Maria Montessori Quotes

The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child's own natural desire to learn.

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.

The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.

To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely.

The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.

Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child.

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.

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."

Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world.

Our aim is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.

The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.

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.

What the hand does the mind remembers.

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.

The child has a mind able to absorb knowledge. He has the power to teach himself.

When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength.

We are the sowers - our children are those who reap. We labor so that future generations will be better and nobler than we are.

Play is the work of the child.

The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.

The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult.

The whole of mankind is one and only one, one race, one class and one society.

Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.

He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence.

The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth.

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

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.

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.

The child, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.

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

The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.

Joy is the evidence of inner growth.

Teach by teaching, not by correcting

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

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

These words reveal the child’s inner needs; ‘Help me to do it alone’.

The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!

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.

Of all things love is the most potent.

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.

I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori method.

To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.

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

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

Only when the child is able to identify its own center with the center of the universe does education really begin.