A humankind abandoned in its earlier formative stage becomes its own greatest threat to survival.

The greatest sign of success for a teacher...is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."

No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child ... No slave was ever so much the property of his master as the child is of his parent ... Never were the rights of man ever so disregarded as in the case of the child.

The child seeks for independence by means of work; an independence of body and mind.

Education demands, then, only this: the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction.

Education must start from birth.

At one year of age the child says his first intentional wordhis babbling has a purpose, and this intention is a proof of conscious intelligenceHe becomes ever more aware that language refers to his surroundings, and his wish to master it consciously becomes also greater.Subconsciously and unaided, he strains himself to learn, and this effort makes his success all the more astonishing.