Quotes from written and spoken word of this great advocate of positive education bringing world peace. With thanks to Tula for collating and researching them.
Quotes on Peace
Averting war is the work of politicians; establishing peace is the work of education.
It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was.
Grown ups and children must join their forces. In order to become great, the grown up must be humble & learn from the child.
It is not the child as a physical but as a psychic being that can provide a strong impetus to the betterment of mankind.
If salvation and help are to come, it is from the child, for the child is the constructor of man and so of society. The child is endowed with an inner power which can guide us to a more enlightened future.
Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgement, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear.
The child passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious, trading always in the paths of joy & love.
It is the spirit of the child that can determine the course of human progress and lead it perhaps even to a higher form of civilisation.
If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.
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.
Other Quotes
No one can be free unless he is independent.
An individual is disciplined when he is the master of himself.
It is the child who is active, and not the teacher.
To develop a language from nothing needs a different type of mentality. The child has this. His intelligence is not of the same kind as ours.
Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.
The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the new-born infant or the older child, is to recognise the human personality of the young being and respect it.
The essential thing is for the task to arouse such an interest that it engages the child’s whole personality.
Inner forces affect his choice, and if someone usurps the function of this guide, the child is prevented from developing either his will or his concentration.
The training…..of the senses has the obvious advantage of enlarging the field of perception and offering an ever more solid foundation for intellectual growth.
The children must be free to express themselves and thus reveal those needs and attitudes which would otherwise remain hidden or repressed in an environment that did not permit them to act spontaneously.
The adult ought never to mould the child after himself, but should leave him alone and work always from the deepest comprehension of the child himself.
Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.
The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.
The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself.
Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.
Our goal is not so much the imparting of knowledge as the unveiling and developing of spiritual energy.
If men of the future are to be strong, they must be independent and free.
The child is much more spiritually elevated than is usually supposed. He often suffers, not from too much work, but from work that is unworthy of him.
A man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done.
