Maria Montessori Quotes

When cultural change succeeds, it succeeds because it's so embedded in what we do that we don't have to think about.

If you want to change a whole people, then you start with the girls. It stands to reason: they learn faster, and they pass on what they learn to their children.

This call for a new culture is not a new idea.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.

Let the good ideas seep in, turning the barbarians [Khmer] into civilized people. As for winning the hearts of the people, and teaching them, we plan to do this rather slowly.

The duty of an American churchman in China is not simply introducing new ideas into the country, but modifying its industrial, social, and political life and institutions. Missionaries are the pioneers of trade and commerce. Civilization, learning, instruction breed new wants which commerce supplies.

How do we change as a culture, and how do we each individually take responsibility for the one piece of the solution that we are in charge of, and that is our own behavior?

The thing is, getting rid of racism is a cultural thing that takes decades. It's not something we can solve immediately. Structural changes have to happen in our culture.

These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here

We need young people to be involved, and we have to expect that young people are going to be impatient, they don't want to wait, and they've got new ideas and new ways of looking at problems.

If my goal is to change Colombia, which it is because I really think Columbia has to change in many, many ways - I think it has to be a very profound, nearly spiritual maturing process in the Colombian society because I think you have to first be aware of what's happening and it's not easy because many people don't want to see what's happening.

When we really need to work hard to make sure that these ideas about constructive social change culturally, ecologically and politically, come to pass. And that's only going to happen if people support the leadership, because the same power structures are still in place, and it's not in their best interests to change.

The life before '68 was very different from the life after '68. Before '68, our days were full of authoritarian moments. There were authorities everywhere. In fact, the movement of '68 was young people against their authorities, children against their parents. And that remained. The most important thing of all, the thing that lasted, was the first feminist movement and the position of women in society. That completely changed and that was very, very important.

Political change and academic change and intellectual change are obviously crucial, but they don't necessarily change society. They can change a particular class and give everybody in that class great arguments, but that doesn't necessarily translate into the body of the culture.

A culture that holds people back should and can be changed.

I think that we need to change the culture, not blame the people that are playing the only game that exists.

Any social or cultural change has to be made openly and with people agreeing. You don't get there by just pushing an outsider's point of view.

Throughout history, people with new ideas—who think differently and try to change things—have always been called troublemakers.

Those who have most at stake in the old culture, or are most rigid in their beliefs, try to summon people back to the old ideas.'

Spin-off technologies are changing the culture. Even if you don't become an engineer you could be a poet, a journalist, a lawyer, but you will be thinking innovation and your actions within society, who you vote for, what you value, all become a participant in an innovation economy.

When politics is too slow, change has to come from culture.

Whenever new ideas emerge, songs soon follow, and before long the songs are leading.

It is not possible to remake this country, to democratize it, humanize it, make it serious, as long as we have teenagers killing people for play and offending life, destroying the dream, and making love unviable. If education alone cannot transform society, without it society cannot change either.

Some say society must change in order to change people. No, people must be changed in order to change society.

If you want change, it has to be generational. We have this unbelievable opportunity to make that change. Entertainment enables us to entice and educate mass audiences into a shift of consciousness.