In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to read more

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.

I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.

Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.

Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

I am bourgeois to the core and parochial beyond belief, and yet I am drawn to art and scholarship as read more

I am bourgeois to the core and parochial beyond belief, and yet I am drawn to art and scholarship as my anti-type, my shadow, the voice of distinction I never possessed. I don't think of myself as a teacher so much as an impersonator of profundities, inhabiting the wisdom of texts with the naked confidence that the value of the genius I espouse transcends the particular fraud that I am the one espousing it. And it doesn't even matter to me that no one seems to be listening; those who listen that I don't know about are enough to keep me going--soaring on the wings of borrowed metaphors.