Quotes by Maria Montessori

“Growth comes from activity not by intellectual understanding.”

“We can only give each child the chance to fulfill his potential possibilities.”

“A child develops through personal effort and engagement.”

“No one can be free unless he is independent.”

“If a child has not yet master of his actions, if he cannot obey even his own will, so much the less can obey someone else.”

“The error is to suppose that a person’s will must be broken before he can obey.”

“A disciplined individual is master of himself and can therefore regulate his own conduct when it shall be necessary to follow some rule of life.”

“The limit to the liberty of the child is the collective interest.”

“A child is a discoverer, splendid in search of his own proper form.”

“Life is an activity at its peak, only through activity the perfectionments of life can be sought and gained.”

“Activity freely chosen becomes their regular way of living.”

“Each child can organize his conduct and construct his mental life.”

“A child chooses what helps him construct himself.”

“Choice and Execution are prerogatives and conquest of a liberated soul.”

“The direction of the preparation should be towards the spirit, rather than toward the mechanism.”

“Guide the child without being an obstacle between the child and the experience.”

“The senses open the way to knowledge.”

“The more the mind is divorced from its normal function, the more exhausted it becomes. “

“People pass from one stage of independence to the higher by activity and effort of the will which constitutes inner evolution of the individual.”