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!
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 MONTESSORITemptation, if it is not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone, beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid.
MARIA MONTESSORIIt is fortunate, I think, that nature is not bounded by human reason and by laboratory work and experimentation, for by the laws of pure reason and by microscopic investigation, it might easily have been proved, long before this, that children could not be born.
MARIA MONTESSORIIndeed 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!
MARIA MONTESSORIIt 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.
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 MONTESSORIOnce we have lived, the inner spark of vision does the rest.
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 MONTESSORIHow can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?
MARIA MONTESSORINo, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world.
MARIA MONTESSORIAll work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working.
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 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 MONTESSORIWoman was always the custodian of human sentiment, morality and honour, and in these respects, man always has yielded woman the palm.
MARIA MONTESSORIMoral 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.
MARIA MONTESSORI