Top 250 Maria Montessori Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “The unknown energy that can help humanity is that which lies hidden in the child.”

— Maria Montessori

102. “Beauty lies in harmony, not in contrast; and harmony is refinement; therefore, there must be a fineness of the senses if we are to appreciate harmony.”

— Maria Montessori

103. “Two things are necessary, the development of individuality and the participation of the individual in a truly social life.”

— Maria Montessori

104. “Free choice is one of the highest of all the mental processes.”

— Maria Montessori

105. “The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth.”

— Maria Montessori

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

— Maria Montessori

107. “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!”

— Maria Montessori

108. “The whole of mankind is one and only one, one race, one class and one society.”

— Maria Montessori

109. “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.”

— Maria Montessori

110. “The adult works to improve his environment while the child works to improve himself.”

— Maria Montessori

111. “The child’s parents are not his makers but his guardians.”

— Maria Montessori

112. “Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind.”

— Maria Montessori

113. “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.”

— Maria Montessori

114. “The child’s progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him.”

— Maria Montessori

115. “It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was.”

— Maria Montessori

116. “It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give to teach child the chance to fulfil his potential possibilities.”

— Maria Montessori

117. “Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission.”

— Maria Montessori

118. “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

119. “To consider the school as a place where instruction is given is one point of view. But, to consider the school as a preparation for life is another. In the latter case, the school must satisfy all the needs of life.”

— Maria Montessori

120. “We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life.”

— Maria Montessori

121. “Love and the hope of it are not things one can learn; they are a part of life’s heritage.”

— Maria Montessori

122. “Independence is not a static condition; it is a continuous conquest, and in order to reach not only freedom, but also strength, and the perfecting on one’s powers, it is necessary to follow this path of unremitting toil.”

— Maria Montessori

123. “Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.”

— Maria Montessori

124. “There is in every child a painstaking teacher so skillful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one teaches them anything.”

— Maria Montessori

125. “To have a vision of the cosmic plan, in which every form of life depends on directed movements which have effects beyond their conscious aim, is to understand the child’s work and be able to guide it better.”

— Maria Montessori

126. “The real preparation for education is the study of one’s self.”

— Maria Montessori

127. “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.”

— Maria Montessori

128. “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.”

— Maria Montessori

129. “The best instruction is that which uses the least words sufficient for the task.”

— Maria Montessori

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

— Maria Montessori

131. “If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying.”

— Maria Montessori

132. “The ancient saying, “There is nothing in the intellect which was not first in some way in the senses,” and senses being explorers of the world, opens the way to knowledge.”

— Maria Montessori

133. “A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form.”

— Maria Montessori

134. “I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori method.”

— Maria Montessori

135. “The child, in fact, once he feels sure of himself, will no longer seek the approval of authority after every step.”

— Maria Montessori

136. “No one can be free unless he is independent.”

— Maria Montessori

137. “No one can be free unless he is independent. Therefore, the first active manifestations of the child’s individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence.”

— Maria Montessori

138. “The child, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.”

— Maria Montessori

139. “An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child’s energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery.”

— Maria Montessori

140. “Since it is through movement that the will realises itself, we should assist a child in his attempts to put his will into act.”

— Maria Montessori

141. “All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become.”

— Maria Montessori

142. “We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.”

— Maria Montessori

143. “Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child’s spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.”

— Maria Montessori

144. “Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult’s life, for it is in his early years that a man is made.”

— Maria Montessori

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

— Maria Montessori

146. “To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.”

— Maria Montessori

147. “The more perfect the approximation to truth, the more perfect is art.”

— Maria Montessori

148. “If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.”

— Maria Montessori

149. “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.”

— Maria Montessori

150. “But an adult if he is to provide proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.”

— Maria Montessori