467 Quotes by Maria Montessori

We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.

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.

Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.

Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading.

Temptation, if it is not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone, beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid.

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.

Books are mute as far as sound is concerned. It follows that reading aloud is a combination of two distinct operations, of two 'languages.' It is something far more complex than speaking and reading taken separately by themselves.

Man is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization.

Speech is one of the marvels that characterize man, and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have been accomplished by nature.