“If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.”

The possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of the child as natural phenomena and experimental reactions transforms the school itself in action into a kind of scientific laboratory for the psychogenetic study of man.

We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos.

The greatest development is achieved during the first years of life, and therefore it is then that the greatest care should be taken. If this is done, then the child does not become a burden; he will reveal himself as the greatest marvel of nature.

The child’s mind is not the type of mind we adults possess. If we call our type of mind the conscious type, that of the child is an unconscious mind. Now an unconscious mind does not mean an inferior mind.

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

Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on.

There can be no ‘graduated exercises in drawing’ leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.

All work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working.

Observation, very general and wide-spread, has shown that small children are endowed with a special psychic nature. This shows us a new way of imparting education!

My system is to be considered a system leading up, in a general way, to education. It can be followed not only in the education of little children from three to six years of age, but can be extended to children up to ten years of age.

The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world.

With man, the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit.

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.

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.

The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.

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.

whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.

We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation.

How shall we ever make the world intelligent of our movement? I do not think that the answer lies in trying to render feminism easy, popular, and instantly gratifying.

The more gifted by nature is a man, the more is deplorable the abuse that he does by using them to shameful ends.

An intelligent eveil-doer, having benefited from a higher education, represent a more saddening phenomenon (“phénomène”, Fr.) than an unfortune illiterate fellow having commited an offence.

To read as if your life depended on it would mean to let into your reading your beliefs, the swirl of your dreamlife, the physical sensations of your ordinary carnal life; and simultaneously.

Their messages are loud and clear: LET US OUT AND LEAVE US ALONE!!!

And to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.