Maria Montessori Quotes

Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom.

I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.

My father raised me to think independently and follow my own path in life.

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.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself.

Question authority; think for yourself. Talk to people, do things unrelated to school - to come up with your own framework for living. The world is too complex and people are too different to be overly prescriptive about the details.

Determine to do some thinking for yourself. Don't live entirely upon the thoughts of others. Don't be an automaton.

A strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.

People tell you the world looks a certain way. Parents tell you how to think. Schools tell you how to think. TV. Religion. And then at a certain point, if you're lucky, you realize you can make up your own mind. Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life.

You might think that it would he the natural desire of every man to develop as an independent personality, but this does not seem to be true.

For me, university was a bit of a rebellious streak. I love teachers but I'm inherently a bit of an anarchist and don't trust you because you're my teacher. Somewhere around my second or third year, I realized as an artist that it's up to us to choose our path, and there's nothing wrong with being given many different tools to put in your tool bag.

No one tells me what to think. I think for me.

Learn to depend upon yourself by doing things in accordance with your own way of thinking.

When a child is given a little leeway, he will at once shout, "I want to do it!" But in our schools, which have an environment adapted to children's needs, they say, "Help me to do it alone." And these words reveal their inner needs.

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

The first rule of survival is: Make your own rules. The hell anyone thinks about the way you're acting; listen only to yourself.

In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.

These words reveal the child’s inner needs; ‘Help me to do it alone’.

It is easy to substitute our will for that of the child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when we have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality.

I don't want to ever think that I don't know what to do. I want to deal with my own things, to perform my own roles, to be like, "I did this."

Furnish an example, stop preaching, stop shielding, don't prevent self-reliance and initiative, allow your children to develop along thier own lines.

The individual can take initiatives without anybody's permission. Only individuals can think. Only the individual disregards his fears and commits himself exclusively to reforming the human environment.

I really don't advise a woman who wants to have things her own way to get married

You have to make your own family, your own life.

Learn to do your own thinking - don’t let other people do it for you!