“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver,” Proverb 25:11. –Holy Bible
How true!
Here are 35 quotes in 5 categories to chew on, memorize, or frame for your music studio. Or if you’re like me, plaster them all over the house on sticky notes.
Some of them are good reminders. Others lift me up when I need it. They encourage me to be the best teacher of music students I can be. I enjoy others’ favorite quotes, or ideas about how to use them with students.
Your studio website is a great place to include a quote. Don’t have one? You get one when you use Duet!
Quotes to Facilitate Teaching
- “We’ve been given two ears and two eyes but only one tongue, so we should hear and see more than we speak.” –Greek proverb
- “I never teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” –Socrates
- “I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” –Albert Einstein
- “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” –Mark VanDoren
- “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” –William Butler Yeats
- “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” –William Ward
- “Spoon feeding, in the long run, teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” –E. M. Forster
- “The greatest sign of success for a teacher…is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” –Maria Montessori
- “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” –Clay P. Bedford
- “What a child digs for becomes his own possession.” –Charlotte Mason
- “Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.” –Bob Talbert
- “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle
- “I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.” –Robert Frost
- “Speak less. Listen more. Ask more.” –Robin Steinweg
Quotes on Caring and Kindness
- “Be a little kinder than you have to.” –E. Lockhart
- “Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” –Plato
- “Everything you don’t know is something you can learn.” –Anonymous
- “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” –Aesop
- “The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.” –Anonymous
Quotes of Inspiration and Art
- “A great work of art is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty.” –Nadia Boulanger
- “If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.” –Sir James Barrie
- “Music is not hard. Climbing Mount Everest is hard. Music merely makes you think.” –Patti Coxwell
- “Conflict resolution is only a half-step away.” –Anonymous
- “Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.” –Plato
Quotes on Creativity
- “A painter paints on canvas. Musicians paint their pictures on silence.” –Leopold Stokowski
- “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” –Jack London
- “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” –Voltaire
- “Do not let the endless succession of small things crowd great ideals out of sight and out of mind.” –Charlotte Mason
- “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if you only try!” –Dr. Seuss
Quotes to Help the Musician-in-Progress
- “It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.” –Ella Fitzgerald
- “Lemonade comes from lemons. Take that mistake and make something brilliant of it!” –Robin Steinweg
- “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” –John Wooden
- “Young people can learn from my example that something can come from nothing. What I have become is the result of my hard efforts.” –Franz Joseph Haydn
- “Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” –Napoleon Hill
- “Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” –Salvadore Dali
- “Accentuate the positive.” –Harold Arlen
- “I’d far rather hear a student make music with mistakes than hear a perfect rendition of notes on a page.” –Robin Steinweg
Robin Steinweg has found music to be like the creamy filling of a sandwich cookie–sweet in the middle–especially making music with family. A great joy is seeing her students excited to make music for themselves. From her studio in Sauk-Prairie, Wisconsin, she teaches ages 4-84 piano, guitar, voice, woodwinds, ukulele and recorder. Musically, she composes, arranges, performs, directs, consults and teaches. She enjoys one musical husband, two musical sons, a musical daughter-in-law and a 2-yr-old granddaughter who lives life dolce and fortissimo. Robin also writes articles, devotions and books for adults and the kids in their lives.
