Best 282 quotes of Maria Montessori on MyQuotes

A child in his earliest years, when he is only two or a little more, is capable of tremendous achievements simply through his unconscious power of absorption, though he is himself still immobile. After the age of three he is able to acquire a great number of concepts through his own efforts in exploring his surroundings. In this period he lays hold of things through his own activity and assimilates them into his mind.

A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form.

A child is an eager observer and is particularly attracted by the actions of the adults and wants to imitate them. In this regard an adult can have a kind of mission. He can be an inspiration for the child's actions, a kind of open book wherein a child can learn how to direct his own movements. But an adult, if he is to afford proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.

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

A child's character develops in accordance with the obstacles he has encountered... or the freedom favoring his development that he has enjoyed.

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.

Adults have not understood children or adolescents and they are, as a consequence, in continual conflict with them.

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.

A great deal of time and intellectual force are lost in the world, because the false seems great and the truth so small and insignificant.

A humankind abandoned in its earlier formative stage becomes its own greatest threat to survival.

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.

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

An adult who does not understand that a child needs to use his hands and does not recognize this as the first manifestation of an instinct for work can be an obstacle to the child's development

An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.

An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in which they live.

A new education from birth onwards must be built up. Education must be reconstructed and based on the law of nature and not on the preconceived notions and prejudices of adult society.

An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child's energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery.

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.

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

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.

At birth, the child leaves a person - his mother's womb - and this makes him independent of her bodily functions. The baby is next endowed with an urge, or need, to face the out world and to absorb it. We might say that he is born with 'the psychology of world conquest.' By absorbing what he finds about him, he forms his own personality.

A teacher, therefore, who would think that he could prepare himself for his mission through study alone would be mistaken. The first thing required of a teacher is that he be rightly disposed for his task.

At one year of age the child says his first intentional wordhis babbling has a purpose, and this intention is a proof of conscious intelligenceHe becomes ever more aware that language refers to his surroundings, and his wish to master it consciously becomes also greater.Subconsciously and unaided, he strains himself to learn, and this effort makes his success all the more astonishing.

Beauty lies in harmony, not in contrast; and harmony is refinement; therefore, there must be a fineness of the senses if we are to appreciate harmony.

Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity, and he will be free. We see no limit to what should be offered to the child, for his will be an immense field of chosen activity.

Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity and he will feel free.

But an adult if he is to provide proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.

But if for the physical life it is necessary to have the child exposed to the vivifying forces of nature, it is also necessary for his psychical life to place the soul of the child in contact with creation.

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.

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.

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

Children display a universal love of mathematics, which is par excellence the science of precision, order, and intelligence.

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.

Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man.

Concentration is a part of life. It is not the consequence of a method of education.

Concentration is the key that opens up to the child the latent treasures within him.

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

Culture and education have no bounds or limits; now man is in a phase in which he must decide for himself how far he can proceed in the culture that belongs to the whole of humanity.

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

Discipline must come through liberty.

Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.

Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.

Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves.

Education, as conceived today, is something separated both from biological and social life.

Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.

Education demands, then, only this: the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction.

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

Education should therefore include the two forms of work, manual and intellectual, for the same person, and thus make it understood by practical experience that these two kinds complete each other and are equally essential to a civilized existence.

Education today, in this particular social period, is assuming truly unlimited importance. And the increased emphasis on its practical value can be summed up in one sentence: education is the best weapon for peace.

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.