The more we try to improve our schools, the heavier the teaching task becomes; and the better our teaching methods the more difficult they are to apply.

Our problem, from the point of view of psychology and from the point of view of genetic epistemology, is to explain how the transition is made from a lower level of knowledge to a level that is judged to be higher.

Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.

Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do.

Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself. On the other hand, that which we allow him to discover for himself will remain with him visible for the rest of his life.

When you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.

In other words, knowledge of the external world begins with an immediate utilisation of things, whereas knowledge of self is stopped by this purely practical and utilitarian contact.