John Holt

• "We must set a limit to the tension that we put children under."
• "Do children really need so much praise?"
• "Is this what they mean when they call themselves stupid?"
• "intelligent children feel that the universe can be trusted..."
• "intelligent children act unintelligently at school... because they're scared."
• "For their security they had nothing but each other, and they were so anxious that they had almost no security to give."
• "Fairy tales could ... give their fears a name and an identity"
• A baby: "In the face of what looks like unbroken failure, she is so persistent..."
• "[Student's] fumbling incompetence is ... comparable to the psychoneurotic reactions of men who have been under too great a stress for too long."
• "blindness to patterns or symbols... is a neurotic reaction to too great stress."
• "the circle of failure, discouragement, and fear in which he is trapped"