“If the whole of mankind is to be united into one brotherhood, all obstacles must be removed so that men, all over the surface of the globe, should be as children playing in a garden.”

Moral Education is the source of that spiritual equilibrium on which everything else depends and which may be compared to that physical equilibrium or sense of balance, without which it is impossible to stand upright or to move into any other position.

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

It is surprising to notice that even from the earliest age, man finds the greatest satisfaction in feeling independent. The exalting feeling of being sufficient to oneself comes as a revelation.

I have for many years interested myself in the study of children from three years upwards. Many have urged me to continue my studies on the same lines with older children. But what I have felt to be most vital is the need for more careful and particularized study of the tiny child.

It is not true that I invented what is called the Montessori Method… I have studied the child; I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is what is called the Montessori Method.

The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it.

Indeed there are powers in the small child that are far greater than is generally realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up, of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all – zero!

We all know the sense of comfort of which we are conscious when a good half of the floor space in a room is unencumbered; this seems to offer us the agreeable possibility of moving about freely.

It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing constitutes.

The man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his own word, his own convictions, his own affections.

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.

Through machinery, man can exert tremendous powers almost as fantastic as if he were the hero of a fairy tale. Through machinery, man can travel with an ever increasing velocity; he can fly through the air and go beneath the surface of the ocean.

We await the successsive births in the soul of the child. We give all possible material, that nothing may lack to the groping soul, and then we watch for the perfect faculty to come, safeguarding the child from interruption so that it may carry its efforts through.

Dependence is not patriotism. A man does not love his mother if he hangs about her to the point of burdening her with a weak, feckless son.

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. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual’s total development lags behind?

We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all.

All I care about is that people who like me think I’m funny. I get on with writing pretty straight-down the line, old-fashioned stuff.

We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.

My family’s lineage, we are warriors. The McGregor clan, we are warriors all through.

My dad never really wrote what he thought. None of his inner rage and darkness and problems, which we all have, made it on to the page. For him, writing was a process of making everything appear funny.

I have a self-defense mind. I’ve had it all my life.