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

“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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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

“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

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

“Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.”
― 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, Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook

“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