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Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori Quotes

Physician

Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator, is known as the father of modern education. Born on August 31, 1870, in Ancona, Italy, she passed away on May 6, 1952. Dr. Montessori achieved remarkable success in the medical field, but she is most famous for her creation of the Montessori educational method, which emphasizes child-centered learning and individualized education.

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Famous Maria Montessori Quotes

“Do not offer the child the content of the mind, but the order for that content.”

Mind Children Order Offers

Book:Montessori's Own Handbook

Source: Montessori's Own Handbook

“We do not believe in the educative power of words and commands alone, but seek cautiously, and almost without the child's knowing it, to guide his natural activity.”

Believe Children Natural Knowing Activity Guides Command Power Of Words

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often the profound tranquility in work is achieved, then the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child.”

Children Discipline Capacity Profound Manifestation Tranquility

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“Any child who is self-sufficient, who can tie his shoes, dress or undress himself, reflects in his joy and sense of achievement the image of human dignity which is derived from a sense of independence.”

Humans Children Self Joy Achievement Dignity Dresses Independence Shoes Ties Sufficient Human Dignity Self Sufficient

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child.”

Humans Children Humanity Human Beings Craving

Author:Maria Montessori

“A child's work is to create the person she/he will become.”

Children Persons

Author:Maria Montessori

“When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him. Let us take the child out to show him real things instead of making objects which represent ideas and closing them up in cupboards.”

World Children Ideas Real Shows Objects Offers Closing Real Things Cupboards

Author:Maria Montessori

“There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature; to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature.”

Children Order Appreciate Harmony Contact Provision Nature Beauty

Author:Maria Montessori

“A child needs freedom within limits.”

Needs Children Limits

Author:Maria Montessori

“The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch-enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops of itself.”

Giving Children Enough Teacher Instruction Hints

Book:Montessori's Own Handbook

Source: Montessori's Own Handbook

“There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease.”

Children Three Can Do Five Teacher Ease

Author:Maria Montessori

“Education demands, then, only this: the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction.”

Children Demand Instruction Inner Power Utilization

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“This is the treasure we need today - helping the child become independent of us and make his way by himself, receiving in return his gifts of hope and light.”

Way Needs Children Helping Light Today Return Independent Treasure Receiving

Author: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.”

Years Firsts Children Whole Three Development Birth Periods Importance Whole Life Intensity Three Years

Author:Maria Montessori

“A child's character develops in accordance with the obstacles he has encountered... or the freedom favoring his development that he has enjoyed.”

Children Character Development Obstacles Enjoyed

Author:Maria Montessori

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

Giving Children Opportunity

Author:Maria Montessori

“We must, therefore, quit our roles as jailers and instead take care to prepare an environment in which we do as little as possible to exhaust the child with our surveillance and instruction”

Children Littles Care Roles Environment Take Care Quitting Instruction Surveillance Jailer

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“What advice can we give to new mothers? Their children need to work at an interesting occupation: they should not be helped unnecessarily, nor interrupted, once they have begun to do something intelligent.”

Needs Giving Should Children Mother Interesting Advice Intelligent Occupation Interrupted New Mother

Author:Maria Montessori

“If children are allowed free development and given occupation to correspond with their unfolding minds their natural goodness will shine forth.”

Ifs Mind Children Given Natural Development Goodness Shining Occupation Unfolding

Author:Maria Montessori

“The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will give all his potential”

Giving Children Interest Roles Activity

Author:Maria Montessori

“The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination.”

May Children Grows Imagination Secret Teaching Fields Regard Seeds Heat Fertile Montessori Good Teaching Secret Intelligence

Book:To Educate the Human Potential

Source: To Educate the Human Potential

“The teacher's task is not a small easy one! She has to prepare a huge amount of knowledge to satisfy the child's mental hunger. She is not like the ordinary teacher, limited by a syllabus. The needs of the child are clearly more difficult to answer.”

Needs Children Easy Difficult Answers Teacher Huge Amount Ordinary Tasks Hunger Syllabus

Author:Maria Montessori

“Sometimes very small children in a proper environment develop a skill and exactness in their work that can only surprise us.”

Children Sometimes Environment Skills Surprise Small Child Exactness

Author:Maria Montessori

“A child is mysterious and powerful; And contains within himself the secret of human nature.”

Humans Children Powerful Secret Human Nature Mysterious

Author:Maria Montessori

“The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities.”

Ifs World Want Children Possibility Development Aim Guides New World Radiant

Author:Maria Montessori

“We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent.”

Children Desire Waiting Support Activity Independent Educate

Author:Maria Montessori

“The child who concentrates is immensely happy”

Children Montessori

Author:Maria Montessori

“It is not the child as a physical but as a psychic being that can provide a strong impetus to the betterment of mankind. It is the spirit of the child that can determine the course of human progress and lead it perhaps even to a higher form of civilization.”

Humans Children Form Spirit Courses Strong Progress Mankind Higher Civilization Determine Psychics Betterment Human Progress Impetus

Author:Maria Montessori

“When we want to infuse new ideas, to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, to breathe new vigor into its national traits, we must use the children as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with adults.”

