The great constructive energies of the child ... have hitherto been concealed beneath an accumulation of ideas concerning motherhood. We used to say it was the mother who formed the child; for it is she who teaches him to walk, talk, and so on. But none of this is really done by the mother. It is an achievement of the child. What the mother brings forth is the baby, but it is the baby who produces the man. Should the mother die, the baby still grows up and completes his work of making the man.

When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing

If I am going up a ladder, and a dog begins to bite at my ankles, I can do one of two things - either turn round and kick out at the it, or simply go on up the ladder. I prefer to go up the ladder!

The word education must not be understood in the sense of teaching but of assisting the psychological development of the child.

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

There are many who hold, as I do, that the most important part of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when a man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed. But not only his intelligence; the full totality of his psychic powers.

Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man.