Maria Montessori Education Quotations

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

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

We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.

If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks.

We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.

The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth. From this almost mystic affirmation there comes what may seem a strange conclusion: that education must start from birth.

And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.

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

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

The children are now working as if I did not exist.

The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth. From this almost mystic affirmation there comes what may seem a strange conclusion: that education must start from birth.

The aim of education should not be to teach how to use human energies to improve the environment, for we are finally beginning to realize that the cornerstone of education is the development of the human personality, and that in this regard education is of immediate importance for the salvation of mankind.