Maria Montessori Quotes

“Great tact and delicacy is necessary for the care of the mind of a child from three to six years, and an adult can have very little of it.”

“If salvation and help are to come, it is through the child; for the child is the constructor of man.”

“Our work is not to teach, but to help the absorbent mind in its work of development. How marvelous it would be if by our help, if by an intelligent treatment of the child, if by understanding the needs of his physical life and by feeding his intellect, we could prolong the period of functioning of the absorbent mind!”

“This is what is intended by education as a help to life; an education from birth that brings about a revolution: a revolution that eliminates every violence, a revolution in which everyone will be attracted towards a common center.

Mothers, fathers, statesmen all will be centered upon respecting and aiding this delicate construction which is carried on in psychic mystery following the guide of an inner teacher.

This is the new shining hope for humanity. It is not so much a reconstruction, as an aid to the construction carried out by the human soul as it is meant to be, developed in all the immense potentialities with which the new-born child is endowed.”

“We serve the future by protecting the present.”

“You do not exist, you cannot hope to grow. That is the tremendous step the child takes, the step that goes from nothing to something.”