Diaper backward spells repaid. Think about it.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
A baby usually wakes up in the wee-wee hours of the morning.
—Indian Proverb
Babies are such a nice way to start people
—Don Herold (1889–1966) American Humorist, Writer, Illustrator, Cartoonist
Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit.
—Bill Cosby (b.1937) American Actor, Comedian, Activist, Producer, Author
Except that right side up is best, there is not much to learn about holding a baby. There are one hundred and fifty-two distinctly different ways—and all are right! At least all will do.
—Heywood Broun (1888–1939) American Journalist
Don’t forget that compared to a grownup person every baby is a genius.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
Having a baby is like falling in love again, both with your husband and your child.
—Tina Brown (b.1953) British-American Journalist, Magazine Editor
As surely as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
It was the tiniest thing I ever decided to put my whole life into.
—Terri Guillemets
From the moment of birth, when the stone-age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful.
—R. D. Laing (1927–89) Scottish Psychiatrist
Mark the babe not long accustomed to this breathing world; One that hath barely learned to shape a smile, though yet irrational of soul, to grasp with tiny finger—to let fall a tear; And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves, To stretch his limbs, becoming, as might seem. The outward functions of intelligent man.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severely unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
A baby sitter is someone who watches your TV set While your kids cry themselves to sleep.
—Anonymous
A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as his legs increase.
—Indian Proverb
I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
The unborn baby that fears criticism will never be born.
—African Proverb
Babies are necessary to grown-ups. A new baby is like the beginning of all things—wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. In a world that is cutting down its trees to build highways, losing its earth to concrete… babies are almost the only remaining link with nature, with the natural world of living things from which we spring.
—Eda LeShan (1922–2002) American TV Personality, Playwright, Educator, Writer
I actually remember feeling delight, at two o’clock in the morning, when the baby woke for his feed, because I so longed to have another look at him.
—Margaret Drabble (b.1939) English Novelist, Biographer, Critic, Short Story Writer
It is the nature of babies to be in bliss.
—Deepak Chopra (b.1946) Indian-born American Physician, Public Speaker, Writer
If you want a baby, have a new one. Don’t baby the old one.
—Jessamyn West
The baby has not been born yet, and yet you assert that his nose is like his grandfather’s!
—Indian Proverb
No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction in later life.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
I don’t dislike babies, though I think very young ones rather disgusting.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
A baby is sunshine and moonbeams and more brightening your world as never before.
—Unknown
There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they’ll just have to learn how to be babies longer.
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
A monkey never thinks her baby’s ugly.
—Haitian Proverb
A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.
—Jerry Seinfeld (b.1954) American Comedian
Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A baby is born with a need to be loved – and never outgrows it.
—Frank A. Clark
A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can’t fold a paper in a crowded train.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
Babies don’t need a vacation but I still see them at the beach. I’ll go over to them and say, ‘What are you doing here, you’ve never worked a day in your life!’.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
The newborn baby yells; you die in silence.
—Russian Proverb
Families with babies and families without babies are sorry for each other.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
Everyone knows that by far the happiest and universally enjoyable age of man is the first. What is there about babies which makes us hug and kiss and fondle them, so that even an enemy would give them help at that age?
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealousy, or any guilt to alienate affection, must surely awaken tenderness in every human mind; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercussion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of dignity of benefaction.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby, and I have never seemed to get out of it ever since.
—Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British Poet, Literary Critic
The tiny madman in his padded cell.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
For babies grow up, we’ve learned to our sorrow
So quiet down, cobwebs
Dust, go to sleep
I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.
—Anonymous
Children are a handful sometimes, A heartfull all the time…
—Indian Proverb
Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Love is like a baby: it needs to be treated tenderly.
—African Proverb