Comenius Quotes & Sayings

We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate people because they were born in another country, because they speak a different language, or because they take a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human ... Let us have but one end in view: the welfare of humanity. — John Amos Comenius

Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion. — John Amos Comenius

The school is the manufactory of humanity. — John Amos Comenius

The idea of childhood as a social invention, in retrospect, is hardly credible. In the Bible, in writings of the Greeks and Romans, and in the works of the first great educator of the modern era, Comenius, children were recognized as being both different from adults and different from one another with respect to their stages of development. To be sure, the scientific study of children and the increased length of life in modern times have enhanced our understanding of age differences, but they have always been acknowledged. — David Elkind

Boyhood is distracted for years with precepts of grammar that are infinitely prolix, perplexed and obscure. — John Amos Comenius

If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: "Life is long, if we know how to use it." It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives. — John Amos Comenius

There is in the world no rock or tower of such a height that it cannot be scaled by any man (provided he lack not feet) if ladders are placed in the proper position or steps are cut in the rock, made in the right place, and furnished with railings against the danger of falling over.
If we examine ourselves, we see that our faculties grow in such a manner that what goes before paves the way for what comes after. — John Amos Comenius

Three things give the student the possibility of surpassing his teacher: ask a lot of questions, remember the answers, teach. — John Amos Comenius

The saying "He who teaches others, teaches himself" is very true, not only because constant repetition impresses a fact indelibly on the mind, but because the process of teaching itself gives deeper insight into the subject taught. — John Amos Comenius

Let the main object ... to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners learn more. — John Amos Comenius

Preserve there [bohemia] a hidden seed to glorify thy name. — John Amos Comenius

Much can be learned in play that will afterwards be of use when the circumstances demand it. — John Amos Comenius

The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree. — John Amos Comenius

Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school — John Amos Comenius

For more than a hundred years much complaint has been made of the unmethodical way in which schools are conducted, but it is only within the last thirty that any serious attempt has been made to find a remedy for this state of things. And with what result? Schools remain exactly as they were. — John Amos Comenius