75 Mentorship Quotes

Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.

A student under my care owes his first allegiance to himself and not to my specialty; and must not be burdened with my work as if he followed no other and had contracted no obligation under heaven but that of satisfying my requirements.

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.

Actually, I was having dinner with Michael (Stipe, of R.E.M.) when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.

'No matter what your age and no matter where you come from, everyone can change the world in some way, whether it's being a mentor to someone younger than you or someone that doesn't have as much experience as you. If you're passionate enough, you can do whatever you want and definitely change the world.'

Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb -- they're often students, for heaven's sake.

I've always though that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way.

For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire.

I am more than ever awed and overwhelmed by the monumental talents it was my great, great privilege to work for and with. There is therefore no way I can thank you for this beautiful award without thanking all of them, because it is they who helped and honed, triggered and taught, pushed and pulled, dressed and photographed - and with endless patience and kindness and gentleness, guided and nurtured a totally unknown, insecure, inexperienced, skinny broad into a marketable commodity. I am proud to have been in a business that gives pleasure, creates beauty, and awakens our conscience, arouses compassion, and perhaps most importantly, gives millions a respite from our so violent world. Thank you, Screen Actors Guild and friends, for this huge honor - and for giving me this unique opportunity to express my deepest gratitude and love to all of those who have given me a career that has brought me nothing but happiness.

I found that but to glean after this man, is better than to be in at the harvest of others.

There's no question that His Holiness is my root guru, and he's been quite tough with me at times. I've had to explain to people who sometimes have quite a romantic vision of His Holiness that at times he's been cross with me, but it was very skillful. At the moment he did it, I'm not saying it was pleasant for me, but there was no ego attachment from his side. I'm very thankful that he trusts me enough to be the mirror for me and not pull any punches. Mind you, the first meetings were not that way; I think he was aware how fragile I was and was being very careful. Now I think he senses that my seriousness about the teachings has increased and my own strength within the teachings has increased. He can be much tougher on me.

One cannot make oneself, but one can sometimes help a little in the making of somebody else. It is well. ~ Ch 10

I am often asked why I don't pass on to young people what I have accomplished over the years. Actually, I would like very much to do so. Ninety-nine percent of those who worked as my assistant directors have now become directors in their own right. But I don't think any of them took the trouble to learn the most important things.

But there are very few people who can hold me in a way, to look at them and talk to me. And make me cry, and to talk to me about my life. And also to say, get out there. I believe in you. Go, go, go. And get me to go and go to get my life together. And for me to want to come back and say, look what I did.

I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and Jackson was good enough for me.

There is no fixed teaching. All I can provide is an appropriate medicine for a particular ailment.

Influence: 'If you study the Parable of the Sower, its surface suggests that people are much like a field that needs to be sowed with the seeds of good examples; carefully cultivated, weeded and tended to in order to produce a worthy crop. Ask yourselves what seeds do you sow in others? Do you cultivate and weed that the sprouts of goodness have a chance to grow. Don't make the mistake of sowing seeds of doubt and mistrust. Again, give people a chance and you will become a living part of their success.'

Education: 'Those who have actually lived them, best teach the lessons of life. Everyone should have role models. It is wise to seek friendship with those people who have achieved your own aspirations, and to work hard to learn from them, and even harder to give to them. Who could tell you more about the world than someone who has lived in it, and who could tell you more about the times than those who have traversed them?'

'Along with the rest of 'Deep Purple', I once had the chance to meet Elvis. For a young singer like me, he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper. It's the same as being in school - you learn by copying the maestro. His personality was also extremely endearing, his interviews were very self-effacing (and), he came over as gentle and was generous in his praise of others. He had a natural, technical ability, but there was something in the humanity of his voice, and his delivery. Those early records at the Sun Records label are still incredible and the reason is simple: he was the greatest singer that ever lived.'

My career from earliest childhood was like a bright shiny bucket in a bucket line - I was passed along from hand to hand with everyone helping.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot.

