quotations about birth
Man's birth is a lottery; it may be in the pleasant home of ease and affluence, or in the hut of poverty; in either case it may be a stain or an honor. If he is born in poverty, and his future life throws a lustre over an humble birth, the reward will not only be great, but his name will stand higher on the roll of honor and virtue, than he who can only boast of his proud descent.
JAMES ELLIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
What is birth to a man if it shall be a stain to his dead ancestors to have left such an offspring?
PHILIP SIDNEY
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney
The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul. The soul must work its way out of prison, and, in doing so, provide itself with wings for a future journey. It is for each of us to determine whether our wings shall be those of an angel or a grub!
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
Egeria
Birth is far out, man, and it's a real groove if you give it together. Do the birthdance together, man, together. All you real people, just get out there and do your thing, cause that's what birth is, like, it's doing your thing. And you know it.
UNKNOWN
Playgirl, 1977
Birth and death--what could be more monstrous than that? We like to deceive ourselves and call it wondrous and beautiful and majestic, but it's freakish, let's face it.
ROHINTON MISTRY
A Fine Balance
Birth, copulation, and death.
Is this your life?
CARCASS
"This Is Your Life"
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Birth is as safe as life gets.
HARRIETTE HARTIGAN
attributed, The Greatest Quotations of All Time
From the first birth of life
Till our final last breath
You never thought we could make it this far
We don't stop, we keep fighting on
SEPULTURA
"Fighting On"
Zippin' up my boots
Goin' back to my roots
To the place of my birth
Back down to earth
RICHIE HAVENS
"Going Back to My Roots", Connections
Do you count your birthdays thankfully?
HORACE
Epistles
We die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing.
AMIN MAALOUF
Orígenes
After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.
E.B. WHITE
Charlotte's Web
Birth is a rite of passage and by the end of it you've been through it together and you're in relationship to the baby. The baby is what comes at the end of the process of giving birth, and I think the more connected I am with the birth, the more connected I am with the baby.
EDWARDS
attributed, Risk and Choice in Maternity Care
The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety.
SIGMUND FREUD
The Interpretation of Dreams
He came into the world like a delivery that no one knew what to do with, and nobody wanted to sign for.
OBERT SKYE
Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
I had a Jewish delivery. They knock you out with the first pain and wake you up when the hairdresser shows.
JOAN RIVERS
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Humor
How you approach birth is intimately connected with how you approach life.
WILLIAM SEARS
The Pregnancy Book
I came upstairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.
WILLIAM CONGREVE
Love for Love
Amnesia is a condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to have sex again.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
attributed, The 2,320 Funniest Quotes