Literary Quote Posters Inspirational Teaching Resources in the Humanities & ELA

Do you cast your pearls to the swine? Is the unexamined life not worth living? Do clothes make the man? Or, should we not trust appearances? Have fun with your students and engage in critical thinking discussion with a dozen and more quote posters for the English Language Arts and Humanities classroom.

What’s Included:

• “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates, at his trial in Athens, 399 B.C.E. as recorded by Plato in The Apology (38a)
• Know Thyself (attributed to the Oracle at Delphi)
• “Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom?” Terry Pratchett
• “Don’t trust too much in appearances.” — Quintillian, Ancient Roman Teacher and Writer (c. 35 – c. 100 C.E.) 
• “Clothes make the man.” — Recorded by Erasmus, Counter-Reformation Writer, and Scholar (1466 – 1536 C.E.) N.B. The phrase is found in Multiple Babylonian, Greek, and Latin Sources. Even Polonius in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet says it: “The apparel doth oft proclaim the man.”
• “The owl of Minerva flies by night.” George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• On Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing — “The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis: “Things happen. What the hell”.”
• “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Auntie Mame
• “Man is born free, and yet everywhere he is in chains.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• “We are condemned to be free.” Jean-Paul Sartre
• “I am not free while any woman is not free, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” Audre Lorde
• Sisyphean Quote
• 19 Quotable Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche: Informational Text
• Graphic Organizer: Think About Any Quote
• Notetaking Template
• Includes over 33 individual quotes!

Suggestions for Use in the Classroom:

• Print out with a color printer and hang the poster in the classroom or the school library.
• Use it as a prompt for a free-write exercise.
• Use it as a resource for a teen advisory class.

This Speaking & Listening Resource Conforms to Common Core Standard:

“Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions.”

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