'Maria Montessori was a prolific writer and many of her key works contain phrases and quotations that are at the very centre of her educational philospohy. We would hope that if you are interested in Maria Montessori and her vision of education that you will go on to carry out your own reading and embark on your own journey of discovery. However, to get you started, here are just some of the quotations that begin to show us how Maria Montessori saw education - as holistic and developmental with the child at the centre of everything.

Quotations from Maria Montessori.

• Many of my works were written about at the beginning of my endeavours and they often refer to scientific theories and experiments that were popular then or to situations that were familiar in those days. Times have changed and science has made great progress, and so must our work. (Poona, 1948.)
• By offering the child the story of the universe, we give him something a thousand times more infinite and mysterious to reconstruct with his imagination, a drama no fable can reveal.
• Mistakes bring us closer and make us better friends
• The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth.
• Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces a real happiness.
• The essential thing is for the task to arouse such an interest that it engages the child's whole personality.
• By absorbing what he finds about him, he forms his own personality.
• My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding on that certification from secondary school to the university, but of individuals passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity, through their own effort of will, which constitutes the inner evolution of the individuals.
• We do not want children who simply obey and are there without interest, but we want to help them in their mental and emotional growth. Therefore, we should not try to give small ideas, but great ones, so that they not only receive them but ask for more.
• We have to profit by the chance offered in the creative period.
• We must teach, teaching not correcting.
• In serving the child, one serves life.
• The teacher must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work.
• Both the individual and society have this in common : a continuos tendency to progress.
• The imagination can only have a sensory basis.
• Childhood passes from conquest to conquest in a rhythm that constitutes its joy and happiness.
• We must not dwell on his limitations but focus on his possibilities.
• The first dawning of real discipline comes through work.
• Our sensorial material provides a kind of guide to observation.
• Yet al is easy if its roots can be implanted in the absorbent mind.
• We see even the smallest take a big interest in counting.
• To see the child as he is , is made difficult for us on account of our own defects.
• A child self image is created by the attitudes of others.
• Education is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.
• Never let a child risk failure until he has a reasonable chance of success.
• The more one has reaped, the more he experiences the secret fascination of sowing.
• Every act of true choice is preceded by an act of judgement.
• Will power is one of the highest expressions of the mind.
• At no other age has the child greater need of intelligent help.
• Every action of the teacher's can become a call and an invitation to the children.
• The development of language stands in the forefront during the whole period of infancy.
• Within the child lies the fate of the future.
• Adults admire their environment : they can remember it and think about it ; but the child absorbs it.
• It matters much more to have a prepared mind that to have a good teacher.
• Help me to do it alone.
• He must grow while I diminish.
• Nothing comes to the intellect that is not first in the senses.
• Not a method but an attitude.
• Follow the child.