467 Quotes by Maria Montessori

I succeeded in teaching a number of the idiots from the asylums both to read and to write so well that I was able to present them at a public school for an examination together with normal children. And they passed the examination successfully.

Needless help is an actual hindrance to the development of natural forces.

Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child’s spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.

Such prizes and punishments are, if I may be allowed the expression, the bench of the soul, the instrument of slavery for the spirit.

The greatest source of discouragement is the conviction that one is unable to do something.

The child who concentrates is immensely happy.

We wish the old things because we cannot understand the new, and we are always seeking after that gorgeousness which belongs to things already on the decline, without recognising in the humble simplicity of new ideas the germ which shall develop in the future.

For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual’s total development lags behind?

In the psychological realm of relationship between teacher and child, the teacher’s part and its techniques are analogous to those of the valet; they are to serve, and to serve well: to serve the spirit.