No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't want to know anyway... :-)

Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

You love me like a son, then why weren't you there when Stone Cold Steve Austin awarded me the hardcore championship on my special night?! (To Terry Funk)

I think I felt a bit trapped before I met Pete. Have you seen The Lavender Hill Mob? Alec Guinness plays this wonderful, colourful person who locks it all up and goes through the motions. I always felt a bit like that. But then I met the Pigman and he said, 'You can actually knock that on the head and get out.' So we threw ourselves into eternity. And it worked.

Paulus: The Dimensions of a Teacher (1988)

'Michael Vick is the next Steve McNair, not the other way around. Michael hopes to one day have the experience and poise that Steve has.'

There's no question that His Holiness is my root guru, and he's been quite tough with me at times. I've had to explain to people who sometimes have quite a romantic vision of His Holiness that at times he's been cross with me, but it was very skillful. At the moment he did it, I'm not saying it was pleasant for me, but there was no ego attachment from his side. I'm very thankful that he trusts me enough to be the mirror for me and not pull any punches. Mind you, the first meetings were not that way; I think he was aware how fragile I was and was being very careful. Now I think he senses that my seriousness about the teachings has increased and my own strength within the teachings has increased. He can be much tougher on me.

I myself, as a person, have been influenced by many writers and many things, and my writing has felt the impact of the writing of many writers, some relatively unknown and unimportant, some downright bad. But probably the greatest influence of them all when an influence is most effective - when the man being influenced is nowhere near being solid in his own right - has been the influence of the great tall man with the white beard, the lively eyes, the swift wit and the impish chuckle.

I found many men to whom I felt deeply grateful - especially Guy de Maupassant, Jack London, and H. L. Mencken - but the first man to whom I felt definitely related was George Bernard Shaw. This is a presumptuous or fatuous thing to mention, perhaps, but even so it must be mentioned. ... I myself, as a person, have been influenced by many writers and many things, and my writing has felt the impact of the writing of many writers, some relatively unknown and unimportant, some downright bad. But probably the greatest influence of them all when an influence is most effective - when the man being influenced is nowhere near being solid in his own right - has been the influence of the great tall man with the white beard, the lively eyes, the swift wit and the impish chuckle. ... I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself - of what I really was and would surely become - was George Bernard Shaw.

I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers. With somebody else, it may be a boy scout master. With somebody else, it will be a clergyman. Somebody else, an uncle who was wiser than the father. I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning. My job was to live through Friday afternoon, get through the week, and eat something. And then along came these differential experiences that you don't look for, that you don't plan for, but, boy, you better not miss them. The things that make you bigger than you are. The things that give you a vision. The things that give you a challenge.

Jane took me to another level because she's truly a wonderful writer. I'd put things together in the past and struggled with them. And then I met Jane. ... I was doing my Edith Ann album in '71 - the album came out in '72. She'd done a thing on television called J.T. - it was about a kid in Harlem - and she won a Peabody for it. I later learned it was the first thing she'd ever written. It was written as an After School Special, but they played it in prime time - and they played it every year after that for about 25 years, or something. Anyway, I saw it and it was wonderful. It was poetic and sensitive and satiric and tender and funny and so many things compressed into this one hour. And I thought, 'Oh, God, this is exactly what I want in a monologue.' So I wrote Jane and asked her to help me do the Edith Ann album. I didn't hear from her for a while. Then, suddenly, about a week before I was supposed to go in and record, she sent me a lot of material. I persuaded her to come to California and help me produce it. Frankly, I was pretty taken with her as soon as I saw her. We just sort of clicked. We became a couple right away.

We all choose our own teachers, don't we? I wonder if our choice of teacher shows anything about what our lives will be

There was once a man who knew me better than I knew myself. Who saw strength in me that I didn't know was there

to my niggas from old blocks/from old crews/niggas that guided me through/back in tha old school

Well I can see close into achieve/In times of danger don't freeze time to be a g/Follow my lead I supply everything you need/An ounce of game and the trainin to make a g

Through the intermissions search your heart for a plan/and we turnin Bad Boys to grown men, it's on again

If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.

