Italian educator Maria Montessori, the pioneer behind the Montessori education system, believed in the inherent creativity, desire to learn and individuality of each child.
A groundbreaking woman, she was the first female to graduate in medicine from the University of Rome in 1896 and developed an interest in the education of intellectually disabled children during her tenure at Rome’s psychiatric clinic.
Montessori’s groundbreaking methods came to fruition in 1907 when she founded Casa dei Bambini, a preschool for children in the deprived San Lorenzo district of Rome.
Here, traditional classrooms were replaced with learning spaces filled with specially designed materials that encouraged individual effort and independence.
These unique, hands-on tools captured children’s attention, inspiring learning and self-discipline.
Related: Rita Pierson Quotes from American Professional Educator and Magda Gerber Quotes from Famous Early Childhood Educator
Central to the Montessori philosophy is the idea of self-education, facilitated by the teacher but driven by the child.
The system acknowledges that children have specific “periods of sensitivity” at certain ages, which are ideal for absorbing specific knowledge.
Montessori’s methods and philosophies are detailed in her numerous books.
I have gathered the famous quotes by Maria Montessori for you.
Best Maria Montessori Quotes
The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind. ~ Maria Montessori.
Concentration is a part of life. It is not the consequence of a method of education. ~ Maria Montessori.
Growth is not merely a harmonious increase in size, but a transformation. ~ Maria Montessori.
A child needs freedom within limits. ~ Maria Montessori.
Teach by teaching, not by correcting. ~ Maria Montessori.
Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements. ~ Maria Montessori.
Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding. ~ Maria Montessori.
What the hand does the mind remembers. ~ Maria Montessori.
The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy. ~ Maria Montessori.
Within the child lies the fate of the future. ~ Maria Montessori.
There is no description, no image in any book that is capable of replacing the sight of real trees, and all of the life to be found around them in a real forest. ~ Maria Montessori.
Freedom in intellectual work is found to be the basis of internal discipline. ~ Maria Montessori.
The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator. ~ Maria Montessori.
The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self. ~ Maria Montessori.
Watch the unending activity of the flowing stream or the growing tree. See the breakers of the ocean, the unceasing movements of the earth, the planets, the sun and the stars. All creation is life, movement, work. ~ Maria Montessori.
Maria Montessori Quotes About Education
The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will give all his potential. ~ Maria Montessori.
One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child. ~ Maria Montessori.
An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in which they live. ~ 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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it. It is vital that educational theory and practice should be informed by that idea. ~ Maria Montessori.
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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Culture and education have no bounds or limits; now man is in a phase in which he must decide for himself how far he can proceed in the culture that belongs to the whole of humanity. ~ Maria Montessori.
Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life. ~ Maria Montessori.
Education must start from birth. ~ Maria Montessori.
Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities. ~ Maria Montessori.
It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists; not that the child shall know colors, forms or qualities, but that he refine his senses through an exercise of attention, comparison and judgment. ~ Maria Montessori.
The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment. ~ Maria Montessori.
First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect. ~ Maria Montessori.
Maria Montessori Quotes On Child Development
The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn. ~ Maria Montessori.
We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself; this is the art of those who aspire to serve the spirit. ~ Maria Montessori.
The child has a mind able to absorb knowledge. He has the power to teach himself. ~ Maria Montessori.
Play is the work of the child. ~ Maria Montessori.
The child seeks for independence by means of work; an independence of body and mind. ~ Maria Montessori.
Giving children the opportunity to stir up life and leave it free to discover. ~ Maria Montessori.
It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it. ~ Maria Montessori.
When a child is given a little leeway, he will at once shout, ’I want to do it!’ But in our schools, which have an environment adapted to children’s needs, they say, ‘Help me to do it alone.’ ~ Maria Montessori.
If we are among the men of good will who yearn for peace, we must lay the foundation for peace ourselves, by working for the social world of the child. ~ Maria Montessori.
The child’s parents are not his makers but his guardians. ~ Maria Montessori.
If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men. ~ Maria Montessori.
The hand is the instrument of intelligence. The child needs to manipulate objects and to gain experience by touching and handling. ~ Maria Montessori.
When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing. ~ Maria Montessori.
To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. ~ Maria Montessori.
When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength. ~ 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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world. ~ Maria Montessori.
Any child who is self-sufficient, who can ties 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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Maria Montessori Quotes On Peace
Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child. ~ Maria Montessori.
