quotations about children
If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse.
G.K. CHESTERTON
"A Defence of Baby-Worship"
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
Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Living with kids is like living in a frat house ... everything's broken, nobody sleeps, and there's alot of throwing up.
RAY ROMANO
stand-up routine
Raising children is a creative endeavor, an art rather than a science.
BRUNO BETTELHEIM
A Good Enough Parent
We know that the outcasts and misfits are the children most likely to become violent, so it only follows that we must pull them into the arms of love and/or acceptance, and find a place where they fit. If our system doesn't have a place where a child fits, there's something wrong with the system, not the child.
WILLIAM G. DEFOORE
Anger
Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing. Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing. When the world gives you a feeling of "déjà vu," when you are used to existence, you become an adult.
EUGENE IONESCO
Present Past / Past Present
My friends with children say it's the quality of love that is so unique, the fact that you surrender yourself to love, and through that surrendering become transparent to your deepest feelings. Perhaps it's not having a child that is so striking, but that unconditional love, joy, happiness exist and finally, through the child, have a chance to be expressed. To finally, irrevocably love without holding anything back. Perhaps the magic--the love, happiness, fulfillment--existed in us all along like an underground river, but we could never see it or know it because we kept looking for it outside, in accomplishments, body sizes, and other people.
GENEEN ROTH
Appetites: On the Search for True Nourishment
You should never take responsibility for more children than you can give attention to.
JAMES REDFIELD
The Celestine Prophecy
Nothing you do for a child is ever wasted.
GARRISON KEILLOR
Leaving Home
We teach children to save their money. As an attempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure, that has value. But it is not positive; it does not lead the child into the safe and useful avenues of self-expression or self-expenditure. To teach a child to invest and use is better than to teach him to save.
HENRY FORD
My Life and Work
Everyone should have kids. They are the greatest joy in the world. But they are also terrorists. You'll realize this as soon as they're born, and they start using sleep deprivation to break you.
RAY ROMANO
stand-up routine
What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?
HONORE DE BALZAC
A Woman of Thirty
I have long felt that the way to keep children out of trouble is to keep them interested in things. Lecturing to children is no answer to delinquency. Preaching won't keep youngsters out of trouble, but keeping their minds occupied will.
WALT DISNEY
Deeds Rather Than Words
I didn't want children because I didn't want them to suffer. I had a dog, which suffered enough. I don't even want a goldfish or a turtle. I have a desert plant in my house that needs a glass of water maybe once a year, which I can deliver.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC
"Life's Work: An Interview with Marina Abramovic", Harvard Business Review, November 2016
Love of children is the homage of the heart to unsullied purity. Indeed, children are the bright side of life. From our sins and sorrows, how refreshing is it to turn to their artless ways and purer joys! Would that they could all be so educated, as not, in their after-years, to darken life by their offenses!
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
If from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
P.D. JAMES
The Children of Men
The deeds of the children are a testament to the upbringing they received from their parents.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Brisingr
Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
PHYLLIS DILLER
Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse