Many of us operate as sea kayaking coaches in both formal and informal settings. It may be working with a group of students or it might just be a casual piece of advice offered to a paddling companion whilst out on a trip. Whichever is the case, there are a number of common principals. One of the things which I have enjoyed over the years is the collection of inspirational or thought provoking quotes. Some of them are capable of making us re-assess our whole approach to teaching, whereas others are a bit of light-hearted fun.
Clearly, we would appreciate your contributions and any relevant, inspiring or interesting photographs would also be helpful. In addition, we don’t always know where the quotes come from so if you are able to offer more accurate sources then we would appreciate your help.
Over the months that we have been running this section it has grown to be a comprehensive record of quotes but there is still room for plenty more.
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations
Winston Churchill
You can’t get much done in life if you only work on days when you feel good!
Jerry West
Basketball player
My persistence is the measure of the belief I have in myself.
Walt Disney
Try. Fail. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Becket
Intelligence is what we use when we don't know what to do
Piaget
To know and not to use is not yet to know
The Buddha
I can do it!
unknown
If teaching was a simple as telling we would all be a lot smarter than we are.
Mark Twain
"The true pilot is the sailor who navigates the bed of the ocean more than
its surface. The waves are an external problem, continually complicated by
the submarine configuration of the sea over which the boat is traveling."
Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
'The faster you admit to not having the answer to something, the more time you have to fine one!
University of the First Age
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.'
Beverly Sills - Opera Singer
When things get easy, it's easy to stop growing.
'Unknown'
'Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.'
Dag Hammarskjöld - Swedish Statesman
"Without an understanding of what the brain was designed to do in the environment in which we evolved, the unnatural activity called education is unlikely to succeed."
Stephen Pinker (How the Mind Works)
"You're a 'but' man. That's the difference between success and failure - the use of the word 'but'".
Homer Simpson (explaining the secret of success to neighbour Ned Flanders).
"You'll never make up for what you have lost today."
John Muir
"No one knows the ways of the wind or the caribou."
Inupiat Indians
"Toiling in the treadmills of life we hide from the lessons of nature."
John Muir
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
Albert Einstein
"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops.
Henry B Adams
"I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think."
Socrates
"One is always a long way from solving a problem until one ctually has the answer."
Steven Hawking
He who can, does. He who cannot teaches
George Bernard Shaw
One can succeed at almost anything for which he has enthusiasm
Charles Schwab
The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.
B.B. King
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
Galileo Galilei
A professor is someone who talks in someone elses sleep.
Unknown.
If you study to remember, you will forget, but, If you study to understand, you will remember.
Unknown
The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done -- men who are creative, inventive and discoverers.
Jean Piaget
In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
Eric Hoffer
Coaching is 90% attitude and 10% technique.
Unknown
You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf
Joseph Goldstein
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.
C.S.Lewis
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Life is a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller
Those who act receive the prizes
Aristotle
We must either find a way or make one
Hannibal
If everything seems under control you are not going fast enough.
Mario Andretti
Nature has always had more force than education.
Voltaire
Learning is not compulsory ....... neither is survival.
W Edwards Deeming
Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.
Chinese Proverb
There's only one corner of the universe that you can be certain of changing, and that's your own.
Aldous Huxley
The more you link, the more you learn
Jeanette Vos
Your most valuable asset in learning is a positive attitude.
Bobby DePorter
People will exceed targets they set themselves
George Dryden
A mind stretched by a new idea never returns to its original dimensions
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Success comes in cans, failure in can'ts
University of the First Age
Your most valuable asset in learning is a positive attitude
Bobby De Porter
To learn anything fast and effectively you see it, hear it, feel it.
Tony Stockwell - Professor of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
90 per cent of everything is mental, and the rest is all in your head
Yogi Berra, quoted by Ken Campbell in "Around the Rock"
Emblazon these words on your mind ............
............. learning is more effective when it is fun
Peter Kline
Just do it!
You learn to talk by talking.
You learn to walk by walking.
You learn best by doing it!
University of the First Age
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Henry Ford
Submitted by Francis Ross
Twenty years from now you will be more disapointed by the things you didn't do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only last thing is self motivation.
Homer Rice