A child’s work is to create the person she/he will become. — Maria Montessori

Play is the work of the child. — Maria Montessori

There can be no substitute for work, neither affection nor physical well–being can replace it. — Maria Montessori

The child becomes a person through work. — Maria Montessori

The child will reveal himself through work. — Maria Montessori

Work is necessary; it can be nothing less than a passion; a person is happy in accomplishment. — Maria Montessori

Only practical work and experience lead the young to maturity. — Maria Montessori

The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment. — Maria Montessori

Sometimes very small children in a proper environment develop a skill and exactness in their work that can only surprise us. — Maria Montessori

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. — Maria Montessori

Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists. — Maria Montessori

The adult ought never to mold the child after himself, but should leave him alone and work always from the deepest comprehension of the child himself. — Maria Montessori

The child is much more spiritually elevated than is usually supposed. He often suffers, not from too much work, but from work that is unworthy of him. — Maria Montessori

The adult works to improve his environment while the child works to improve himself. — 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

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

Freedom in intellectual work is found to be the basis of internal discipline. — Maria Montessori

The teacher, when she begins work in our schools, must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work. — Maria Montessori

The child seeks for independence by means of work; an independence of body and mind. — Maria Montessori

Happiness is not the whole aim of education. A man must be independent in his powers and character; able to work and assert his mastery over all that depends on him. — Maria Montessori

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

The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often the profound tranquility in work is achieved, then the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child. — Maria Montessori

An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child’s energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self–mastery. — Maria Montessori

Education is a work of self–organization by which man adapts himself to the conditions of life. — Maria Montessori

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. — Maria Montessori

The fundamental basis of education must always remain that one must act for oneself. That is clear. One must act for him or herself. — Maria Montessori

It might be said that the same thing is true of every form of education; a man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done. — Maria Montessori

Education is the best weapon for peace. — Maria Montessori

This is the hope we have–a hope in a new humanity that will come from this new education, an education that is collaboration of man and the universe…. — Maria Montessori

First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect. — Maria Montessori

Education must start from birth. — Maria Montessori

Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society. — Maria Montessori

The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn. — Maria Montessori

The real preparation for education is the study of one’s self. — Maria Montessori

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. — Maria Montessori

The education of the senses has, as its aim, the refinement of the differential perception of stimuli by means of repeated exercises. — Maria Montessori

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

Culture and education have no bounds or limits; now man is in a phase in which he must decide for himself how far he can proceed in the culture that belongs to the whole of humanity. — Maria Montessori

We cannot create observers by saying ‘observe’, but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses. — Maria Montessori

A new education from birth onwards must be built up. Education must be reconstructed and based on the law of nature and not on the preconceived notions and prejudices of adult society. — Maria Montessori

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. — 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 concept of an education centered upon the care of the living being alters all previous ideas. Resting no longer on a curriculum, or a timetable, education must conform to the facts of human life. — Maria Montessori

Of all things love is the most potent. — Maria Montessori

Children become like the things they love. — Maria Montessori

Love and the hope of it are not things one can learn; they are a part of life’s heritage. — Maria Montessori

The study of love and its utilization will lead us to the source from which it springs, The Child. — Maria Montessori

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. — Maria Montessori

Children display a universal love of mathematics, which is par excellence the science of precision, order, and intelligence. — Maria Montessori

Now, what really makes a teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a mission. — Maria Montessori

No one can be free unless he is independent. — Maria Montessori

Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world. — Maria Montessori

The child’s progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him. — Maria Montessori

No one can be free unless he is independent… In reality, he who is served is limited in his independence. — Maria Montessori

Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity and he will feel free. — Maria Montessori

This then is the first duty of an educator: to stir up life but leave it free to develop. — Maria Montessori

Free choice is one of the highest of all mental processes. — Maria Montessori

To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator. — Maria Montessori

To stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, herein lies the first task of the teacher. — Maria Montessori

If children are allowed free development and given occupation to correspond with their unfolding minds their natural goodness will shine forth. — Maria Montessori

The child is the spiritual builder of mankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in the wall by which the soul of man has become imprisoned. — Maria Montessori

No one can be free unless he is independent. Therefore, the first active manifestations of the child’s individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence. — Maria Montessori

Human dignity … is derived from a sense of independence. — Maria Montessori

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

The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth. — Maria Montessori

The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself. — Maria Montessori

The greatest step forward in human evolution was made when society began to help the weak and the poor, instead of oppressing and despising them. — Maria Montessori

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force. — Maria Montessori

Woman was always the custodian of human sentiment, morality and honour, and in these respects, man always has yielded woman the palm. — Maria Montessori

Social grace, inner discipline and joy. These are the birthright of the human being who has been allowed to develop essential human qualities. — Maria Montessori

The respect and protection of woman and of maternity should be raised to the position of an inalienable social duty and should become one of the principles of human morality. — Maria Montessori

We seek to sow life in the child rather than theories, to help him in his growth, mental and emotional as well as physical, and for that we must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind. — Maria Montessori

Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create. — Maria Montessori

The hand is, in the highest degree, a human characteristic. It is man’s organ of grasp and of the sense of touch, while in animals these two functions are relegated to the mouth. — Maria Montessori

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. — Maria Montessori

Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult’s life, for it is in his early years that a man is made. — Maria Montessori

We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life. — 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

Concentration is a part of life. It is not the consequence of a method of education. — Maria Montessori

With man, the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit. — Maria Montessori

Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child open up to himself about life. — Maria Montessori

Education, as conceived today, is something separated both from biological and social life. — Maria Montessori

If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested. — Maria Montessori

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. — Maria Montessori

If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course. — Maria Montessori

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

The child, merely by going on with his life, learns to speak the language belonging to his race. It is like a mental chemistry that takes place in the child. — Maria Montessori

The development of the child during the first three years after birth is unequaled in intensity and importance by any period that precedes or follows in the whole life of the child. — Maria Montessori

The world of education is like an island where people cut off from the world are prepared for life by exclusion from it. — Maria Montessori

It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has. — Maria Montessori

Two things are necessary, the development of individuality and the participation of the individual in a truly social life. — Maria Montessori

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

The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world. We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos. — Maria Montessori

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. — Maria Montessori

It follows that at the beginning of his life the individual can accomplish wonders without effort and quite unconsciously. — Maria Montessori

There is no description, no image in any book that is capable of replacing the sight of real trees, and all of the life to be found around them in a real forest. — Maria Montessori

Environment is undoubtedly a secondary factor in the phenomena of life; it can modify in that it can help or hinder, but it can never create. — Maria Montessori