An Essential Condition

"In fact, learning is subject to an essential condition: that the pupil agrees to receive the knowledge and is able to pay attention or, in other words, is interested. His psychic activity is the sine qua non for success. Everything that is boring, discouraging and interrupts becomes an obstacle that no logical teaching preparation can overcome. We therefore need to study the conditions necessary  for the unfolding of spontaneous individual activities..."

Maria Montessori, Psychogeometry p 4

Refining Movement

"Of itself movement is something unrefined, but its value increases when one attempts to perfect it. Hands, for example, are then no longer washed simply to make them clean, but in order to be able to wash them perfectly. When hands are washed in this manner, they are not only clean but the child himself becomes more skilled and acquires a certain refinement which sets him above a child with unwashed hands."

Maria Montessori, Discovery of the Child p 87

Freedom & Independence

"No one can be free if he is not independent, therefore, in order to attain this independence, the active manifestations of personal liberty must be guided from earliest infancy. From the time that they are weaned, children are making their way along the risky path of independence."

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child p 57

Human Creativity

For children of the age of five or six, the work of the potter's wheel begins. But what most delights the children is the work of building a wall with little bricks, and seeing a little house, the fruit of their own hands, rise in the vicinity of the ground in which are growing plants, also cultivated by them. Thus the age of childhood epitomises the principal primitive labours of humanity, when the human race, changing from the nomadic to the stable condition, demanded of the earth its fruit, built itself shelter, and devised vases to cook the foods yielded by the fertile earth.

Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method p 166

Artistic Expression

"The sensory and manual preparation for drawing is nothing more than an alphabet; but without it the child is an illiterate and cannot express himself. And just as it is impossible to study the writing of people who cannot write, so there can be no psychological study of the drawings of children who have been abandoned to spiritual and muscular chaos. All psychic expressions acquire value when the inner personality has acquired value by the development of its formative processes. Until this fundamental principle has become an absolute acquisition we can have no idea of the psychology of a child as regards his creative powers."

Maria Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method: The Elementary Materials p 309

A Divine Command

"The child is passing through a sensitive period: a divine command is breathing upon this helpless being and animating it with its spirit. This inner drama of the child is a drama of love. It is a great reality unfolding within the secret areas of his soul and at times completely absorbing it. These marvellous activities wrought in humble silence cannot take place without leaving behind ennobling qualities that will accompany the child through life."

Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood p43

Atmosphere

"The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch  - enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops itself. the children learn from one another and throw themselves into the work with enthusiasm and delight. This atmosphere of quiet activity develops a fellow-feeling, an attitude of mutual aid, and, most wonderful of all, an intelligent interest on the part of the older children in the progress of their little companions."

Maria Montessori, Dr Montessori's Own Handbook p59