Top 11 Quotes & Sayings by Alexander Sutherland Neill

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish educator Alexander Sutherland Neill.
Last updated on November 9, 2024.
Alexander Sutherland Neill

Alexander Sutherland Neill was a Scottish educator and author known for his school, Summerhill, and its philosophy of freedom from adult coercion and community self-governance. Raised in Scotland, Neill taught at several schools before attending the University of Edinburgh in 1908–1912. He took two jobs in journalism before World War I, and taught at Gretna Green Village School in the second year of the war, writing his first book, A Dominie's Log (1915), as a diary of his life there as head teacher. He joined a Dresden school in 1921 and founded Summerhill on returning to England in 1924. Summerhill gained renown in the 1930s and then in the 1960s–1970s, due to progressive and counter-culture interest. Neill wrote 20 books. His top seller was the 1960 Summerhill, read widely in the free school movement from the 1960s.

Free children are not easily influenced; the absence of fear accounts for this phenomenon. Indeed, the absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to a child.
The difficult child is the child who is unhappy. He is at war with himself; and in consequence, he is at war with the world.
Take from others what you want, but never be a disciple of anyone. — © Alexander Sutherland Neill
Take from others what you want, but never be a disciple of anyone.
I never once went to a prostitute, maybe because so many enthusiastic amateurs were around.
There is never a problem child; there is only a problem parent
Love and hate are not opposites. The opposite of love is indifference.
If the emotions are free the intellect will look after itself
When my first wife & I began the school, we had one main idea: to make the school fit the child - instead of making the child fit the school.
The function of the child is to live his own life - not the life that his anxious parents think he should live.
I answered that one learns to live, not by hearing of other lives, but by living; for words are infinitely less important than acts.
It starts with a crush, it then may turn into love, and hopefully will end up as soulmates.
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