Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.

... the first thing his education demands is the provision of an environment in which he can develop the powers given him by nature. This does not mean just to amuse him and let him do what he likes. But it does mean that we have to adjust our minds to doing a work of collaboration with nature, to being obedient to one of her laws, the law which decrees that development comes from environmental experience.

A vital force is active in every individual and leads it towards its own evolution.

The fundamental basis of education must always remain that one must act for oneself. That is clear. One must act for him or herself.

Our aim is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.

First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect.

The greatest triumph of our educational method should always be this: to bring about the spontaneous progress of the child.