If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks.

Human dignity ... is derived from a sense of independence.

The teacher, when she begins work in our schools, must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work.

There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature; to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature.

It is easy to substitute our will for that of the child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when we have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality.

Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.

A child in his earliest years, when he is only two or a little more, is capable of tremendous achievements simply through his unconscious power of absorption, though he is himself still immobile. After the age of three he is able to acquire a great number of concepts through his own efforts in exploring his surroundings. In this period he lays hold of things through his own activity and assimilates them into his mind.