Maria Montessori Quotes: Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori was born August 31, 1870 and died on May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician and educator. She is best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy. At an early age, Montessori enrolled in classes at an all-boys technical school, with hopes of becoming an engineer.
She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, becoming one of the first women to attend medical school in Italy.
She graduated with honors in 1896. Her educational method is in use today in many public and private schools globally.
Maria Montessori Quotes
What hand does the mind remember? – Maria Montessori
The development of the mind comes through movement. – Maria Montessori
Joy is the evidence of inner growth. – Maria Montessori
The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. – Maria Montessori
Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding. – Maria Montessori
No social issue is as universal as the oppression of the kid. – Maria Montessori
Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create. – Maria Montessori
We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself; this is the art of those who aspire to serve the spirit. – Maria Montessori
We must support as much as possible the child’s desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent. – Maria Montessori
Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation. – Maria Montessori
The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult. – Maria Montessori
These words reveal the child’s inner needs; “Help me to do it alone.” – Maria Montessori
The essence of independence is to be able to do something for oneself. – Maria Montessori
Never assist a kid with a task at which he feels he can succeed. – Maria Montessori
Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding. – Maria Montessori
The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy. – Maria Montessori
Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements. – Maria Montessori
The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. – Maria Montessori
Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements. – Maria Montessori
The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind. – Maria Montessori
A child’s work is to create the person she/he will become. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes on Peace
Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child. – Maria Montessori
Establishing enduring peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of the war. – Maria Montessori
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. – Maria Montessori
Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child. — Maria Montessori
Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and when the grass of the meadows is wet with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes on Nature
In nature everything is transformed but nothing destroyed. – Maria Montessori
When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength. – Maria Montessori
There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature; to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature. – Maria Montessori
Speech is one of the marvels that characterize man, and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have been accomplished by nature. – Maria Montessori
The selfsame procedure which zoology, a branch of the natural sciences, applies to the study of animals, anthropology must apply to the study of man; and by doing so, it enrolls itself as a science in the field of nature. – Maria Montessori
The 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 Montessori
Everyone in the world ought to do the things for which he is specially adapted. It is part of wisdom to recognize what each one of us is best fitted for, and it is part of our education to perfect and utilize such predispositions. Because education can direct and aid nature but can never transform her. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes on Love
Of all things love is the most potent. – Maria Montessori
The male of character is the persistent man faithful to his word, his convictions, and his love. – Maria Montessori
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. – Maria Montessori
What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love. – Maria Montessori
Now, what really makes a teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a mission. – Maria Montessori
The child who has felt a strong love for his surroundings and for all living creatures, who has discovered joy and enthusiasm in work, gives us reason to hope that humanity can develop in a new direction. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes about Teachers
Teach by teaching, not by correcting. – Maria Montessori
The child has a mind able to absorb knowledge. He has the power to teach himself. – Maria Montessori
We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master. – Maria Montessori
To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge. – Maria Montessori
A child needs freedom within limits. – Maria Montessori
To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge. – Maria Montessori
The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything! – Maria Montessori
The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. – Maria Montessori
It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience. – Maria Montessori
Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading. – Maria Montessori
When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education. Maria Montessori We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading. – Maria Montessori
…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. It is not acquired by listening to words, but by virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.- Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes about Children
As soon as children discover something that intrigues them, they lose their instability and find out how to concentrate. – Maria Montessori
If assistance and redemption are to come, they can originate from the kids, for the children are males’ makers. – Maria Montessori
The most significant sign of success for an instructor is to state that the children are now working as if they did not exist. – Maria Montessori
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. – Maria Montessori
We are the sowers – our children are those who reap. We labor so that future generations will be better and nobler than we are. – Maria Montessori
The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth. – Maria Montessori
Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. – Maria Montessori