People Want Children Littles Ideas Use Habit Adults Breathe Accomplished Customs Vehicle Traits New Ideas Vigor

Author:Maria Montessori

“The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it.”

Firsts Humans Children Young Duty Personality Involved Infant Educator Newborn Human Personality

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“The child who has felt a strong love for his surroundings and for all living creatures, who has discovered joy and enthusiasm in work, gives us reason to hope that humanity can develop in a new direction.”

Giving Children Reason Joy Humanity Strong Felt Creatures Enthusiasm Surroundings Living Creatures New Directions Strong Love

Author:Maria Montessori

“Solicitous care for living things affords satisfaction to one of the most lively instincts of the child's mind. Nothing is better calculated than this to awaken an attitude of foresight.”

Mind Children Care Attitude Instinct Satisfaction Living Things Lively Foresight

Book:The Discovery of the Child

Source: The Discovery of the Child

“Concentration is the key that opens up to the child the latent treasures within him.”

Children Keys Treasure Concentration Latent

Book:HER LIFE AND WORK

Source: HER LIFE AND WORK

“Only when the child is able to identify its own center with the center of the universe does education really begin.”

Children Doe Able Universe Education Center Of The Universe

Author:Maria Montessori

“...we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.”

Humans Children Doe Made Process Natural Human Beings Virtue Environment Teacher Special Listening Activity Tasks Experience Series Motive Montessori

Author:Maria Montessori

“Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and when the grass of the meadows is wet with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning.”

Children Running Water Sleep Morning Laughing Sun Tree Feet Rain Shoes Grass Remove Shade Invites Wet Dew Meadows Puddles Bare Feet

Author:Maria Montessori

“It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.”

Feels May Children Helping Too Much Teacher Ready Obstacles Guides

Book:The Montessori Reader

Source: The Montessori Reader

“It is almost possible to say that there is a mathematical relationship between the beauty of his surroundings and the activity of the child; he will make discoveries rather more voluntarily in a gracious setting than in an ugly one.”

Children Activity Discovery Ugly Setting Settings Mathematical Surroundings Gracious

Author:Maria Montessori

“The ‘absorbent mind’ welcomes everything, puts its hope in everything, accepts poverty equally with wealth, adopts any religion and the prejudices and habits of its countrymen, incarnating all in itself. This is the child!”

Mind Children Wealth Accepting Poverty Habit Prejudice Countrymen

Author:Maria Montessori

“At a given moment a child becomes interested in a piece of work, showing it by the expression of his face, by his intense attention, by his perseverance in the same exercise. That child has set foot upon the road leading to discipline.”

Children Moments Faces Given Attention Pieces Feet Expression Discipline Exercise Perseverance Intense

Book:The Montessori Reader

Source: The Montessori Reader

“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.”

Mind Humans Wells Children Ideas Helping Growth Emotional Theory Offers Human Mind Lofty

Book:To Educate the Human Potential

Source: To Educate the Human Potential

“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”

Kind Children Special Sensitivity Observing Absorbing

Author:Maria Montessori

“An adult who does not understand that a child needs to use his hands and does not recognize this as the first manifestation of an instinct for work can be an obstacle to the child's development”

Needs Firsts Children Doe Use Hands Development Adults Instinct Obstacles Manifestation

Author:Maria Montessori

“It is necessary, then, to give the child the possibility of developing according to the laws of his nature, so that he can become strong, and, having become strong, can do even more than we dared hope for him.”

Giving Children Law Strong Can Do Possibility Developing

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“The word education must not be understood in the sense of teaching but of assisting the psychological development of the child.”

Children Teaching Development Understood Psychological Assisting Psychological Development

Book:The Secret of Childhood

Source: The Secret of Childhood

“With younger children the greatest reward is to be able to pass on to a new stage in each subject. It is a punishment to a young child not to be allowed to use the apparatus but to sit still and do nothing.”

Children Stills Use Able Young Subjects Stage Rewards Punishment Young Children

Book:HER LIFE AND WORK

Source: HER LIFE AND WORK

“Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult.”

Children Able Order Difficult Knowing Prejudice Our Children Fundamentals Vain Educate Presumption

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

“Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity and he will feel free.”

Feels Children Consciousness Dignity

Author:Maria Montessori

“The adult ought never to mold the child after himself, but should leave him alone and work always from the deepest comprehension of the child himself.”

Should Children Ought Adults Mold Comprehension

Book:The child in the family

Source: The child in the family

About the Author

Born: August 31, 1870
Died: May 6, 1952
Known for: Physician
Quotes: 328

Related Topics

Children Montessori Development Helping Ifs Teacher Humans Firsts Men Activity Environment Should Mind Independent Adults Independence Needs Doe World Education

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The child in the familyRelated source material

The Montessori Method: The Origins of an Educational Innovation : Including an Abridged and Annotated Edition of Maria Montessori's The Montessori MethodRelated source material

The Montessori MethodRelated source material

The Montessori ReaderRelated source material

HER LIFE AND WORKRelated source material

The Secret of ChildhoodRelated source material

To Educate the Human PotentialRelated source material

Montessori's Own HandbookRelated source material

Spontaneous Activity in EducationRelated source material

The Absorbent MindRelated source material

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