“Whenever creative work with children flourishes I seek the one who has opened up communication with them on the side of their secret, unexpressed selves.”

The hidden self is where the work begins · Educational writing on creative teaching

• Children
• Creativity
• Teaching

“Poesy is an art of imitation... a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight.”

Poetry joins moral instruction with pleasure · Essay, The Defence of Poesy

• Delight
• Poetry
• Teaching

“These words are for those who need words in order to understand. For those who understand without words, what use is speech?”

Original: این سخن برای آن کس است که سخن می‌باید تا بفهمد. اما آن را که بی‌سخن فهم می‌کند سخن چه فایده دارد؟ — A teacher’s defence of both talking and not talking, according to the hearer’s need. · Fihi Ma Fihi, Discourse 6 (Persian)

• Teaching
• Understanding
• Words

“Teaching accomplishes much, but encouragement accomplishes everything.”

Original: Lehre tut viel, aber Aufmunterung tut alles. — Goethe emphasises the motivating power of encouragement over instruction alone. · Conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann, 14 March 1830 (German)

• Education
• Encouragement
• Teaching

“Writing is an outward expression of instinctive insight that must be summoned from the vastly deep of our mysterious selves. Therefore, it cannot be taught; indeed, it cannot even be summoned; it can only be permitted.”

The teacher's task is to make room for what cannot be forced · Educational writing, commonly attributed

• Inspiration
• Teaching
• Writing

“Let those voices speak of self-reliance, noble striving, and ambition for high achievement, and the quality of the adult life will generally be of the same character.”

What childhood hears becomes the grain of later character · Foreword, The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer, 1920

• Ambition
• Character
• Teaching

“You must always love them as much as I love you, and you must teach them how to be good boys, which I cannot do as well as you can.”

A father's trust in his child's goodness · Letter to his son Arnold (as quoted in Edward Dowden, Studies in Literature, 1878)

• Fatherhood
• Love
• Teaching

“I am a cobbler: leather is plentiful, but I cut and stitch according to the size of the foot.”

Original: من کفشگرم: چرم بسیار است، اما بر اندازه پا می‌برم و می‌دوزم. — Teaching, for Rumi, is fitted to the listener rather than poured out at full measure. · Fihi Ma Fihi, Discourse 25 (Persian)

• Measure
• Teaching
• Words