Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

"Lead your child by the hand to the great scenes of nature; teach him on the mountain and in the valley. There he will listen better to your teaching; the liberty will give him greater force to surmount difficulties. But in these hours of liberty it should be nature that teaches rather than you. Do not allow yourself to prevail for the pleasure of success in your teaching; or to desire in the least to proceed when nature diverts him; do not take away in the least the pleasure which she offers him. Let him completely realize that it is nature that teaches, and that you, with your art, do nothing more than walk quietly at her side. When he hears a bird warble or an insect hum on a leaf, then cease your talk; the bird and the insect are teaching; your business is then to be silent."

"Das Leben bildet."

"Each of our moral, mental, and bodily powers must have its development based upon its own nature, and not based upon artificial and outside influences. Faith must be developed by exercises in believing and cannot be developed from the knowledge and understanding, only, of what is to be believed; thought must grow from thinking, for it cannot come simply from the knowledge and understanding of what is to be thought, or the laws of thought; love must be developed by loving, for it does not arise merely from a knowledge and understanding of what love is and of what ought to be loved; art, also, can only be cultivated through doing artistic work and acquiring skill, for unending discussion of art and skill will not develop them. Such a return to the true method of Nature in the method of the development of our powers necessitates the subordination of education to the knowledge of the various laws which govern those powers."

"The ultimate end of education is not a perfection in the accomplishments of the school, but fitness for life; not the acquirement of habits of blind obedience, and of prescribed diligence, but a preparation for independent action. We must bear in mind that whatever class of society a pupil may belong to, whatever calling he may be intended for, there are certain faculties in human nature common to all, which constitute the stock of the fundamental energies of man. We have no right to withhold from any one the opportunities for developing all their faculties. It may be judicious to treat some of them with marked attention, and to give up the idea of bringing others to high perfection. The diversity of talent and inclination, of plans and pursuits, is a sufficient proof of the necessity for such a distinction. But I repeat that we have no right to shut out the child from the development of those faculties also, which we may not for the present conceive to be very essential for his future calling or station in life."

"I would take school instruction out of the hands of the old order of decrepit, stammering, journeymen-teachers as well as from the new weak ones, who are generally no better for popular instruction, and entrust it to the undivided powers of Nature herself, to the light that God kindles and ever keeps alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interest of parents who desire that their children should grow up in favour with God and man."

"The circle of knowledge commences close round a man and thence stretches out concentrically."

"Von Jugend auf zwei Batzen sparen (ist) ein Mittel wider den Ursprung der Verbrechen, gegen die man sonst Galgen und Rad braucht."

"Wer sich im Geist und in der Wahrheit als Bruder von Hunderten fühlt, der ist ein höherer Mensch als der zärtlichste Bruder von einem."

"Was ist die ganze Erziehung als das heilige Anknüpfen der Vergangenheit an das Dunkel der Zukunft durch weisen Gebrauch der Gegenwart?"

"In den Bau der Welt taugt nur der abgeschliffene Stein."

"In den Abgründen des Unrechts findest du immer die größte Sorgfalt für den Schein des Rechts."

"Gott ist nahe, wo die Menschen einander Liebe zeigen."

"Die Wahrheit ist eine Arznei, die angreift."

"Die Regierungen irren immer und in allem unendlich mehr als der Mensch."

"Die Anschauung ist das Fundament der Erkenntnis."

"Der Mittelpunkt alles Menschenverderbens ist Verhärtung des Herzens."

"Das Wesen der Menschlichkeit entfaltet sich nur in der Ruhe. Ohne sie verliert die Liebe alle Kraft ihrer Wahrheit und ihres Segens."

""Das Tier taugt zu allem, was es soll, vollkommen"

"Das Gute bleibt ewig gut, aber das Schlechte wird durch das Alter immer schlechter."

"Das gesellschaftliche Recht ist ganz und gar kein sittliches Recht, sondern eine bloße Modifikation des tierischen."

"Alle Menschlichkeit ist in ihrem Wesen sich gleich und hat zu ihrer Befriedigung nur eine Bahn. Darum wird die Wahrheit, die rein aus dem Innersten unseres Wesens geschöpft ist, allgemeine Menschenwahrheit sein."