It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so) without considering that nothing is beautiful that is misplaced.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
If you want a baby, have a new one. Don’t baby the old one.
—Jessamyn West
From where can your authority and license as a parent come from, when you who are old, do worse things?
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
—Samuel Butler
I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
Maternity is a matter of fact; paternity is a matter of opinion.
—U.S. Proverb
It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself. It seems unfair. You can’t assume the responsibility for everything you do—or don’t do.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the only way.
—Barbara Bush (1925–2018) American First Lady
Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
—Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) British Actor, Playwright, Director
Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
—Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher
To understand your parents’ love you must raise children yourself.
—Chinese Proverb
Telling lies and showing off to get attention are the mistakes I made that I don’t want my kids to make.
—Jane Fonda (b.1937) American Actress, Political Activist
To nourish and raise children against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.
—Marilyn French (1929–2009) American Feminist Author
I wish all the mothers, fathers and children out there realize how much I need them and how much I value their support.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–97) English Royal, Humanitarian, Peace Activist
Clinical experience has indicated that where a child has been exposed early in his live to episodes of physical violence, whether he himself is the victim or … the witness, he will often later demonstrate similar outbursts of uncontrollable rage and violence of his own. Aggression becomes an easy outlet through which the child’s frustrations and tensions flow, not just because of a simple matter of learning that can be just as simply unlearned, not just because he is imitating a bad behavior model and can be taught to imitate something more constructive, but because these traumatic experiences have overwhelmed him. His own emotional development is too immature to withstand the crippling inner effects of outer violence. Something happens to the child’s character, to his sense of reality, to the development of his controls against impulses that may not later be changed easily but which may lead to reactions that in turn provoke more reactions – one or more of which may be criminal. Then society reacts against him for what he did, but more for what all of us have done – unpleasantly – to one another. Upon him is laid the iniquity of us all…
—Karl Menninger (1893–1990) American Psychiatrist
Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.
—Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65) English Novelist, Short-Story Writer
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of their parents.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears: they cannot utter the one, nor will they utter the other
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Children aren’t happy with nothing to ignore, and that’s what parents were created for.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
Anyone who has a child today should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he’ll escape.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
The first and finest lesson that parents can teach their children is faith and courage.
—Smiley Blanton
To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child’s delight added to your own—this is happiness.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular. The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher