Maria Montessori
Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.Collection: Children
These words reveal the child’s inner needs; ‘Help me to do it alone’.Collection: Children
First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect.Collection: Firsts
Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.Collection: Joy
We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent.Collection: Children
Of all things love is the most potent.Collection: Love Is
Any child who is self-sufficient, who can tie his shoes, dress or undress himself, reflects in his joy and sense of achievement the image of human dignity which is derived from a sense of independence.Collection: Children
The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.Collection: Children
Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future.Collection: Education
When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength.Collection: Nature
He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence.Collection: Men
The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.Collection: Children
The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.Collection: Children
Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.Collection: Understanding
To consider the school as a place where instruction is given is one point of view. But, to consider the school as a preparation for life is another. In the latter case, the school must satisfy all the needs of life.Collection: School
Teach by teaching, not by correctingCollection: Teaching
The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.Collection: World
The child, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.Collection: Children
We are the sowers - our children are those who reap. We labor so that future generations will be better and nobler than we are.Collection: Children
The child has a different relation to his environment from ours... the child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Children
The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it.Collection: Children
A child's work is to create the person she/he will become.Collection: Children
The whole of mankind is one and only one, one race, one class and one society.Collection: Class
Whatever is presented to him must be made beautiful and clear, striking his imagination. Once this love has been kindled, all problems confronting the educationist will disappear.Collection: Beautiful
To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.Collection: Confusion
As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate.Collection: Children
The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Art
It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.Collection: Teacher
Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.Collection: Character
Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements.Collection: Achievement
...we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. 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.Collection: Teacher
Children have an anxious concern for living beings, and the satisfaction of this instinct fills them with delight. It is therefore easy to interest them in taking care of plants and especially of animals. Nothing awakens foresight in a small child such as this. When he knows that animals have need of him, that little plants will dry up if he does not water them, he binds together with a new thread of love today's passing moments with those of the morrow.Collection: Children
A child needs freedom within limits.Collection: Children
The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth.Collection: Children
What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love.Collection: Children
The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator.Collection: Children
The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Children
Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.Collection: Imagination
If we really want children to grow into independent and resourceful adults, we should stop pouring their milk as soon as they have learned to pour it themselves and stop fastening their buttons as soon as they can fasten them without help.Collection: Children
Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.Collection: Environmental
Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.Collection: Children
The adult works to improve his environment while the child works to improve himself.Collection: Children
This is the treasure we need today - helping the child become independent of us and make his way by himself, receiving in return his gifts of hope and light.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Perseverance
Giving children the opportunity to stir up life and leave it free to discover.Collection: Children