If we really want children to grow into independent and resourceful adults, we should stop pouring their milk as soon as they have learned to pour it themselves and stop fastening their buttons as soon as they can fasten them without help. – Maria Montessori
The greatest sign of successfor a teacher…is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.” – Maria Montessori
Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. – Maria Montessori
As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate. – Maria Montessori
Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. – Maria Montessori
If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men. Maria Montessori 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. – Maria Montessori
There is a great sense of community within the Montessori classroom, where children of differing ages work together in an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is respect for the environment and for the individuals within it, which comes through experience of freedom within the community. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes on Practical Life Education
To aid life, leave it complimentary. However, that is the standard task of the educator. – Maria Montessori
The education of even a little kid, for that reason, does not focus on preparing him for school but life. – Maria Montessori
The possibility of observing the developments of the kid’s psychical life as speculative responses and natural phenomena changes the school itself inaction into a type of science lab for the psychogenetic research study of guy. – Maria Montessori
We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. – Maria Montessori
The most crucial duration of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to six. – Maria Montessori
Education is a work of self-organization by which man adjusts himself to the conditions of life. – Maria Montessori
If an academic act is to be efficacious, it will be only that a person who tends to help towards the total unfolding of life. Therefore, handy it is essential carefully to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of approximate jobs. – Maria Montessori
If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course. – Maria Montessori
Personal 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 Montessori
If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks. – Maria Montessori
All the movements of our body are not merely those dictated by impulse or weariness; they are the correct expression of what we consider decorous. Without impulses, we could take no part in social life; on the other hand, without inhibitions, we could not correct, direct, and utilize our impulses. – Maria Montessori
To 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. Once we have lived, the inner spark of vision does the rest. – Maria Montessori
Education is a work of self-organization by which man adapts himself to the conditions of life. – Maria Montessori
There are two ‘faiths’ which can uphold humans: faith in God and faith in oneself. And these two faiths should exist side by side: the first belongs to one’s inner life, the second to one’s life in society. – Maria Montessori
The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world. We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos. – Maria Montessori
The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world. We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos. – Maria Montessori
The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.- Maria Montessori
There is no description, no image in any book that is capable of replacing the sight of real trees, and all of the life to be found around them in a real forest. — Maria Montessori
Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. – Maria Montessori
To consider the school as a place where instruction is given is one point of view. But, to consider the school as a preparation for life is another. In the latter case, the school must satisfy all the needs of life. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes about Child
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. – Maria Montessori
One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child. – Maria Montessori
The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it. No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was. – Maria Montessori
Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world. – Maria Montessori
The child who concentrates is immensely happy. – Maria Montessori
When 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 Montessori
In the first three years of life, the foundations of physical and also of psychic health are laid. In these years, the child not only increases in size but passes through great transformations. This is the age in which language and movement develop. The child must be safeguarded in order that these activities may develop freely. – Maria Montessori
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. The acquisitions he has made are such that we can say the child who enters school at three is an old man. – Maria Montessori
The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil. – Maria Montessori
To aid life, leaving it free, however, is the basic task of the educator. – Maria Montessori
The chief symptom of adolescence is a state of expectation, a tendency towards creative work, and a need for the strengthening of self-confidence. Suddenly, the child becomes very sensitive to the rudeness and humiliations which he had previously suffered with patient indifference. – Maria Montessori
Indeed 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 Montessori
If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvelous means by which this intelligence is manifested. – Maria Montessori
The child’s mind is not the type of mind we adults possess. If we call our type of mind the conscious type, that of the child is an unconscious mind. Now an unconscious mind does not mean an inferior mind. An unconscious mind can be full of intelligence. One will find this type of intelligence in every being, and every insect has it. – Maria Montessori
The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity. – Maria Montessori
The adolescent must never be treated as a child, for that is a stage of life that he has surpassed. It 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
We await the successful 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 Montessori
Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, however by the undertaking always to keep burning within him that light called intelligence. – Maria Montessori
“Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world. – Maria Montessori