Horn on working with her now former vocal coach, Bob Westbrook

From Hallaj, I learned to hunt lions, but I became something hungrier than a lion.

When I first came round in the medical center after my accident, the first face I saw was Ayrton's, with tears in his eyes. I had never seen that with Ayrton before. I just had the impression that he felt as if my accident was like one of his own. He helped me a lot with my career and I can't find the words to describe his loss.

(about Paula Abdul) She's just a wonderful woman. She has so much support and so much love in her heart - she's just been amazing through this whole thing, and we can't forget she's a rock star. She was a huge rock star. She has so much to offer us and teach us that we just need to shut up and listen, because she's the bomb.

Sakeasi Dikota, former Aide-de-Camp to Ratu Mara (1992-1994): 'Something that I learnt from Ratu Mara was his adherence to time .. he was a stickler for keeping up the time .. he was never, never late ... and he would ensure that all programmes were not late by a minute. Protocol was also high on his list of priority. I also admired his art of dressing immaculately ... he was always dressed according to the occasion ... something that young people can learn from him.'

Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine, not his.

Well, what is essential about you? And who are those who have helped you become the person that you are? Anyone who has ever graduated from a college, anyone who has ever been able to sustain a good work, has had at least one person and often many who have believed in him or her. We just don't get to be competent human beings without a lot of different investments from others.

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself.

The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is - not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.

Democracies must have leaders who are the people's prophets and who act as their mentors. A prophet must see ahead and turn the people's minds to the future. A mentor Cleveland was - a stern and determined one. A prophet he was not.

I've heard that before. I take it as a great compliment. I love Heath. He taught me everything I know.

I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

One of the most important things I learned in the couple of times I worked with Marlon Brando, and just by spending time with him, is it's okay to have a ball. It's okay to have fun and fuck up because, after all, it's only film. If you're able to get to a place where maybe your only motivation in the scene is to make the crew giggle, that's okay too. (2003)

You are going to Vienna in fulfillment of your long-frustrated wishes. The Genius of Mozart is mourning and weeping over the death of her pupil. She has found a refuge but no occupation with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him she wishes to form a union with another. With the help of assiduous labor you shall receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands.

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

I fell in love with Randy as a player and a person the instant I saw him. He had the best smile in the world. Randy was the best guy in the world to work with. There is no comparison between him and Tony Iommi, and I can only compare the two because they were the only guitar players I had ever worked with. I was attracted to Randy's angelic attitude towards the whole business. I didn't have to teach him anything; all that he was lacking was guidance. He listened to every word I spoke to him, and we had a great rapport together.

Hug and kiss whoever helped get you - financially, mentally, morally, emotionally - to this day. Parents, mentors, friends, teachers. If you're too uptight to do that, at least do the old handshake thing, but I recommend a hug and a kiss. Don't let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone.

What I learned from her, really, was having a sense of humour and knowing how important laughter was. ~ Patty Duke

I didn't always agree with Peter but I deeply admired his hard work, experience and integrity. When I first made the move from print to broadcast journalism, I remember watching him for long periods of time - simply to glean some tips. ~ Wolf Blitzer

'...We met in 1950, through John Cage, when I was sixteen and he in his early twenties. We were all doing work that was clearly different, newly different - from one another, but joined by our delight in each other's work (and by John Cage's organizing the concerts of it and a few musicians, David Tudor centrally, playing it), and by its difference from any other we knew. I still find mysterious his way of putting the music together, or rather of erasing any traces of a sense of its having been put together: it's just there. How does he do it? He's the only composer I know whose work seems made in a way that cannot be accounted for, explained, by any other means than the impossible one of becoming that composer oneself. He talked wonderfully, sharply, outrageously, but that wasn't quite his music. One thinks of the disparity of his large, strong presence and the delicate, hypersoft music, but in fact he too was, among other things, full of tenderness and the music is, among other things, as tough as nails.' - Christian Wolff, Composer and Pianist