29 Montessori Quotes by Maria Montessori
Dr. Maria Montessori was a pioneer of a pedagogical tool that revolutionized the education system.
As a Physician and a dedicated educator, she broke away from all the gender norms in Italy and emerged as the founder of the Montessori Method.
She was the first female to enroll in an engineering institution in Italy and the first female in Italy who acquired an MD. It is safe to say that Maria Montessori was a force to be reckoned with, a force that had the drive and zeal to change the world.
Whether you are a parent, an educator, a caregiver, or someone who needs a boost of motivation to achieve goals that seem impossible, words of perseverance are required.
Here are some intriguing and inspirational Maria Montessori quotes to help you feel inspired.
Contents
Maria Montessori Quotes
Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.
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
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
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’s Own Handbook
Within the child lies the fate of the future.
Maria Montessori
Of all things love is the most potent.
Maria Montessori
No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child.
Maria Montessori
Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.
Maria Montessori
The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul.
Dr. Maria Montessori
Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.
Dr. Maria Montessori
Montessori Quotes for Teachers
It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.
Maria Montessori
The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
Maria Montessori
To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself–that is the first duty of the educator.
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
An ordinary teacher cannot be transformed into a Montessori teacher, but must be created anew, having rid herself of pedagogical prejudices.
Education For a New World
She [the Montessori teacher] must acquire a moral alertness which has not hitherto been demanded by any other system, and this is revealed in her tranquility, patience, charity, and humility. Not words, but virtues, are her main qualifications.
Maria Montessori
The teacher’s first duty is to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest. It’s influence is indirect, but unless it be well done there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind, physical, intellectual or spiritual.
Maria Montessori
Montessori Quotes about Education
Scientific observation then has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment.
Maria Montessori, Education For A New World
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
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.
Maria Montessori
Here is an essential principal of education: to teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.
From Childhood to Adolescence
Montessori Quotes for Parents
If the child shows through its conversation that the educational work of the school is being undermined by the attitude taken in his home, he will be sent back to his parents, to teach them thus how to take advantage of their good opportunities.
Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in ‘The Children’s Houses’ with Additions and Revisions by the Author
To assist a child, we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely.
Maria Montessori
Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who tomorrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man.
Maria Montessori
To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control, is to betray the idea of freedom. Real freedom, instead, is a consequence of development; it is the development of latent guides, aided by education.
The Absorbent Mind
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
The newborn child can do nothing alone. He has to be carried into the environment. If he is left alone, he cannot develop, but if he is brought into the external environment, he is very interested in everything, and then something happens inside him, something to do with adaptation to the environment.
Maria Montessori, 1946 London
Montessori Quotes on Observation
The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
Maria Montessori
Montessori Quotes about Peace
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.
Maria Montessori
Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.
Maria Montessori
Montessori Quotes on Independence
The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self.
Dr. Maria Montessori
The child looks for his independence first, not because he does not desire to be dependent on the adult. But because he has in himself some fire, some urge, to do certain things and not other things.
The Theosophist
Montessori Quotes about Work
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, The Absorbent Mind
Montessori Quotes on Children
When a child is given a little leeway, he will at once shout, ’I want to do it!’ But in our schools, which have an environment adapted to children’s needs, they say, ‘Help me to do it alone.
The Secret of Childhood
Naughtiness will disappear if we give children the right environment at a sufficiently early age. This environment must provide a great deal of mental food and warm, loving treatment.
Maria Montessori, 1946 London Lectures
The child is the creator of the man, certainly with regard to his adaptation to the environment.
Maria Montessori, 1946 London Lecture
To conclude, Maria Montessori is an inspirational figure who single-handedly found a way to explain the science behind the education process, and these quotes prove it all.
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