These mentor quotes will inspire you to find that great teacher who will motivate you to achieve your best.

One of the best ways to improve yourself and your career is to find a mentor. The word “mentor” is as old as storytelling, first coined to mean a wise teacher in Homer’s The Odyssey, and its definition is little changed even now, thousands of years later.

It’s not easy to find a wise teacher, someone who will look out for you and guide you in the right direction.

But sometimes all we need is a little push to go after our destinies, and a mentor is the perfect person to do so.

What does your mentor mean to you?

Whether it’s a teacher who saw your potential, a boss who made you their protege, or a coach for a sporting team, there’s really no wrong place to find a mentor, as long as it’s someone you look up to. 

Today, we’ve collected the best mentor quotes from across the internet to not only inspire you, but to also motivate you to find a teacher who will push you, challenge you, and help you grow. 

Powerful mentor quotes to guide you

1. “It’s been true in my life that when I’ve needed a mentor, the right person shows up.” – Ken Blanchard

2. “A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” — Oprah Winfrey

3. “A mentor empowers a person to see a possible future, and believe it can be obtained.” -– Shawn Hitchcock

4. “Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. “In learning, you will teach, and in teaching, you will learn.” – Phil Collins

6. “If you cannot see where you are going, ask someone who has been there before.” – J Loren Norris

7. “What I think the mentor gets is the great satisfaction of helping somebody along, helping somebody take advantage of an opportunity that maybe he or she did not have.” — Clint Eastwood

8. “The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” – Steven Spielberg

9. “You cannot teach a man anything.  You can only help him discover it within himself.” – Galileo Galilei

10. “The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it,  to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not and never persist in trying to set people right.” – Hannah Whitall Smith

Also, check out these role model quotes on the influence of heroes in our lives.

Mentor quotes to motivate you to achieve your best

11. “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”― Margaret Mead 
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to check out our collection of Margaret Mead quotes challenging societal stereotypes.

12. “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”― Robert Frost 

13. “Search for role models you can look up to and people who take an interest in your career. But here’s an important warning: you don’t have to have mentors who look like you. Had I been waiting for a black, female Soviet specialist mentor, I would still be waiting. Most of my mentors have been old white men, because they were the ones who dominated my field.” –Condoleeza Rice

14. “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” – Steve Jobs

15. “The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.” – Plutarch

16. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the smartest person in the room: If you’re not someone who people want to be around, you won’t get far. Likewise for helping those in line behind you. I take seriously my role as a mentor to young female filmmakers–I make sure my time is tithed.” – Melissa Rosenberg

17. “My mentor said, ‘Let’s go do it,’ not ‘You go do it.’ How powerful when someone says, ‘Let’s!’” — Jim Rohn

18. “In order to be a mentor, and an effective one, one must care. You must care. You don’t have to know how many square miles are in Idaho, you don’t need to know what is the chemical makeup of chemistry, or of blood or water. Know what you know and care about the person, care about what you know and care about the person you’re sharing with.” – Maya Angelou

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of makeup quotes about the power of looking good.

19. “Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life. I don’t care what you do for a living—if you do it well I’m sure there was someone cheering you on or showing the way. A mentor.” – Denzel Washington

20. “We’re here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.” – Whoopi Goldberg

Mentor quotes that will broaden your thoughts

21. “Mentors build mentors. Leaders build leaders. When you look at it closely, it’s really one and the same thing.” – Tony Dungy

22. “Behind every great leader, at the base of every great tale of success, you will find an indispensable circle of trusted advisors, mentors, and colleagues.” – Unknown

23. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” — Isaac Newton

24. “Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.” – Samuel Smiles

25. “What you want in a mentor is someone who truly cares for you and who will look after your interests and not just their own. When you do come across the right person to mentor you, start by showing them that the time they spend with you is worthwhile.” – Vivek Wadhwa

26. “My mistakes have been my greatest mentors.” – Steve Maraboli

27. “If a man is to shed the light of the sun upon other men, he must first of all have it within himself.” – Romain Rolland

