Life Maria Montessori Quotes & Sayings

The study of expression ought to form a part of the study of psychology, but it also comes within the province of anthropology because the habitual, life-long expressions of the face determine the wrinkles of old age, which are distinctly an anthropological characteristic. — Maria Montessori

The child's true constructive energy, a dynamic power, has remained unnoticed for thousands of years. Just as men have trodden the earth, and later tilled its surface, without thought for the immense wealth hidden in its depths, so the men of our day make progress after progress in civilized life, without noticing the treasures that lie hidden in the psychic world of infancy. — 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

This is what is intended by education as a help to life; an education from birth that brings about a revolution: a revolution that eliminates every violence, a revolution in which everyone will be attracted towards a common center. Mothers, fathers, statesmen all will be centered upon respecting and aiding this delicate construction which is carried on in psychic mystery following the guide of an inner teacher. This is the new shining hope for humanity. It is not so much a reconstruction, as an aid to the construction carried out by the human soul as it is meant to be, developed in all the immense potentialities with which the new-born child is endowed. — Maria Montessori

To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself
that is the first duty of the educator. — Maria Montessori

But if for the physical life it is necessary to have the child exposed to the vivifying forces of nature, it is also necessary for his psychical life to place the soul of the child in contact with creation. — Maria Montessori

The possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of the child as natural phenomena and experimental reactions transforms the school itself in action into a kind of scientific laboratory for the psychogenetic study of man. — 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

To stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, herein lies the first task of the teacher. — Maria Montessori

It follows that at the beginning of his life the individual can accomplish wonders without effort and quite unconsciously. — Maria Montessori

There is in the child a special kind of sensitivity which leads him to absorb everything about him, and it is this work of observing and absorbing that alone enables him to adapt himself to life — 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

The environment acts more strongly upon the individual life the less fixed and strong this individual life may be. — Maria Montessori

Our work is not to teach, but to help the absorbent mind in its work of development. How marvelous it would be if by our help, if by an intelligent treatment of the child, if by understanding the needs of his physical life and by feeding his intellect, we could prolong the period of functioning of the absorbent mind! — Maria Montessori

There are many who hold, as I do, that the most important part of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when a man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed. But not only his intelligence; the full totality of his psychic powers. — Maria Montessori

The concept of an education centered upon the care of the living being alters all previous ideas. Resting no longer on a curriculum, or a timetable, education must conform to the facts of human life. — Maria Montessori

What is a scientist? ... We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. — Maria Montessori

The art of Montessori, which simply means finding the best way to help the child himself become what he was meant to become from the first moment of conception, is an art that joins home and school. That means parent and teacher supporting one another in their responsibility to the life of the child. — Maria Montessori

We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life. — Maria Montessori

Watch the unending activity of the flowing stream or the growing tree. See the breakers of the ocean, the unceasing movements of the earth, the planets, the sun and the stars. All creation is life, movement, work. — 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

We seek to sow life in the child rather than theories, to help him in his growth, mental and emotional as well as physical, and for that we must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind, — 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

Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life. — 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

How can we speak of Democracy or Freedom when from the very beginning of life we mould the child to undergo tyranny, to obey a dictator? How can we expect democracy when we have reared slaves? Real freedom begins at the beginning of life, not at the adult stage. These people who have been diminished in their powers, made short-sighted, devitalized by mental fatigue, whose bodies have become distorted, whose wills have been broken by elders who say: "your will must disappear and mine prevail!"-how can we expect them, when school-life is finished, to accept and use the rights of freedom? — Maria Montessori

The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life. — Maria Montessori

Concentration is a part of life. It is not the consequence of a method of education. — 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

Love and the hope of it are not things one can learn; they are a part of life's heritage. — Maria Montessori

Two things are necessary, the development of individuality and the participation of the individual in a truly social life. — Maria Montessori

One of the great problems facing men is their failure to realize the fact that a child possesses an active psychic life even when he cannot manifest it, and that the child must secretly perfect this inner life over a long period of time. — Maria Montessori

To have a vision of the cosmic plan, in which every form of life depends on directed movements which have effects beyond their conscious aim, is to understand the child's work and be able to guide it better. — Maria Montessori

The child, merely by going on with his life, learns to speak the language belonging to his race. It is like a mental chemistry that takes place in the child. — Maria Montessori

If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested. — Maria Montessori

The development of the child during the first three years after birth is unequaled in intensity and importance by any period that precedes or follows in the whole life of the child. — Maria Montessori

This is education, understood as a help to life; an education from birth, which feeds a peaceful revolution and unites all in a common aim, attracting them as to a single centre. Mothers, fathers, politicians: all must combine in their respect and help for this delicate work of formation, which the little child carries on in the depth of a profound psychological mystery, under the tutelage of an inner guide. This is the bright new hope for mankind. — Maria Montessori

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

To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator. — Maria Montessori

The world of education is like an island where people cut off from the world are prepared for life by exclusion from it. — Maria Montessori

No one can be free unless he is independent. — Maria Montessori

Environment is undoubtedly a secondary factor in the phenomena of life; it can modify in that it can help or hinder, but it can never create. — Maria Montessori

The child's conquest of independence begins with his first introduction to life. While he is developing, he perfects himself and overcomes every obstacle that he finds in his path. A vital force is active within him, and this guides his efforts towards their goal. It is a force called the 'horme', by Sir Percy Nunn. — Maria Montessori

We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life. — Maria Montessori

The exercises of practical life are formative activities, a work of adaptation to the environment. Such adaptation to the environment and efficient functioning therein is the very essence of a useful education. — Maria Montessori

Aesthetic and moral education are closely related to this sensory education. Multiply the sensations, and develop the capacity of appreciating fine differences in stimuli and we refine the sensibility and multiply man's pleasures. Beauty lies in harmony, not in contrast; and harmony is refinement; therefore, there must be a fineness of the senses if we are to appreciate harmony. The aesthetic harmony of nature is lost upon him who has coarse senses. The world to him is narrow and barren. In life about us, there exist inexhaustible fonts of aesthetic enjoyment, before which men pass as insensible as the brutes seeking their enjoyment in those sensations which are crude and showy, since they are the only ones accessible to them. Now, from the enjoyment of gross pleasures, vicious habits very often spring. Strong stimuli, indeed, do not render acute, but blunt the senses, so that they require stimuli more and more accentuated and more and more gross. — Montessori Maria

Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult's life, for it is in his early years that a man is made. — 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

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

Learning to speak, therefore, and the power it brings of intelligent converse with others, is a most impressive further step along the path of independence ... Learning to walk is especially significant, not only because it is supremely complex, but because it is done in the first year of life. — Maria Montessori

Giving children the opportunity to stir up life and leave it free to discover. — 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

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 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

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

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

Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces a real happiness — Maria Montessori

Education, as conceived today, is something separated both from biological and social life. — Maria Montessori

With man, the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit. — 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

This then is the first duty of an educator: to stir up life but leave it free to develop. — Maria Montessori