Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves. — Jean Piaget

Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely. — Jean Piaget

Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself. On the other hand, that which we allow him to discover for himself will remain with him visible for the rest of his life. — Jean Piaget

From this time on, the universe is built up into an aggregate of permanent objects connected by causal relations that are independent of the subject and are placed in objective space and time. — Jean Piaget

I always like to think on a problem before reading about it. — Jean Piaget

Experience precedes understanding. — Jean Piaget

Logic and mathematics are nothing but specialised linguistic structures. — Jean Piaget

Accommodation of mental structures to reality implies the existence of assimilatory schemata apart from which any structure would be impossible. — Jean Piaget

Teaching means creating situations where structures can be discovered. — Jean Piaget

The essential functions of the mind consist in understanding and in inventing, in other words, in building up structures by structuring reality. — Jean Piaget

Logical positivists have never taken psychology into account in their epistemology, but they affirm that logical beings and mathematical beings are nothing but linguistic structures. — Jean Piaget

When you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself. — Jean Piaget

Everytime we teach a child something, we prevent him from inventing it himself. — Jean Piaget

It is with children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge, mathematical knowledge, physical knowledge, and so forth. — Jean Piaget

How can we, with our adult minds, know what will be interesting? If you follow the child…you can find out something new. — Jean Piaget

The child is a realist in every domain of thought, and it is therefore natural that in the moral sphere he should lay more stress on the external, tangible element than on the hidden motive. — Jean Piaget

One of the most striking things one finds about the child under 7–8 is his extreme assurance on all subjects. — Jean Piaget

Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds, capable of discovery from the preschool age on, throughout life? — Jean Piaget

Before playing with his equals, the child is influenced by his parents. He is subjected from his cradle to a multiplicity of regulations, and even before language he becomes conscious of certain obligations. — Jean Piaget

From the moral as from the intellectual point of view, the child is born neither good nor bad but master of his destiny. — Jean Piaget

The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things. — Jean Piaget

Egocentrism appears to us as a form of behavior intermediate between purely individual and socialized behavior. — Jean Piaget

Reflective abstraction, however, is based not on individual actions but on coordinated actions. — Jean Piaget

All morality consists in a system of rules, and the essence of all morality is to be sought for in the respect which the individual acquires for these rules. — Jean Piaget

On the one hand, there are individual actions such as throwing, pushing, touching, rubbing. It is these individual actions that give rise most of the time to abstraction from objects. — Jean Piaget

To express the same idea in still another way, I think that human knowledge is essentially active. — Jean Piaget

This means that no single logic is strong enough to support the total construction of human knowledge. — Jean Piaget

In other words, knowledge of the external world begins with an immediate utilisation of things, whereas knowledge of self is stopped by this purely practical and utilitarian contact. — Jean Piaget

What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge. — Jean Piaget

The current state of knowledge is a moment in history, changing just as rapidly as the state of knowledge in the past has ever changed and, in many instances, more rapidly. — Jean Piaget

Scientific knowledge is in perpetual evolution; it finds itself changed from one day to the next. — Jean Piaget

Childish egocentrism is, in its essence, an inability to differentiate between the ego and the social environment. — Jean Piaget