“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy. – Maria Montessori
The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn. – Maria Montessori
The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life. – Maria Montessori
To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. – Maria Montessori
Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world. – Maria Montessori
Our aim is not merely to make the child understand, but still less to force him to memorize, but to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes on Play
Play is the work of the child. – Maria Montessori
If the whole of mankind is to be united into one brotherhood, all obstacles must be removed so that men, all over the surface of the globe, should be as children playing in a garden. – Maria Montessori
He does it with his hands, through experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence. — Maria Montessori
He does it with his hands, through experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.” ~ Maria Montessori
Teach by teaching, not by correcting. – Maria Montessori
The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self. Adults work to finish a task, but the child works in order to grow, and is working to create the adult, the person that is to be. Such experience is not just play… it is work he must do in order to grow up. – Maria Montessori
The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it. – Maria Montessori
If the whole of humanity is to be united into one brotherhood, all obstacles should be removed so that guys, all over the surface of the globe, need to be as kids playing in a garden. – Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori Quotes on Education
Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society. – Maria Montessori
First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect. – Maria Montessori
One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child. – Maria Montessori
We cannot create observers by saying ‘observe’, but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses. – Maria Montessori
Education should no longer be the most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities. – Maria Montessori
It is precisely in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists; not that the child shall know colors, forms or qualities, but that he refines his senses through an exercise of attention, comparison and judgment. – Maria Montessori
If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man’s future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual’s total development lags behind? – Maria Montessori
The objective of early youth education must be to trigger the kid’s own natural desire to learn. – Maria Montessori
If education continues to be conceived along the same old lines of a simple transmission of understanding, there is little to be hoped from it to better the male’s future. – Maria Montessori
An educational approach that shall have liberty as its basis should step in to assist the kid in conquering freedom. That is to say, his training must be such as will help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity. – Maria Montessori
Best Maria Montessori Quotes
All work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working. There is a need to realize the value of work in all its forms, whether manual or intellectual, to be called ‘mate,’ to have sympathetic understanding of all forms of activity. – Maria Montessori
The development of language is part of the development of personality, for words are the natural means of expressing thoughts and establishing understanding between people. – Maria Montessori
The man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his own word, his own convictions, his own affections. – Maria Montessori
It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing constitutes. 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. – Maria Montessori
The social relations which are the basis of the reproduction of the species are founded upon the continuous union of parents in marriage. – Maria Montessori
The hand is, to 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 Montessori
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. – Maria Montessori
Through 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 Montessori
It is inadequate for the instructor to like the kid. She should initially like and understand deep space. She should prepare herself and truly work at it. – Maria Montessori
Discipline must come through liberty. If he has been rendered as synthetically quiet as a mute and as unmovable as a person with paralysis, we do not consider him a private discipline only. He is privately annihilated, not disciplined. – Maria Montessori
Within the kid lies the fate of the future. – Maria Montessori
Imagination does not become terrific until humans, offered the guts and strength, utilize it to produce. – Maria Montessori
We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic; however, it is somewhat beautiful and poetry. – Maria Montessori
Man is capable of every extraordinary heroism; it was a guy who found a means of conquering the powerful obstacles of his environment, establishing himself as lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization. – Maria Montessori
Great tact and delicacy is essential for the care of the mind of a kid from three to 6 years, and a grownup can have very little of it. – Maria Montessori
Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves. — Maria Montessori
Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves. – Maria Montessori
Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence. – Maria Montessori
A child is an eager observer and is particularly attracted by the actions of the adults and wants to imitate them. In this regard an adult can have a kind of mission. He can be an inspiration for the child’s actions, a kind of open book wherein a child can learn how to direct his own movements. But an adult, if he is to afford proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars. – Maria Montessori
Any child who is self-sufficient, who can tie his shoes, dress or undress himself, reflects in his joy and sense of achievement the image of human dignity which is derived from a sense of independence. – Maria Montessori
It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has.- Maria Montessori
The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences. – Maria Montessori
The child has a different relation to his environment from ours… the child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all over the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear. – Maria Montessori