“It is not true that I invented what is called the Montessori Method… I have studied the child; I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is what is called the Montessori Method.”

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.

The 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.

If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course.

If the ways of the Almighty are not humanly logical, it is not the fault of the Almighty but of the limitations of human logic.

The person who is developing freely and naturally arrives at a spiritual equilibrium in which he is master of his actions, just as one who has acquired physical poise can move freely.

The chief symptom of adolescence is a state of expectation, a tendency towards creative work, and a need for the strengthening of self-confidence.

Technology is anything invented after you were born, everything else is just stuff.

It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

We cannot predict the future, but we can invent it.

I invented the historical spy novel.

The free lunch has still to be invented.

We need to invent a non-Euclidian mathematics with respect to political discipline.

The true success is the person who invented himself.