Quotes about children

„It's no longer enough to teach our children Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics.“

—  William Lane Craig American Christian apologist and evangelist 1949

„Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes. But the test of the enormous wealth generated in patches of the capital is not that it contributed 20%-30% to Britain's GDP but how it affects the lives of the millions who live and work there. What kind of lives are available to them? Can they afford to live there? If they can't, it is not compensation that London is also a paradise for the ultra-rich. Can they get decently paid jobs or jobs at all? If they can't, don't brag about all those Michelin-starred restaurants and their self-dramatising chefs. Or schooling for children? Inadequate schools are not offset by the fact that London universities could field a football team of Nobel prize winners.“

—  Eric Hobsbawm British academic historian and Marxist historiographer 1917 - 2012

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/10/financial-crisis-capitalism-socialism-alternatives (2009).

„The world itself is a great fusing pot, out of which the One Humanity is emerging. This necessitates a drastic change in our methods of presenting history and geography. Science has always been universal. Great art and literature have always belonged to the world. It is upon these facts that the education to be given to the children of the world must be built - upon our similarities, our creative achievements, our spiritual idealisms, and our points of contact. Unless this is done, the wounds of the nations will never be healed, and the barriers which have existed for centuries will never be removed.“

—  Alice A. Bailey esoteric, theosophist, writer 1880 - 1949

Source: Education in the New Age (1954), p.46

„They take the children and ask them; What is the greatest country in the world? The kid say's; I haven't the slightest idea. They say; This country! This is the greatest country in the world! And God is on our side. So you get a bunch of pin heads all over the world, responding to these mechanisms of control.“

—  Jacque Fresco American futurist and self-described social engineer 1916 - 2017

„Some mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.“

—  Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Cut It Out (2004)
Source: Wall and Piece

„Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.“

—  Gustave Flaubert French writer (1821–1880) 1821 - 1880

Correspondence, Letters to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie
Variant: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.
Context: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live. (June 1857)

„All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children…. I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.“

—  Anne Sexton poet from the United States 1928 - 1974

„Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children and often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.“

—  Hermann Hesse, book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 217

„Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.“

—  James Baldwin (1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924 - 1987

„My dear friends, now and forever, I renounce, have renounced and will go on renouncing copyrights. My only wish is that these books be sold at low price, affordable to the poor, affordable to all the children of God. I wish that even the poorest, most destitute citizen be able to obtain these books with the few pennies he carries in his pocket. In fact, I do not have any income; I do not demand anything in exchange for my works. Whosoever wants to publish them, let him publish for the benefit of deiseased mankind.“

—  Samael Aun Weor Colombian writer 1917 - 1977

The 1976 Gnostic Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico

„I'm a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children.“

—  Marva Collins American schoolteacher 1936 - 2015

„In reality, we are still children. We want to find a playmate for our thoughts and feelings.“

—  Wilhelm Stekel Austrian physician and psychologist 1868 - 1940

As quoted in The Book Of Friendship: Making Life Better (2001) by Cyndi Haynes, p. 6

„If children fail to understand one another, it is because they think they understand one another.“

—  Jean Piaget Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic 1896 - 1980

The Language and Thought of the Child (1923) Tr. Marjorie and Ruth Gabain (1926)
Context: If children fail to understand one another, it is because they think they understand one another. The explainer believes from the start that the reproducer will grasp everything, will almost know beforehand all that should be known, and will interpret every subtlety. Children are perpetually surrounded by adults who not only know much more than they do, but who also do everything in their power to understand them, who even anticipate their thoughts and desires. Children, therefore... are perpetually under the impression that people can read their thoughts, and in extreme cases, can steal their thoughts away. It is obviously owing to this mentality that children do not take the trouble to express themselves clearly... This mentality does not contradict ego-centric mentality. Both arise from the belief of the child, the belief that he is the centre of the universe. These habits of thought account... for the remarkable lack of precision in the childish style.

„Be not judges yourselves of your own fantastical opinions and vain expositions; and although you be permitted to read Holy Scriptures and to have the Word of God in your mother tongue, you must understand it is licensed so to do only to inform your conscience and inform your children and families, not to make Scripture a railing and taunting stock against priests and preachers. I am very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same.“

—  Henry VIII of England King of England from 1509 until 1547 1491 - 1547

Last speech to parliament, December 24, 1545.
English Church History from the Death of King Henry VII to the Death of Archbishop Parker, Rev. Alfred Plummer, 1905, Edinburg, T. & T. Clark, p. 85. http://books.google.com/books?id=ofMOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA85&dq=%22+you+be+permitted+to+read+holy+scriptures%22

„I think one of the problems [with raising intelligent children in modern society] is compulsory schooling… and that children are sitting there, and they are taught and told what to believe; they are passive from the very beginning – and one must be very, very aggressive intellectually to have a high IQ […] the child isRight from the beginning, it's a passive process. He or she sits there, and they simply try to believe everything they're told?“

—  Marilyn vos Savant US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer 1946

„A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.“

—  Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017

Rolling Stone interview (June 1970)

„Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody banner is raised …
Do you hear, in the countryside,
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They're coming right into your arms
To slaughter your sons, your companions!! To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let's march, let's march!
Let an impure blood
Soak our fields!“

—  Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle French army officer 1760 - 1836

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!</p> <p> Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!


Variant translations:

Ye sons of France, awake to glory!
Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
Behold their tears and hear their cries!
La Marseillaise (1792)

„In organisms of all kinds the young are launched upon their careers endowed with a certain amount of biological capital derived from their parents. This varies enormously in amount in different species, but, in all, there has been, before the offspring is able to lead an independent existence, a certain expenditure of nutriment in addition, almost universally, to some expenditure of time or activity, which the parents are induced by their instincts to make for the advantage of their young. Let us consider the reproductive value of these offspring at the moment when this parental expenditure on their behalf has just ceased. If we consider the aggregate of an entire generation of such offspring it is clear that the total reproductive value of the males in this group is exactly equal to the total value of all the females, because each sex must supply half the ancestry of all future generations of the species. From this it follows that the sex ratio will so adjust itself, under the influence of Natural Selection, that the total parental expenditure incurred in respect of children of each sex, shall be equal; for if this were not so and the total expenditure incurred in producing males, for instance, were less than the total expenditure incurred in producing females, then since the total reproductive value of the males is equal to that of the females, it would follow that those parents, the innate tendencies of which caused them to produce males in excess, would, for the same expenditure, produce a greater amount of reproductive value; and in consequence would be the progenitors of a larger fraction of future generations than would parents having a congenital bias towards the production of females. Selection would thus raise the sex-ratio until the expenditure upon males became equal to that upon females.“

—  Ronald Fisher, book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

On natural selection acting on sex ratio: Fisher's principle, Ch. 6, p. 141.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

„The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.“

—  John Wooden American basketball coach 1910 - 2010

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court