Quotes about children
page 30

Frida Kahlo photo
John Oliver photo

“As far as I can see, this is a system that has enriched multiple companies and that pays and fires teachers with a cattle birthing formula, confuses children with talking pineapples, and has the same kind of rules regarding transparency as Brad Pitt had for Fight Club.”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

Last Week Tonight: Standardized Testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k Last Week Tonight: Standardized Testing (3 May 2015)
Last Week Tonight (2014–present)

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo

“The children have been a wonderful gift to me, and I’m thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family’s future.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

The Unknown Wisdom of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1994) edited by Bill Adler

Włodzimierz Ptak photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
James Dobson photo
Guy Debord photo
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“What they have implanted here, which is really a 'gringo' custom, is terrorism. They disguise children as witches and wizards, that is contrary to our culture.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez on Halloween. http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/051101005143.9f6752nt.html
2005

Leo Tolstoy photo
Pierce Brown photo

“You called my children animals!”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

According to Richard Dawkins, Haggard accosted him and his film crew as they were leaving the New Life Church. Dawkins suggests that the remark could be a reference to the Theory of Evolution.
Attributed

Jeremy Clarkson photo
Taraji P. Henson photo

“Dogs, to me, are like children. They are the closest thing to God. They are so pure in their love, and all they do is aim to please.”

Taraji P. Henson (1970) American actress

"Taraji P. Henson: Give Animals the Love That They Deserve" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_IPhbsMlow, video interview with PETA (27 February 2013).

John Ruskin photo
Steven Erikson photo
Nick Griffin photo
Tom Rath photo

“Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out."”

Tom Rath (1975) American author

Tom Rath & Donald O. Clifton (2004) How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life. p. 36

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Adolf Eichmann photo

“Regret is something for little children.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

During cross-examination at his trial, session 96, July 13, 1961, as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

John the Evangelist photo

“But whoever has the material possessions of this world and sees his brother in need and yet refuses to show him compassion, in what way does the love of God remain in him? Little children, we should love, not in word or with the tongue, but in deed and truth.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

1 John 3:17,18 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/62/3#dcv_3_17, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
First Letter of John

Lois Duncan photo

“Killing Mr. Griffin doesn't encourage violence in schools any more than the story of Cain and Able encourages children to kill their younger brothers.”

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

On violence in her novels, interview in Absolute Write (2002)
1990–2002

Arthur Rimbaud photo

“Sweeter than apples to children
The green water spurted through my pine-wood hull.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes sures,
L'eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin.
St. 5
Le Bateau Ivre http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Boat.html (The Drunken Boat) (1871)

Plutarch photo
David Carter photo
Andrew Solomon photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Ayelet Waldman photo

“What did you do today? Nothing say our little children, and so do I. What we most are is what we keep mistaking for nothing.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#155
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Joycelyn Elders photo

“If you say children wouldn't know anything about masturbation on their own, you've never changed a little boy's diaper.”

Joycelyn Elders (1933) American pediatrician, public health administrator, and former Surgeon General of the United States

"Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool", 2007-06-04, Jessica Valenti, w:Jessica Valenti, 2014-05-23, Feministing.com http://web.archive.org/web/20070713094431/http://feministing.com/archives/007116.html,
Masturbation

Orson Hyde photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Warren Farrell photo
Michelle Obama photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“"I want five children, like in my own family, because with five, then I will know that one will be guaranteed to turn out like me," Donald told a close friend.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

'After the Gold Rush', in Vanity Fair, by Marie Brenner, September 1, 1990
1990s

George W. Bush photo

“Good morning. This coming week I will be making the trip up Pennsylvania Avenue to address a joint session of Congress. We have some business to attend to called the budget of the United States. The federal budget is a document about the size of a big city phone book, and about as hard to read from cover to cover. The blueprint I submit this week contains many numbers, but there is one that probably counts more than any other – $5.6 trillion. That is the surplus the federal government expects to collect over the next 10 years; money left over after we have met our obligations to Social Security, Medicare, health care, education, defense and other priorities. The plan I submit will fund our highest national priorities. Education gets the biggest percentage increase of any department in our federal government. We won't just spend more money on schools and education, we will spend it responsibly. We'll give states more freedom to decide what works. And as we give more to our schools we're going to expect more in return by requiring states and local jurisdictions to test every year. How else can we know whether schools are teaching and children are learning? Social Security and Medicare will get every dollar they need to meet their commitments. And every dollar of Social Security and Medicare tax revenue will be reserved for Social Security and Medicare.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Radio Address to the Nation (February 2001)

Manis Friedman photo
James K. Morrow photo

“Children, being close to the ground, have a special rapport with insects.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 2 (p. 17)

Bernard Chazelle photo
Teimumu Kepa photo
Heidi Klum photo
Gabrielle Roy photo
Eduardo Torroja photo
Joan Baez photo
Heidi Klum photo
Pauline Kael photo
Scott Ritter photo

“I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Scott Ritter Says Controversial Things About Clinton, Bush, Fox News, the Surge, etc. http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=oid%3A42834, Interview with the Memphis Flyer, May 8 2008
2008

Henry Adams photo
Robert Frost photo
Warren Farrell photo
Judith Krug photo

“I get very concerned when we start hearing people who want to convert this country into a safe place for children. I am adult. I want available what I need to see.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

"Oak Lawn Library Vows to Keep Playboy on Shelf" by Jo Napolitano, Chicago Tribune, (June 23, 2005)

Wesley Clark photo
James Russell Lowell photo

“Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome [[May],
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

To the Dandelion http://www.gaygardener.com/poems/gpoem072.phtml, st. 1

Svetlana Alexievich photo
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker photo
Qutb al-Din Aibak photo
Geert Wilders photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo
Ron Paul photo

“Imagine […] that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests." Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence. Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers' attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. […] The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Imagine by Ron Paul http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul512.html (11 March 2009).
2000s, 2006-2009

Manuel Zelaya photo
Warren Farrell photo

“The people considered the most in need of protection were women and children. The sex considered most disposable was men – or males….”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Ted Cruz photo
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield photo
Francis Bacon photo
Zainab Salbi photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“This volume was written for children. Miss Landon set out its purpose in the preface.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Aga Khan III photo

“There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and believing Mahomedan belongs--that is, the theory of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. It is a deep, perennial element in that Perso-Arabian culture, that great family of civilisation to which we gave the name Islamic in the first chapter. It connotes charity and goodwill towards fellow-believers everywhere…It means an abiding interest in the literature of Islam, in her beautiful arts, in her lovely architecture, in her entrancing poetry. It also means a true reformation -- a return to the early and pure simplicity of the faith, to its preaching by persuasion and argument, to the manifestation of a spiritual power in individual lives, to beneficent activity for mankind. This natural and worthy spiritual movement makes not only the Master and His teaching but also His children of all climes an object of affection to the Turk or the Afghan, to the Indian or the Egyptian. A famine or a desolating fire in the Moslem quarters of Kashgar or Sarajevo would immediately draw the sympathy and material assistance of the Mahomedan of Delhi or Cairo. The real spiritual and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the Prophet it is the foundation of the life of the soul.”

Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community

p. 156; a variant of this begins "This is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism…", but is otherwise identical.
/ India in Transition (1918)

Dr. Seuss photo

“… and the wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones … But those were Foreign Children and it really didn’t matter …”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Caption to a political cartoon against the "America First" movement, showing children being read a story of "Adolf the Wolf", in PM Magazine (1 October 1941)

Gyles Brandreth photo
Sun Myung Moon photo
Paul Keating photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Jean Ingelow photo

“The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

As quoted in The Ultimate Guide to Celebrating Kids : K-6th Grade School (2005) by Linda LaTourelle, p. 134

Alex Jones photo

“When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped, I have zero fear standing up against her. Yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children. I just can't hold back the truth anymore. Hillary Clinton is one of the most vicious serial killers the planet's ever seen.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Said in a YouTube video posted on 4 November 2016, as quoted in "Alex Jones: ‘Hillary Clinton Has Personally Murdered And Chopped Up And Raped' Children" http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-hillary-clinton-has-personally-murdered-and-chopped-up-and-raped-children/ by Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch (8 December 2016)
2016

Anna Akhmatova photo

“At dawn they came and took you away.
You were my dead: I walked behind.
In the dark room children cried,
the holy candle gasped for air.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

They led you away...
They took you away at daybreak. Half wak-
ing, as though at a wake, I followed.
In the dark chamber children were crying,
In the image-case, candlelight guttered.
At your lips, the chill of icon,
A deathly sweat at your brow.
I shall go creep to our walling wall,
Crawl to the Kremlin towers.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Prologue

Jim Henson photo

“We started off with this fairly grand concept of, if you were to tackle it at a children's level, eliminating war. What would you do?”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Henson on the motivation behind Fraggle Rock
Interview with Associated Press (1987)

Neil Gaiman photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Hillary Clinton photo

“But some children have clearer vision than adults.”

Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) British writer

Prisonner of Fire (1974)

Thomas Carlyle photo
El Lissitsky photo
Paul Klee photo
George W. Bush photo
Siddharth Katragadda photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Gloria Estefan photo
John Heyl Vincent photo

“He was Himself forsaken that none of His children might ever need to utter His cry of loneliness.”

John Heyl Vincent (1832–1920) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 73.

Rod Serling photo

“I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably. But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of war and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words… less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the war that came before.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Excerpt from a dedication to an unpublished short story, "First Squad, First Platoon"; from Serling to his as yet unborn children.
Other

Alauddin Khalji photo

“They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000, and children of both sexes, 'more than the pen can enumerate'… In short, the Muhammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants, and plundered the cities, and captured their offspring, so that many temples were deserted and the idols were broken and trodden under foot, the largest of which was one called Somnat, fixed upon stone, polished like a mirror of charming shape and admirable workmanship' Its head was adorned with a crown set with gold and rubies and pearls and other precious stones' and a necklace of large shining pearls, like the belt of Orion, depended from the shoulder towards the side of the body….
'The Muhammadan soldiers plundered all these jewels and rapidly set themselves to demolish the idol. The surviving infidels were deeply affected with grief, and they engaged 'to pay a thousand pieces of gold' as ransom for the idol, but they were indignantly rejected, and the idol was destroyed, and 'its limbs, which were anointed with ambergris and perfumed, were cut off. The fragments were conveyed to Delhi, and the entrance of the Jami' Masjid was paved with them, that people might remember and talk of this brilliant victory.' Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Amen! After some time, among the ruins of the temples, a most beautiful jasper-coloured stone was discovered, on which one of the merchants had designed some beautiful figures of fighting men and other ornamental figures of globes, lamps, etc., and on the margin of it were sculptured verses from the Kurdn. This stone was sent as an offering to the shrine of the pole of saints… At that time they were building a lofty octagonal dome to the tomb. The stone was placed at the right of the entrance. "At this time, that is, in the year 707 h. (1307 a. d.), 'Alau-d din is the acknowledged Sultan of this country. On all its borders there are infidels, whom it is his duty to attack in the prosecution of a holy war, and return laden with countless booty."”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Somnath. Abdu’llah ibn Fazlu’llah of Shiraz (Wassaf) : Tarikh-i-Wassaf (Tazjiyatu’l Amsar Wa Tajriyatu’l Ãsar), in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 43-44. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Agatha Christie photo