Education today, in this particular social period, is assuming truly unlimited importance. And the increased emphasis on its practical value can be summed up in one sentence: education is the best weapon for peace. ~ Maria Montessori.
Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education. ~ Maria Montessori.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. ~ Maria Montessori.
Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists. ~ Maria Montessori.
To stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, herein lies the first task of the teacher. ~ Maria Montessori.
To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge. ~ Maria Montessori.
Maria Montessori Quotes On Practical Life
We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. ~ Maria Montessori.
The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. ~ Maria Montessori.
Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. ~ Maria Montessori.
The exercises of practical life are formative activities, a work of adaptation to the environment. Such adaptation to the environment and efficient functioning therein is the very essence of a useful education. ~ Maria Montessori.
Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces a real happiness. ~ Maria Montessori.
The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life. ~ Maria Montessori.
Maria Montessori Quotes On Children
Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves. ~ Maria Montessori.
The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself. ~ Maria Montessori.
It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has. ~ Maria Montessori.
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. ~ Maria Montessori.
He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence. ~ Maria Montessori.
Discipline must come through liberty. ~ Maria Montessori.
The only true freedom for an individual is to have the opportunity to act independently … there is no such thing as an individual until a person can act by himself. ~ Maria Montessori.
The needs of mankind are universal. Our means of meeting them create the richness and diversity of the planet. The Montessori child should come to relish the texture of that diversity. ~ Maria Montessori.
Children become like the things they love. ~ Maria Montessori.
As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate. ~ Maria Montessori.
Concentration is the key that opens up to the child the latent treasures within him. ~ Maria Montessori.
Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. ~ Maria Montessori.
There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease. ~ 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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Top Maria Montessori Quotes
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. ~ Maria Montessori.
How often is the soul of man – especially in childhood – deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature. ~ Maria Montessori.
Social grace, inner discipline and joy. These are the birthright of the human being who has been allowed to develop essential human qualities. ~ Maria Montessori.
The child should live in an environment of beauty. ~ Maria Montessori.
The child’s progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him. ~ Maria Montessori.
The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence. ~ Maria Montessori.
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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Of all things love is the most potent. ~ Maria Montessori.
Children display a universal love of mathematics, which is par excellence the science of precision, order, and intelligence. ~ Maria Montessori.
Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation. ~ Maria Montessori.
There should be music in the child’s environment, just as there does exist in the child’s environment spoken speech. In the social environment the child should be considered and music should be provided. ~ Maria Montessori.
Popular Maria Montessori Quotes
At some given moment it happens that the child becomes deeply interested in a piece of work; we see it in the expression on his face, his intense concentration, the devotion to the exercise. ~ Maria Montessori.
The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences. ~ Maria Montessori.
What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love. ~ Maria Montessori.
The unknown energy that can help humanity is that which lies hidden in the child. ~ Maria Montessori.
My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from secondary school to University but of passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity and effort of will. ~ Maria Montessori.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. ~ 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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Children acquire knowledge through experience in the environment. ~ Maria Montessori.
Only practical work and experience lead the young to maturity. ~ Maria Montessori.
It is necessary that the child teach himself, and then the success is great. ~ Maria Montessori.
The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. ~ Maria Montessori.
No one who has ever done anything really great or successful has ever done it simply because he was attracted by what we call a ‘reward’ or by the fear of what we call a ‘punishment.’ ~ Maria Montessori.
The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult. ~ Maria Montessori.
Famous Maria Montessori Quotes
He who is served is limited in his independence. ~ Maria Montessori.
The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth. ~ Maria Montessori.
Joy is the evidence of inner growth. ~ Maria Montessori.
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. ~ Maria Montessori.
To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom. ~ Maria Montessori.
Our aim is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core. ~ Maria Montessori.
The strength of even the smallest children is more than we imagine, but it must have a free play in order to reveal itself. ~ Maria Montessori.
We are the sowers – our children are those who reap. We labor so that future generations will be better and nobler than we are. ~ Maria Montessori.
Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur. ~ Maria Montessori.
Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create. ~ Maria Montessori.
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. ~ Maria Montessori.
Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul. ~ Maria Montessori.
We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry. ~ Maria Montessori.
The teacher, when she begins work in our schools, must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work. ~ Maria Montessori.
So these were the 110 top Maria Montessori quotes and sayings on practical life, learning, parents, teaching, child’s development, love and observation.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Gretchen Rubin quotes and Shawn Achor quotes.
