There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Your little child is your only true democrat.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to lose time in order to gain it.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Before you beat a child, be sure you yourself are not the cause of the offense.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Your children need your presence more than presents.
—Jesse Jackson (b.1941) American Baptist Civil Rights Activist, Minister
The Work reveals that what you think shouldn’t have happened should have happened. It should happened because it did, and no thinking in the world can change it. This doesn’t mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance and without the confusion of your inner struggle. No one wants their children to get sick, no one wants to be in a car accident; but when these things happen, how can it be helpful to mentally argue with them? We know better than to do that, yet we do it, because we don’t know how to stop.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Speaking of birthdays, our firstborn (recently turned 2). As parents sometimes fondly do, we reminisced a bit about his early days on earth-the excitement, the wonder, the fears when we brought him home. His every squeak or squawk we were sure heralded some terrible crisis; I tested the warmth of formulas from dusk to dawn, it seemed. We were so germ-conscious my wife even sterilized the skin of the oranges before squeezing them. How firstborns ever survive their parents’ attentions is beyond me. However, they do, and he did, and, in spite of our efforts, he turned out to be quite a good guy.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Better a snotty child than his nose wiped off.
—English Proverb
Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
We know less about the sexual life of little girls than of boys. But we need not feel ashamed of this distinction; after all, the sexual life of adult women is a dark continent for psychology.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap.
—Danish Proverb
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
—Phyllis Diller (b.1917) American Actor, Comedian
Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
There should be no enforced respect for grown-ups. We cannot prevent children from thinking us fools by merely forbidding them to utter their thoughts; in fact, they are more likely to think ill of us if they dare not say so.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Children’s liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list.
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (b.1939) American Social Activist, Journalist
Never have children, only grand children.
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
—Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian Revolutionary Leader
The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.
—Haim Ginott
I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away
—Nancy Mitford (1904–73) English Novelist, Biographer
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