Top 250 Maria Montessori Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “What the hand does the mind remembers.”

— Maria Montessori

2. “The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Goal Quotes, Quotes About Children, Quotes About Childhood

3. “Play is the work of the child.”

— Maria Montessori

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

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Quotes About Humanity

5. “A child needs freedom within limits.”

— Maria Montessori

6. “When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength.”

— Maria Montessori

7. “Discipline must come through liberty.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Discipline Quotes, Quotes on Liberty

8. “The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: School Quotes

9. “The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.”

— Maria Montessori

10. “Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world.”

— Maria Montessori

11. “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

Featured in: Exercise Quotes

12. “The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.”

— Maria Montessori

13. “Teach by teaching, not by correcting.”

— Maria Montessori

14. “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

15. “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

16. “Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.”

— Maria Montessori

17. “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

Featured in: Real Quotes

18. “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

19. “Of all things love is the most potent.”

— Maria Montessori

20. “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

— Maria Montessori

21. “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

22. “The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself.”

— Maria Montessori

23. “To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.”

— Maria Montessori

24. “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

25. “Within the child lies the fate of the future.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Future Quotes

26. “Growth is not merely a harmonious increase in size, but a transformation.”

— Maria Montessori

27. “First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

28. “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

29. “Children display a universal love of mathematics, which is par excellence the science of precision, order, and intelligence.”

— Maria Montessori

30. “Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces a real happiness.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Real Quotes

31. “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

32. “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

33. “We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”

— Maria Montessori

34. “Children become like the things they love.”

— Maria Montessori

35. “The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.”

— Maria Montessori

36. “When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing.”

— Maria Montessori

37. “The child should live in an environment of beauty.”

— Maria Montessori

38. “The child seeks for independence by means of work; an independence of body and mind.”

— Maria Montessori

39. “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

40. “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

41. “The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth.”

— Maria Montessori

42. “The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”

— Maria Montessori

43. “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

44. “Concentration is a part of life. It is not the consequence of a method of education.”

— Maria Montessori

45. “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

46. “The child has a mind able to absorb knowledge. He has the power to teach himself.”

— Maria Montessori

47. “Freedom in intellectual work is found to be the basis of internal discipline.”

— Maria Montessori

Featured in: Discipline Quotes

48. “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

49. “Only practical work and experience lead the young to maturity.”

— Maria Montessori

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

— Maria Montessori