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

Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult.

A child starts from nothing and advances alone. It is the child's reason about which the sensitive periods revolve. The reason provides the initial force and energy, and a child absorbs his first images to assist the reason and act on it.

Growth is not merely a harmonious increase in size, but a transformation.

The ancient saying, "There is nothing in the intellect which was not first in some way in the senses," and senses being explorers of the world, opens the way to knowledge.

Children become like the things they love.

He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence.