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The mind has formed itself by a special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying.
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“The mind has formed itself by a special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying.”

Maria Montessori

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Source
Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook
Date
1914
Meaning

Meaning of “The mind has formed itself by a special…”

Montessori describes repeated acts of attention and comparison as formative intellectual practice that organizes experience instead of merely supplying memorized content.

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Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, discussion of sensory didactic material. The statement reflects Montessori’s historical theory of mental development and is not labeled as a current neuroscientific finding.

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AttitudeConsistencyCuriosityDiscipline Quotes About Habits, Practice & ConsistencyEducation Quotes About Teaching & Intellectual FormationGrowthGrowth MindsetHabitsLearning Quotes About Curiosity, Study & ExperienceLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsMindMindsetSelf ImprovementThinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & JudgmentUnderstanding
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It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.
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“It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.”

Mary Wollstonecraft · Thoughts on the Education of Daughters · 1787
Meaning & context

Habit formation becomes stronger when action is joined with reflection, because principles understood and revisited are more likely to guide later choices.

Source details

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “THE BENEFITS WHICH ARISE FROM DISAPPOINTMENTS,” printed page 111, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft says reflection forms habits and fixes principles while opening a religious-moral discussion of disappointment, self-examination and character.

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A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.
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“A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.”

John Stuart Mill · Autobiography · 1873
Meaning & context

The sentence argues that education needs genuine stretch: always keeping demands inside proven ability can leave capacity underused.

Source details

Autobiography, Chapter I; Mill reflects critically on his father’s demanding teaching while preserving this principle about intellectual effort.

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Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself.
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“Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself.”

John Stuart Mill · Autobiography · 1873
Meaning & context

Mill describes an education built around discovery before explanation, emphasizing active reasoning rather than passive recall.

Source details

Autobiography, Chapter I; Mill describes his father’s method of making him attempt a problem independently before being told the solution.

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Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection.
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“Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection.”

Matthew Arnold · Culture and Anarchy · 1869
Meaning & context

Curiosity becomes more than collecting information when it is directed toward fuller development, better judgment, and a serious desire to improve understanding.

Source details

Culture and Anarchy; Arnold distinguishes idle curiosity from the pursuit of intellectual and moral perfection.

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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Francis Bacon · The Advancement of Learning · 1605
Meaning & context

Intellectual confidence can be improved by beginning with questions rather than pretending certainty too early.

Source details

The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.

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