hope that they inspire you.
Every week, I like to share my favorite quote on Instagram and in my weekly newsletter, Friday Five.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
~ Henry Ford
“What parents teach is themselves, as models of what is human – by their moods, their reactions, their facial expressions, and actions. These are the real things parents need to be aware of, and of how they affect their children. Allow them to know you, and it might become easier for them to learn about themselves.
~ Magda Gerber
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
~ Steve Jobs
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
~ Goethe
~ Charlotte Mason
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
~ Helen Keller
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
~ Nelson Mandela
“There’s no place like home.”
~ Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”
~ George Washington Carver
~ Oscar Wilde
“We must be guardians of spaces that allow students to breathe, be curious, and to explore.”
~ Brene Brown
“The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way in which we use them.”
~ Anonymous
“Parenthood is an inner change. We ourselves grow because parenting is so deep and intense.”
~ Fred Rogers
“Each mind has its own method.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
~ Maya Angelou
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie
“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”
~ Gandhi
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
~ Pablo Picasso
“There is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”
~ Alfred Wainwright
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
~ Dr. Seuss
~ Fred Rogers
“Children learn who they are and what they really enjoy if they are allowed to sit with themselves. Inundated with activity and subjected to lesson upon lesson, how can they hope to recognize their authentic voice amid the din of all this ‘doing?’”
~ Shefali Tsabary
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
~ Margaret Atwood
“Human relationships are primary in all of living. When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the wind … but we won’t break.”
~ Fred Rogers
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
~ Mark Twain
“What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.”
~ Fred Rogers
~ Montaigne
“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”
~ C.S. Lewis
“How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment; we can start now; start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway… And you can always, always give everything, even if it is only kindness!”
~ Anne Frank
“Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.”
~ Scott Hayden
“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”
~ Robert Frost
“All learning has an emotional base.”
~ Plato
“[Kids] don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”
~ Jim Henson
“How great it is when we come to know that times of disappointment can be followed by times of fulfillment; that sorry can be followed by joy; that guilt over falling short of our ideals can be replaced by pride by doing all that we can; and that anger can be channeled into creative achievements… and into dreams that we can make come true!”
~ Fred Rogers
“We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
~ Thomas S. Monson
“Our intention creates our reality.”
~ Wayne Dyer
~ John Holt
“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we are so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
~ Hans Christian Andersen
“Nobody learns unless he or she is ready to learn.”
~ Fred Rogers
“Play can continue to be a valuable tool for creative problem-solving all our lives.”
~ Fred Rogers
“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“Often, problems are knots with many strands, and looking at those strands can make a problem sseem different.”
~ Fred Rogers
~ Roger Lewin
“Children have a wonderful way of discerning the truth… even when we think its being hidden.”
~ Fred Rogers
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
~ William Butler Yeats
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our sunshine.”
~ Henry Ward Beecher
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you will be criticized anyway.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“Play is the work of childhood.”
~ Fred Rogers