28. “Mentoring is an indispensable requirement for an artist’s growth. Not only are skills and experience shared, but there is value in the essential re-examination of one’s own work and techniques.” – Jim Norman

29. “We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout.” – Epictetus

30. “No man is capable of self-improvement if he sees no other model but himself.” – Conrado I. Generoso

Mentor quotes to guide you in the right direction

31. “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.” – Anonymous

32. “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.” – Rachel Carson

33. “Mentoring brings us together – across generation, class, and often race – in a manner that forces us to acknowledge our interdependence, to appreciate, in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words, that ‘we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.’” –Marc Freedman

34. “The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.” – Edward Buller-Lyton

35. “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.” – Carl Jung
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36. “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth.” – Dan Rather

37. “The best teachers are those who tell you where to look – but don’t tell you what to see.” – Alexandra K.Trenfor

38. “Conflict between an apprentice and his master is not always bad; in fact, it is almost inevitable, if the apprentice’s destiny is to exceed the accomplishments of the master.” – Kilroy J. Oldster

39. “Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.” – Samuel Taylor

40. “More than mere teachers, mentors are often emancipators, freeing artists from poor technique, clouded vision and personal uncertainty.” – Paul Soderberg

Mentor quotes to inspire and teach

41. “What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” – Stephen Covey

42. “The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.” – Author Unknown

43. “It’s easy to make a buck.  It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.” – Tom Brokaw

44. “Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” –Jacques Barzun

45. “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” – Khalil Gibran

46. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams

47. “The people closest to me determine my level of success or failure. The better they are, the better I am. And if I want to go to the highest level, I can do it only with the help of other people. We have to take each other higher.” – John C. Maxwell

48. “Coaches are aware of how to ignite passion and motivate people. They have an energy that is contagious and know exactly how to get their team excited.” – Brian Cagnee
If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of team quotes that will inspire you and your teammates to collectively meet your goals.

49. “Good coaching is good teaching and nothing else.” – Pat Conroy

50. “A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.” –John Wooden

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of coaching quotes to motivate your team to the next level.

Other powerful mentor quotes

51. “Mentoring is: Sharing life’s experiences and God’s faithfulness.” – Janet Thompson

52. “The great masters are great mentors.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

53. “We are what our great Mentors have taught us.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

54. “True mentors have this unique ability to pick up vibes that everyone else misses from within you.” – Ahmad R Kazi

55. “A role model should be like the light at the end of a tunnel, guiding you when you are lost.” – Cristina Imre

56. “Mentors change lives, but students change mentors’ lives more.” – Richie Norton

57. “Be patient with yourself; trust in the Universe; find mentors; know that you can achieve whatever you set out to do.” – Diane L. Dunton

58. “Great mentors give wise guidance.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

59. “With careful guidance and mentorship, you will reach your highest self.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

60. “A mentor is a person, an expert in a specific area of endeavor, who trains, guides and observes a less experienced person to also become an expert through support, advice, and involvement in character-building opportunities.” – Israelmore Ayivor

Inspiring mentor quotes for teachers

61. “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

62. “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”  – Plato 

63. “Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”  – E.M. Forster 

64. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”  – William Arthur Ward 

65. “What is a teacher? I’ll tell you: it isn’t someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.”  – Paulo Coelho

66. “Leaders..should influence others..in such a way that it builds people up, encourages and edifies them so they can duplicate this attitude in others.”  – Bob Goshen 

67. “Mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults that we would like. It’s the only way we grow.”  – George Lucas

68. “Encouragement: To place courage within them, by coming along side them and inspiring them to hold on, to work hard, to fight for the cause placed in their care.”  – Jozua Van Otterloo

69. “A mentor is not someone who walks ahead of us and tells us how they did it.

