New School Year Quotes for Teachers, Sorted by Use

These new school year quotes for teachers are sorted by where they are going: a welcome message to a class, a card to a colleague in the staffroom, a first-day board display, or a newsletter to families. Most are card lines written to be used freely; where a line is a genuine quotation, it is credited with its source. A short section near the end lists the back-to-school lines that circulate under famous names but do not belong to them.

For a welcome message to your class

Short, warm, and addressed to the students rather than about them. Written for use — no attribution needed.

“Welcome back. This room is yours now too.”

“You do not have to be good at this yet. You have to show up and try it.”

“Everyone starts this year at the same place: the beginning.”

“Bring your questions. That is what the year is made of.”

“Last year is finished. This one has not been written.”

“You will get things wrong in here. That is the plan.”

For older students, one attributed line does more than six card lines:

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” — Plato, The Republic, Book II

For a staffroom card to a colleague

Teachers giving cards to teachers can be blunter, because the person opening it knows exactly what the first week costs. Card lines, written for use:

“Another September. Glad it is with you.”

“New timetable, same brilliant colleague.”

“Thirty new names by Friday. You will know them by Wednesday.”

“Here is to a year where the photocopier works.”

“You made last year survivable for a lot of people. Including me.”

“Whatever this year brings, I am next door.”

Two genuine quotations that suit a colleague’s card:

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” — Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1918)

“I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.” — Maya Angelou, interview with USA Today, 2008. Angelou taught at Wake Forest University from 1982 until her death in 2014, which makes the line more than a turn of phrase.

For more lines aimed at colleagues, see our sorted list of back to school quotes for teachers.

For a first-day board or bulletin display

Display copy has to read from the back of the room and stay true through October. Keep it under about ten words and avoid anything that only makes sense on day one.

Card lines for a display:

“Questions welcome. Especially the awkward ones.”

“Mistakes are working, not failing.”

“Read something. Ask something. Try something.”

“New year. New notebook. Same you, one year further on.”

“We are all new at something today.”

Attributed lines that hold up on a wall:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela, speech at the launch of Mindset Network, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 16 July 2003

“Let us remember: one book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” — Malala Yousafzai, address to the United Nations Youth Assembly, 12 July 2013

“Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them.” — Rita Pierson, TED Talks Education, 2013

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou, said to Oprah Winfrey and published in What I Know For Sure (2014)

The Pierson line is the strongest of these for a staff noticeboard rather than a student one, because it is aimed at adults. If you are building a reading corner instead, our list of reading quotes for teachers is a better fit.

For a newsletter to families

A first newsletter of the year needs one line at the top, not a paragraph of sentiment. Card lines, written for use:

“The year starts Monday. Here is what it looks like.”

“Thank you for sending them in. We will take it from here.”

“A good year runs on the same information reaching both houses and the classroom.”

“Nobody expects your child to have the whole year figured out in week one. Neither do we.”

An attributed opener, if you want one:

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds.” — Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

Keep the quote to the top of the newsletter and let the rest be dates, times and what to bring. Families are reading it for the information.

Back-to-school lines that are misattributed

Four of the most-shared September quotes are attached to the wrong names. They are still usable — just not with the attribution.

• “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Attributed to W. B. Yeats on posters everywhere. Yeats did not write it. The idea comes from Plutarch’s essay On Listening to Lectures, roughly: the mind is not a vessel to be filled but wood to be kindled. Credit Plutarch or credit nobody.
• “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Attributed to Benjamin Franklin. No version of it appears in his writings. Similar sayings appear in Chinese and later English sources.
• “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” Attributed to Margaret Mead. No source in her published work has been produced.
• “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Attributed to Maya Angelou, who did say versions of it. The earliest known appearance is in Richard Evans’ Quote Book (1971), credited to Carl W. Buehner.

If a line is going on a printed programme, a certificate or a display that stays up all year, check it first. An unattributed good line is fine. A confidently wrong attribution in a school building is worse than no quote at all.

How to pick one

Match the line to the reader. Students want something addressed to them in the second person. Colleagues want something that acknowledges the workload. Families want the information and one sentence of warmth before it.

Use one quote, not three. A welcome message with a stack of quotations reads as filler. If you are writing more than a couple of sentences, put the substance in your own words and let the quote open or close it.

And keep display quotes short. A ten-word line on a board gets read a hundred times over a term. A forty-word one gets read once.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good quote for the first day of school?
“The beginning is the most important part of the work,” from Plato’s Republic. For younger classes, a plain card line works better: “Everyone starts this year at the same place.”

What should a teacher write in a welcome message to students?
One warm line addressed to them directly, then the practical information — what to bring, where to sit, how the room works. The warm line does not need to be a quotation.

Is “education is not the filling of a pail” a Yeats quote?
No. It is widely printed under his name but he did not write it. The idea traces back to Plutarch’s On Listening to Lectures.

What can I write in a new school year card to another teacher?
Something that acknowledges the week they are having: “Thirty new names by Friday. You will know them by Wednesday,” or simply “Another September. Glad it is with you.”

For related pages, see quotes for teachers from students and first grade quotes for teachers.