Schooling that children are forced to endure—in which the subject matter is imposed by others and the “learning” is motivated by extrinsic rewards and punishments rather than by the children’s true interests—turns learning from a joyful activity into a chore, to be avoided whenever possible. Coercive schooling, which tragically is the norm in our society, suppresses curiosity and overrides children’s natural ways of learning. It also promotes anxiety, depression and feelings of helplessness that all too often reach pathological levels.

To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself--that is the first duty of the educator.

If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future.

No teacher has the right to cure a child of making noises on a drum. The only curing that should be practiced is the curing of unhappiness.

School is about learning to wait your turn, however long it takes to come, if ever. And how to submit with a show of enthusiasm to the judgment of strangers, even if they are wrong, even if your enthusiasm is phony.

It takes a huge amount of culture to normalize "crazy", and of course that's its main focus

The whole purpose of propaganda is to make the obvious seem obscure, or offensive

A person who says “every person has a right to a decent education” may not actually mean “people should be robbed to support bad schools” or “all children should be forced into a prison-like building for 12 years.

The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.

One problem with the way the educational system is set up is that it only recognizes a certain type of intelligence, and it’s incredibly restrictive - very, very restrictive. There’s so many types of intelligence, and people who would be at their best outside of that structure get lost.