The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!
MARIA MONTESSORITo aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe adolescent must never be treated as a child, for that is a stage of life that he has surpassed.
MARIA MONTESSORIIt 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIThere 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, almost religious dignity.
MARIA MONTESSORIMan is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization.
MARIA MONTESSORIWe 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIPersonal health is related to self-control and to the worship of life in all its natural beauty – self-control bringing with it happiness, renewed youth, and long life.
MARIA MONTESSORIIt is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing constitutes.
MARIA MONTESSORITo confer the gift of drawing, we must create an eye that sees, a hand that obeys, a soul that feels; and in this task, the whole life must cooperate. In this sense, life itself is the only preparation for drawing.
MARIA MONTESSORIThrough 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
MARIA MONTESSORIIf intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’
MARIA MONTESSORI