Maria Montessori

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

“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. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?”

“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.”

“We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.”

“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.”

“The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!”

“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.'”

“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.”