quotations about children
It is better to have only one son endowed with good qualities than a hundred devoid of them. For the moon though one, dispels the darkness, which the stars, though numerous, do not.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
Alligators have the right idea ... they eat their young.
IDA CORWIN
Mildred Pierce
A state, a community, caring first for all its children, providing amply for their spiritual as for their temporal well-being, has organized the primitive Eden.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Boys have a period of mischief as much as they have measles or chicken-pox.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The "Why?" cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child's mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child's smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from GOD's hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love--for I think a child's first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love's sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet if one can put forth all one's powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child's whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child's pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.
LEWIS CARROLL
introduction, Alice's Adventures Under Ground
Some people never learn how to talk to kids. They turn up the volume and enunciate with extra care, as if talking to a partially deaf immigrant. They sound as if they're reading lines somebody else wrote for them, or as if what they're saying is really for the benefit of other adults listening and not just for the child. Kids sense that and turn off.
F. PAUL WILSON
The Tomb
Families with babies, and families without babies, are so sorry for each other.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
If a child is given love, he becomes loving ... If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful. And if he has been truly valued at home ... he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others.
DR. JOYCE BROTHERS
Good Housekeeping, Aug. 2010
Keep thou an open door between thy child's life and thine own.
MAUD LINDSAY
"The Closing Door", Mother Stories
The native and untaught suggestions of inquisitive children do often offer things, that may set a considering man's thoughts on work. And I think there is frequently more to be learn'd from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men, who talk in a road, according to the notions they have borrowed, and the prejudices of their education.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
The brightest light, the light of Italy, the purest sky of Scandinavia in the month of June is only a half-light when one compares it to the light of childhood. Even the nights were blue.
EUGENE IONESCO
Present Past / Past Present
Setting a good example for your children does nothing but increase their embarrassment.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Quotable Quotes: Wit and Wisdom from the Greatest Minds of Our Time
Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Love not your children unequally; or if you do, show it not, lest you make the one proud, and the other envious, and both fools.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Men
Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
We know not what the child may become.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The kids who need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways.
RUSSELL A. BARKLEY
attributed, Dad's Wit and Wisdom: Quips and Quotes for Fantastic Fathers
The dumbest thing I ever did was not having children. Absolute dumbest thing. Even worse than selling my bassoon. I see the error now. My sister's kids are turning out great. They were shockingly spoiled when they were little, but now their true personalities have taken over and they're just nice calm tall young people with personalities. One is at Kenyon College studying something with lasers and the other is an intern at a dollhouse museum.
NICHOLSON BAKER
Traveling Sprinkler
For the first two years you're up to your elbows in poo and puke. Then for the next ten, you feed them and educate them, and nurse them through every disease known to man--and some only known to veterinary science. Then they shut themselves in their bedroom and play cruel music at you and shout through the keyhole that you don't understand them and they hate you.
LAURA THYME
"The Gooseberry Bush", Rosemary & Thyme