"We have a cultural notion that if children were not engineered, if we did not manipulate them, they would grow up as beasts in the field. This is the wildest fallacy in the world."

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

"No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure."

"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."

"Kids don't resist learning; they resist teaching."

"I hate, loathe and despise schools. School is bad for you if you have any talent. You should be cultivating that talent in your own particular way."

"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think."

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child."

"Learning is not a product of teaching ... kids are born learning. They learn how to walk, how to talk. They're basically little scientists. If we don't stop that process, it will continue."

"In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: forget about it. Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it. One day, you will glance up at your collection of Japanese literature, or trip over the solar oven you built, and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself."

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

"I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn."