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

No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was.

This is the age in which language and movement develop. The child must be safeguarded in order that these activities may develop freely.

The ability to see reality in form, in color, in proportion, to be master of the movements of one’s own hand – that is what is necessary.

The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.

The social relations which are the basis of the reproduction of the species are founded upon the continuous union of parents in marriage.

Suddenly, the child becomes very sensitive to the rudeness and humiliations which he had previously suffered with patient indifference.

It would be so simple to allow children, when tired of sitting, to rise, and when tired of writing, to desist, and then their bones would not be twisted.

How can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?

Man 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.

The maternal duty of suckling her own children, prescribed to mothers by hygienists, is based on a physiological principle: the mother’s milk nourishes an infant more perfectly than any other.

The consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, almost religious dignity.

Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society.

At three years of age, the child has already laid the foundations of the human personality and needs the special help of education in the school.

When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.

Education is a work of self-organization by which man adapts himself to the conditions of life.

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

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

I don’t want people to think I’m not happy when we win – I am. But there’s a difference between being happy for the feeling of accomplishing something and being overjoyed and feeling, ‘This is it – we conquered the world.’ We didn’t. We just won a game.

My life, at least, is divided between writing and performing and mixtures of the two.

A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

There’s one major difference between James Bond and me. He is able to sort out problems!

You know, I have several projects coming up between 2014 and 2015, and hopefully by 2015, I’ll have another hour of stand-up material where I’ll be able to go on the road and tour again.

The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have done and what we might have been on the one hand, and the thing we have made and the things we have made of ourselves on the other.