Maria Montessori > Quotes

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”
― Maria Montessori

“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.”
― Maria Montessori

“It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.”
― Maria Montessori

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

“We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's 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.”
― Maria Montessori

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
― Maria Montessori

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

“Within the child lies the fate of the future.”
― Maria Montessori

“Of all things love is the most potent.”
― Maria Montessori

“No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child”
― Maria Montessori

“Scientific observation then has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment.”
― Maria Montessori, Education For A New World

“Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future.”
― Maria Montessori

“Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.”
― Maria Montessori

“Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.”
― Maria Montessori

“The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul.”
― Dr. Maria Montessori

“Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.”
― Dr. Maria Montessori

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

“The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”
― Dr. Maria Montessori

“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.”
― Maria Montessori

“If salvation and help are to come, it is through the child ; for the child is the constructor of man.”
― Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

“Such prizes and punishments are, if I may be allowed the expression, the bench of the soul, the instrument of slavery for the spirit.”
― Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in 'The Children's Houses' with Additions and Revisions by the Author

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

“The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self.”
― Dr. Maria Montessori

“Our work is not to teach, but to help the absorbent mind in its work of development. How marvelous it would be if by our help, if by an intelligent treatment of the child, if by understanding the needs of his physical life and by feeding his intellect, we could prolong the period of functioning of the absorbent mind!”
― Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

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

“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.”
― Maria Montessori

“Great tact and delicacy is necessary for the care of the mind of a child from three to six years, and an adult can have very little of it.”
― Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

“The best instruction is that which uses the least words sufficient for the task.”
― Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

“Đứa bé chọn một mảnh giấy từ một đống rác, và nó bắt đầu đọc một câu chuyện. Thế là cuối cùng các em hiểu ra ý nghĩa của sách vở và sau đó, sách trở thành món có nhu cầu cao. Tuy nhiên nhiều đứa trẻ, khi thấy cái gì lý thú trong sách, chúng bèn xé trang đó ra và mang đi.”
― Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood

“We wish the old things because we cannot understand the new, and we are always seeking after that gorgeousness which belongs to things already on the decline, without recognising in the humble simplicity of new ideas the germ which shall develop in the future.”
― Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method