Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.
Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.
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.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.
The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.
Within the child lies the fate of the future.
Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.
Of all things love is the most potent.
No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child
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.
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.
Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.
Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.
The environment acts more strongly upon the individual life the less fixed and strong this individual life may be.
To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself--that is the first duty of the educator.
Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.
The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.
The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future.
The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul.
You do not exist, you cannot hope to grow. That is the tremendous step the child takes, the step that goes from nothing to something.
Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man.
The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self.
If salvation and help are to come, it is through the child ; for the child is the constructor of man.
Such prizes and punishments are, if I may be allowed the expression, the bench of the soul, the instrument of slavery for the spirit.
Great tact and delicacy is necessary for the care of the mind of a child from three to six years, and an adult can have very little of it.
Nor can we expect exactly similar results from children whose heredity and experience make them at once more sensitive, more active, and less amenable to