A mentor is someone who walks alongside us to guide us on what we can do.”  – Simon Sinek 

70. “There is no greater feeling in the world than knowing that you’ve had a truly positive impact on the lives of others.”  – Michael ONeill

Mentor quotes about the power of mentoring others

71. “I’ve trained my people in mentoring entrepreneurs and made myself obsolete.” — Ram Shriram

72. “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” — John C. Crosby

73. “In a battery, I strive to maximize electrical potential. When mentoring, I strive to maximize human potential.” — Donald Sadoway

74. “I’ll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.” — Bernard Cornwell

75. “The recommendation when I’m mentoring folks, I always tell them – and we talked about this last year—take a risk.” — Ginni Rometty

76. “The path to diversity begins with supporting, mentoring, and sponsoring diverse women and men to become leaders and entrepreneurs.” — Denise Morrison

77. “I think it’s so important as a woman, and especially as a minority, to lift as you climb. So having people shadow you or mentoring people – that’s important to me.” — Maria Taylor

78. “I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.” — Tayari Jones

79. “A mentor is someone with a willingness to help others, who has a capacity to inspire, a determination to work hard, a clear sense of vision, an inspiring purpose, a deep sense of integrity and an appreciation for joy.” — Kerry Kennedy

80. “The problem with feminism in the second wave was that we fought so much among ourselves, and I think we did so much damage to the movement… and I think the next wave, the third wave, is women mentoring younger women and women helping younger women to enter the political process and the writing world.” — Erica Jong

Mentor quotes to inspire connection 

81. “I think a role model is a mentor – someone you see on a daily basis, and you learn from them.” -Denzel Washington

82. “The best way a mentor can prepare another leader is to expose him or her to other great people.” -John C. Maxwell

83. “As we get older, it’s important for us to help hand back some of what we’ve gained as we’ve grown older. It should be one of your responsibilities – it’s almost like being a mentor.” -Ciara

84. “If you ask most smart or successful people where they learned their craft, they will not talk to you about their time in school. It’s always a mentor, a particularly transformative job, or a period of experimentation or trial and error.” -Ryan Holiday

85. “Every kid needs a mentor. Everybody needs a mentor.” -Donovan Bailey

86. “If you’re early on in your career and they give you a choice between a great mentor or higher pay, take the mentor every time. It’s not even close. And don’t even think about leaving that mentor until your learning curve peaks.” -Stanley Druckenmiller

87. “Age is rarely a limitation to being a mentor.” -Ken Blanchard

88. “When looking to build a genuine connection with a mentor, you can simply partake in shared hobbies or activities the mentee or mentor is into, exchange stories, or partake in trust-building workshops together.” -Tobias Harris

89. “Men, if you are in a position of power or authority, please respectfully continue to mentor and work with talented individuals and those with promise, regardless if they are men or women.” -Carol Roth

90. “As a mentor, you have to be willing to put yourself in your mentee’s shoes to understand their struggles that they deal with.” -Tobias Keith

Positive Mentor Quotes For Your Inspiration

91. “You can’t teach a person to love something. But you can get him to feel the heat of your love for something.” ― James MacDonald

92. “Mentoring is the cultivation of young adults, the tender caring for and nurturing of them so that they will grow, flourish, and be fruitful.” ― Jeff Myers

93. “How you coach them is how they’re going to play.” ― Stefan Fatsis

94. “My mentors inspire and encourage me to fulfill my highest potential.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

95. “I think the most important quality of a mentor is that they are open to following students where they want to go. Not always pushing their own agenda.” ― Cordelia Jensen

96. “Great mentorship is priceless.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

97. “We were motivated by our mentors to go an extra mile.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

98. “Every great achiever is inspired by a great mentor.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

99. “We must never forget our teachers, our lecturers and our mentors. In their individual capacities have contributed to our academic, professional and personal development.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

100. “True Mentors, don’t make their mentees a clone of themselves” ― Bernard Kelvin Clive

Which of these mentor quotes inspired you to live your best life?

The best mentors are those that push you to your limits and challenge you to achieve things that you never thought were possible.

Their guidance can mean the difference between a life spent in stagnation and one that is constantly affected by your growth as a human and in your career.

No matter what type of mentor you’re looking for, one thing is for sure: you need someone who will motivate you to achieve your best.

These mentor quotes are meant to inspire you to find that great teacher in your life and to always be grateful for their help and guidance.

Which of these powerful mentor quotes resonated with you best? Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add? Let us know in the comment section below.

Live your best life with a mentor by your side.