Quotes by Maria Montessori

“The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.”

“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”

“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.”

“Free the childs potential, and you will transform him into the world”

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

“If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.”

“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 mans future.”

“The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.”

“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

“We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a childs spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.”

Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.

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

To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself--that is the first duty of the educator.

The environment acts more strongly upon the individual life the less fixed and strong this individual life may be.

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 mans future.

Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.

What is generally known as discipline in traditional schools is not activity, but immobility and silence. It is not discipline, but something that festers inside a child, arousing his rebellious feelings.

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.

The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth. From this almost mystic affirmation there comes what may seem a strange conclusion: that education must start from birth.

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.