We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos.
MARIA MONTESSORIWe are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos.
MARIA MONTESSORIObservation, 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!
MARIA MONTESSORIThe man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his own word, his own convictions, his own affections.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe ancient superficial idea of the uniform and progressive growth of the human personality has remained unaltered, and the erroneous belief has persisted that it is the duty of the adult to fashion the child according to the pattern required by society.
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 MONTESSORIWhen the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.
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 MONTESSORIAll work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe 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 MONTESSORIWe recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.
MARIA MONTESSORIIf education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course.
MARIA MONTESSORIJoy, 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 MONTESSORIWe 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.
MARIA MONTESSORII 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIIt is better to treat an adolescent as if he had greater value than he actually shows than as if he had less and let him feel that his merits and self-respect are disregarded.
MARIA MONTESSORI