The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life.

From a child's play, we can gain understanding of how he sees and construes the world--what he would like it to be, what his concerns are, what problems are besetting him.

A child... who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be changed from a menace into a desirable companion.

The child knows only that he engages in play because it is enjoyable. He isn't aware of his need to play--a need which has its source in the pressure of unsolved problems. Nor does he know that his pleasure in playing comes from a deep sense of well-being that is the direct result of feeling in control of things, in contrast to the rest of his life, which is managed by his parents or other adults.

Play reaches the habits most needed for intellectual growth.

The parent must not give in to his desire to try to create the child he would like to have, but rather help the child to develop--in his own good time--to the fullest, into what he wishes to be and can be, in line with his natural endowment and as the consequence of his unique life in history.

Television captures the mind but does not liberate it. A good book at once stimulates and frees the mind.