“My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches [things] I had done…and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty on to like the end of the world.”

— Anthony Burgess

Fiction, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update March 9, 2022. History

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Anthony Burgess 297

English writer 1917–1993

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“My son is 22 years old. If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

On being told his son had joined the Communist Party, as quoted in Try and Stop Me (1944) by Bennet Cerf
A statement similar in theme has also been attributed to Clemenceau:
A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.
As quoted in "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" : False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations (1992) by Ralph Keyes.
W. Gurney Benham in A Book of Quotations (1948) cites a statement by François Guizot as the earliest known expression of this general idea, stating that Clemenceau merely adapted the saying substituting socialiste for republicain:
N'être pas républicain à vingt ans est preuve d'un manque de cœur ; l'être après trente ans est preuve d'un manque de tête.
Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.
Variations on this general idea have also been attributed or misattributed to many others, most commonly Winston Churchill, who is not known to have actually made any similar statement.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“God spoke to me and God told me, "Keep your son,” And I did and he saved my life. My son saved my life. Had I not had my son, I would probably be dead right now.”

Stacey Dash (1967) American actress

EXCLUSIVE: Stacey Dash Says Not Having an Abortion 'Saved' Her Life, Reveals She's Abstaining From Sex Before Marriage http://www.etonline.com/news/190126_stacey_dash_says_not_having_an_abortion_saved_my_life_exclusive/ (June 2, 2016)

“You feel afraid of small, insignificant rulers and obey them; shouldn’t you fear and obey the Sole, Absolute Ruler? He has taken no son for Himself. The Jews say, ‘Uzair-as is the son of Allah’; the Christians claim, ‘Jesus is the son of Allah.’ But He says: ‘I have no son.’ He is the Absolute, the Single; there can be none like Him. A son necessarily belongs to the genre and species of his father. The son of a human being would be a human, the young of an elephant would be an elephant and that of a bird would essentially be a bird, inheriting the attributes of its father. If God had a son, he would have been another god. But, He neither has any son, nor any partner in His sovereignty; He is the Absolute Ruler, no one can interfere with His rule. It is He Who has created everything.”

Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan (1934–2017) Pakistani Sufi leader

“This that I say is so great bliss to Jesus that He setteth at nought all His travail, and His hard Passion, and His cruel and shameful death.
And in these words: If that I might suffer more, I would suffer more, — I saw in truth that as often as He might die, so often He would, and love should never let Him have rest till He had done it. And I beheld with great diligence for to learn how often He would die if He might. And verily the number passed mine understanding and my wits so far that my reason might not, nor could, comprehend it. And when He had thus oft died, or should, yet He would set it at nought, for love: for all seemeth Him but little in regard of His love.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Ninth Revelation, Chapter 22

“I did not want my son remembered by uncontrolled howls of pain. My wife and I suffered more than I can express, but to make poems merely out of the agony would have been self-pitying and dishonest. My son had been my greatest joy. His birth had left me awe-struck and humble before life. He turned me from a son into a father — and allowed me to understand my own father clearly for the first time. If I mourned him, I also wanted to preserve the joyful mystery of his existence. The sorrow could not be adequately appreciated without also expressing the joy and wonder.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Paradigms Lost," interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (Spring 1995)
Interviews

“If it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons.”

Christine de Pizan book The Book of the City of Ladies

Si la coustume estoit de mettre les petites filles a l'escole, et que communement on les fist apprendre les sciences comme on fait aux filz, qu'elles apprendroient aussi parfaitement et entenderoient les subtilités de toutes les arz et sciences comme ils font.
Part I, ch. 27, p. 63.
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405)
Source: The Book of the City of Ladies

“A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 95
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in. For it is easy to observe, that many young men continue longer in thought and conversation of school-boys than otherwise they would, because their parents keep them at that distance, and in that low rank, by all their carriage to them.

“More men than I have put men to death, but I am the last man in the world that would take a man's life. Two years ago—even if my own life was at stake—and I am confident, if I thought a man would shoot me—I would give him a chance of keeping his life, and would part with my own; but if I knew that through him innocent persons' lives were at stake, I certainly would have to shoot him if he forced me to do so; but I would want to know that he was really going to take my innocent life.”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

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“I would not stop till I had filled up a bucket with my sweat. I would push myself so much that in the end I would collapse and I would have to be admitted to hospital, I would pray to God to save me, promise that I would be more careful in future. And then I would do it all over again.”

Milkha Singh (1935) Indian track and field athlete

A BBC quote in Flying Sikh': Indian sprinter Milkha Singh biopic set for release."

“I would have done it all again. I would have destroyed them all. Yet I would have spared one. I would have spared her that showed me Him whose presence I had not fathomed or maybe never even known. Great God, how early it is! Until now I had almost forgotten His name.
“Come!” the voice booms, but commanding me now: Come, My son! I turn in surrender.
Surely I come quickly. Amen.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Oh how bright and fair the morning star …”

William Styron book The Confessions of Nat Turner

Part IV : "It Is Done…"
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)

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