Barack Obama

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after he grows up.

The rules for parents are but three... love, limit and let them be.

Parents need to fill a child's bucket of self-esteem so high that the rest of the world can't poke enough holes to drain it dry.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.

Consider the postage stamp: Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail and not his tongue.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Like a 10-speed bike, most of us have gears we do not use.

What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are endless.

A word of praise is a verbal trophy for a child.

Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

One's work may be finished someday, but one's education never.

The beautiful thing about learning is that noboby can take it away from you.

Man's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover you have wings.

Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse.

Learning is the best of all wealth. It is easy to carry. Thieves cannot steal it.

Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

You learn something every day if you pay attention.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

It's not what is poured into a student, but what is planted.

It's okay to make mistakes. Mistakes our our teachers -- they help us to learn.

Education is more than filling a child with facts. It starts with posing questions.

The kids in our classroom are infinitely more significant than the subject matter we teach.

We all need someone who inspires us to do better than we know how.

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

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.

I hear and I forget, I see, and I remember. I do and I understand.

The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves.

They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way.

You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

Am aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

Too low they build who build beneath the stars.

Your dreams come true when you act to turn them into realities.

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.

Keep your heart open to dreams. For as long as there's a dream, there is hope, and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living.

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's levels of aspiration . . and expectation.

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Competition is a by product of productive work, not it's goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

Personal development is your springboard to personal excellence. Ongoing, continuous, non-stop personal development literally assures you that there is no limit to what you can accomplish.

That energy which makes a child hard to manage is the energy which afterward makes him a manager of life.

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence.  The only consequence is what we do.

A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank-account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the make of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a child.

Parents have the glorious opportunity of being the most powerful influence, above and beyond any other, on the new lives that bless their homes.

Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it. 

Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.

A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be.

Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be. 

To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.

Whoever said it first spoke with insight and wisdom: you don't own children, you only borrow them. 

Discipline doesn't break a child's spirit half as often as the lack of it breaks a parents heart.

Praise your children openly, reprehend them secretly. 

Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation.

Stop trying to perfect your child, but keep trying to perfect your relationship with him. 

All children behave as well as they are treated.

If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it.

Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow.

What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.

An aware parent loves all children he or she meets and interacts with—for you are a caretaker for those moments in time.

You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once. 

In bringing up children, spend on them half as much money and twice as much time. 

Kids spell love T-I-M-E. 

If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. 

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children.  One is roots.  The other is wings. 

Children have more need of models than of critics. 

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. 

I can't tell my children to reach for the sun.  All I can do is reach for it, myself. 

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours.