Maria Montessori Quotes

How often is the soul of man - especially in childhood - deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature.

This system in which a child is constantly moving objects with his hands and actively exercising his senses, also takes into account a child's special aptitude for mathematics. When they leave the material, the children very easily reach the point where they wish to write out the operation. They can thus carryout an abstract mental operation and acquire a kind of natural and spontaneous inclination for mental calculations.

At a given moment a child becomes interested in a piece of work, showing it by the expression of his face, by his intense attention, by his perseverance in the same exercise. That child has set foot upon the road leading to discipline.

We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.

Order is not goodness; but perhaps it is the indispensable road to arrive at it.

If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?

Freedom in intellectual work is found to be the basis of internal discipline.

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

Children are not only sensitive to silence, but also to a voice which calls them ... Out of that silence.

When a child is given a little leeway, he will at once shout, "I want to do it!" But in our schools, which have an environment adapted to children's needs, they say, "Help me to do it alone." And these words reveal their inner needs.

All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become.

Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, where study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants -- doing nothing but live and walk about -- came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning; would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning.

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.

The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often the profound tranquility in work is achieved, then the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child.

The environment itself will teach the child, if every error he makes is manifest to him, without the intervention of a parent of teacher, who should remain a quiet observer of all that happens.

Learning to speak, therefore, and the power it brings of intelligent converse with others, is a most impressive further step along the path of independence ... Learning to walk is especially significant, not only because it is supremely complex, but because it is done in the first year of life.

To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.

A child is mysterious and powerful; And contains within himself the secret of human nature.

What the hand does the mind remembers.

The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.

The child becomes a person through work.

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.

It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give to teach child the chance to fulfil his potential possibilities.

Our goal is not so much the imparting of knowledge as the unveiling and developing of spiritual energy.

Deceit is a kind of garment that conceals the soul. It might even be compared to a whole wardrobe, so many are its guises.

The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.

By the age of three, the child has already laid down the foundations of his personality as a human being, and only then does he need the help of special scholastic influences. So great are the conquests he has made that one may well say: the child who goes to school at three is already a little man.

Adults look upon a child as something empty that is to be filled through their own efforts, as something inert and helpless for which they must do everything, as something lacking an inner guide and in constant need of inner direction. . . . An adult who acts in this way, even though he may be convinced that he is filled with zeal, love, and a spirit of sacrifice on behalf of his child, unconsciously suppresses the development of the child's own personality.

We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself; this is the art of those who aspire to serve the spirit.

The children are now working as if I did not exist.

The aim of education should not be to teach how to use human energies to improve the environment, for we are finally beginning to realize that the cornerstone of education is the development of the human personality, and that in this regard education is of immediate importance for the salvation of mankind.

Conventions which camouflage a man's true feelings are a spiritual lie which help him adapt himself to the organized deviations of society.

The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.

If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying.

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.

One of the great problems facing men is their failure to realize the fact that a child possesses an active psychic life even when he cannot manifest it, and that the child must secretly perfect this inner life over a long period of time.

We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.

As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate.

Environment is undoubtedly a secondary factor in the phenomena of life; it can modify in that it can help or hinder, but it can never create.

If education recognizes the intrinsic value of the child's personality and provides an environment suited to spiritual growth, we have the revelation of an entirely new child whose astonishing characteristics can eventually contribute to the betterment of the world.

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

The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.

The child's conquest of independence begins with his first introduction to life. While he is developing, he perfects himself and overcomes every obstacle that he finds in his path. A vital force is active within him, and this guides his efforts towards their goal. It is a force called the 'horme', by Sir Percy Nunn.

Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.

Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.

The child’s progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him.

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