Maria Montessori

"The child's questions are invitations to deeper understanding."

"A prepared environment respects the child's innate hunger for knowledge and understanding."

"The development of the child requires not control, but guidance and support."

"When we truly observe the child, we understand that he is teaching us."

"The child brings his whole being to the work of learning and growing."

"Practical life activities develop in the child a sense of capability and confidence."

"The small act of tending to one's environment is the beginning of civic responsibility."

"The child deserves an education that awakens him to beauty, truth, and goodness."

"The child is naturally drawn to order, and this is something we must respect and nurture."

"We teachers can only help the work which is being done, as servants help the master."

"If there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, there must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, there must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, there must be peace in the home."

"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.'"

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

"The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate 'apparent' pleasure in expression and 'apparent' creativity in thinking."

"We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation."

"The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself."

"Independence is a natural human need, and its satisfaction is a prerequisite for the development of a strong personality."

"The child's life is not an easy one. He is obliged to struggle against the environment which he finds around him."

"Our task is not to create a perfect society, but to help each child realize their fullest potential."

"The environment itself shall teach the child if we provide him with the proper tools."

"Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little she builds. The only way to hurry is to begin."

"The hand is the chief teacher of the child."

"We must prevent the obstacles and prepare the paths for their development."

"A people can be enslaved for generations without losing their humanity, but when education abandons them, they are truly lost."

"The greatest joy a teacher can know is to see the spark of independence kindle in a child's eyes."

"It is the will of the child that must guide us, and not we who should guide the will of the child."

"Let us imagine a child becoming passionate about creation and discovery."

"The child has a different relation to his environment from ours... it is a relation of absorption."

"We must work through the hand, through activity, through manipulation of the environment."

"The child who has become truly free will not be one without purpose, but will be spontaneously oriented toward life."