Maria Montessori quotes

Development is a series of rebirths.
- Maria Montessori

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

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

Within the child lies the fate of the future.
- Maria Montessori

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

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

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

Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.
- Maria Montessori

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

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

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

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

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

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

The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul.
- Maria Montessori

You do not exist, you cannot hope to grow. That is the tremendous step the child takes, the step that goes from nothing to something.
- Maria Montessori

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.
- Maria Montessori

The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self.
- Maria Montessori

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