Quotes about children
page 37

“The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature ed. H. Carpenter & M. Pritchard (1984)”

Charles Hamilton (writer) (1876–1961) English writer of school stories

References

“Several children present me with scraps of paper for autographs: obviously don't know who I am and don't care. I sign "Jackie Collins" and they go away quite content.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Diary entry describing his appearance at the Gothenburg Book Fair (7 September 1989), published in Happy Alchemy (1999), p. 332.

“Bland is the truest expression of an advanced civilization. It took a great deal of money to create this pocket of cool, calm bland among the rickshaw men and the beggar children tapping on the car windows.”

John Twelve Hawks book Spark

Spark (2014)

Men, Money, Cars

“In Hindustan, especially in the province of Sylhet, which is a dependency of Bengal, it was the custom for the people of those parts to make eunuchs of some of their sons and give them to the governor in place of revenue (mal-wajibi)… This custom by degrees has been adopted in other provinces and every year some children are thus ruined and cut off from procreation. This practice has become common.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Jahangir, Tuzuk, I, 150-51. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 9

People, Parting, Dependency

“I was so enchanted with the open possibilities and the power of being able to choose my part. Who was the child now? I decided I’d be a Japanese businessman because it would be less predictable. Even when I was alone, I was so filled with excitement and laughter at the thought of my task. This was joyful children’s play!”

Piper Laurie (1932) actress

About her role in Twin Peaks. Learning to Live Out Loud: A Memoir (2011), quoted in Word and Film, Piper Laurie: On Twin Peaks and a New Identity, October 31, 2011 http://www.wordandfilm.com/2011/10/piper-laurie-on-twin-peaks-and-a-new-identity/

Laughter, Parting

“I felt sorry for him at that moment. He only wanted what every man wanted—freedom from fear, a chance to raise children with a reasonable certainty that they would be allowed to do the same, a chance to look forward to the future without the knowledge that any plans made might be wrecked forever by some sudden act of violence.”

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 3 “The Eldren Threat” (p. 15)

Fear, Knowledge, Freedom, Chance

“In the first stages of the industrial revolution, animals were used as machines. As also were children. Later, in the so-called post-industrial societies, they are treated as raw material. Animals required for food are processed like manufactured commodities. … This reduction of the animal … is part of the same process as that by which men have been reduced to isolated productive and consuming units. Indeed, during this period an approach to animals often prefigured an approach to man. The mechanical view of the animal’s work capacity was later applied to that of workers. F. W. Taylor who developed the “Taylorism” of timemotion studies and “scientific” management of industry proposed that work must be “so stupid” and so phlegmatic that he (the worker) “more nearly resembles in his mental makeup the ox than any other type.” Nearly all modern techniques of social conditioning were first established with animal experiments. As were also the methods of so-called intelligence testing. Today behaviourists like Skinner imprison the very concept of man within the limits of what they conclude from their artificial tests with animals.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: About Looking (1980), Chapter "Why Look at Animals?"

Men, Stupidity, Food, Intelligence

“The Industrial Revolution, then, took men’s occasional absence from home -- previously needed only in wartime and for hunting -- and made it the norm. This increasing division of labor magnified the division of men’s and women’s interests. It magnified the belief in the maternal instinct and the reality of the distant father. Prior to industrialization, divorces usually led to children living with dads. Not after.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 88.

Women, Men, Home, Reality

“We made fracking a civil rights issue. Because that is what it is. We all have a right to a healthy environment and to clean water. And so do our children.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

Against fracking in the Karoo, 3 May 2011
Speaking & Features

Water

“Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

85
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I

Men, Dogs, Horse

“Can't help our damned parents which is why we have to thrash our damned children”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major General Nairn, p. 21
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

Parent, Help

“There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope with.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

First Inaugural Address http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25831 (4 March 1913) 1910s

Women, Men, Justice

“The moral sense is at the root of pity. Pity means compassion — the capacity to resent someone else's suffering as if it were one's own. The absence of pity is a mark of obtuseness: incapacity of identifying oneself with those who are in pain or downtrodden. Worthy of pity are mainly mistreated or bereaved children, the old, the sick, all those that are helpless and abused. This includes the majority of animals. And we mustn't ask ourselves whether or not they are able to go to heaven, whether or not they are able to reason, or to speak, or to count, or to vote, but we must ask ourselves only one question: "Are they able to suffer?"”

Hans Ruesch (1913–2007) Swiss racing driver

And it is their misfortune that they are only too able to suffer.
Source: Slaughter of the Innocent (1978), pp. 328-329

Pain, Question, Sense, Suffering

“Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

Education, Nature, Learning, Teachers

“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”

Eudora Welty book One Writer's Beginnings

One Writer's Beginnings(1984)

Hope, Waiting

“The appropriate emotion is shame — shame at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor," as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.”

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) American writer and journalist

Evaluation (p. 221)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001)

Life, Health, Home, Parting

“My growing environmental awareness only added more fuel to the argument for having no children. And the logic of never-ending consumption didn't just harm the environment, it killed people too.”

Xiaolu Guo (1973) Chinese-British novelist and film director

Once Upon A Time in the East: A Story of Growing up, Chatto & Windus, 2017, page 305 (ISBN 9781784740689).
Memoir, 2017

People

“When I read the gospels, I don’t see a wise and benevolent sage imparting truth. I see a religious extremist and faith-healer, who is just as much of a scam artist as any of the exorcists still practicing today. Remember that Jesus taught his disciples how to do faith healing too, just like tele-evangelists still do. Jesus didn’t believe in washing your hands because he didn’t know about pathogens. He believed in demons instead. And he cursed a fig tree because he didn’t know they were out-of-season. Likewise he didn’t know that the farmers of his day already knew about other seeds that were smaller than mustard seeds. My best evidence was Jesus’ complaint that the people who knew him since childhood wouldn’t buy any of his bullshit. So the only indications I had to believe in a historic Jesus were the very points that implied that he could not be a god nor have any real connection to God. So there are only two possibilities: Jesus was either an ignorant 1st century charlatan and cult leader heavily exaggerated like Robin Hood, or he’s a completely imaginary legendary figure like Hercules. Remember how Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but a sword; that he would divide husbands from their wives and children from their parents all on behalf of beliefs based on faith? Remember also that faith, (an unreasonable assertion of complete conviction which is not based on reason and is defended against all reason) —is the most dishonest position it is possible to have. Any belief which requires faith should be rejected for that reason.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"Jesus never existed" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/03/jesus-never-existed/, Patheos (November 3, 2015) Patheos

God, People, Truth, Peace

“Until always, little children. I still hope to see you again. A really big kiss and a hug from Papa.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Letter to his Children (1965)

Hope, Kiss

“Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment, be hopeless of our great cause? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. Am I not in the town of Birmingham—England's central capital; and do not these eyes look upon the sons of those who, not thirty years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base? Not a few of the strong men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they? Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished with you? I see your answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you, you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of freedom to your children. As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with diminished fire; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my countrymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me, be found in your ranks in the impending struggle.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Birmingham (27 October 1858) referring to the Reform Crisis, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 272-273.
1850s

Men, Age, Feeling, Freedom

“It is strange to hear people talk on humanitarianism, who are members of societies for prevention of cruelty to children and animals, and who claim to be God-loving men and women, but who, nevertheless, encourage by their patronage the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings of appetite.”

Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844–1936) German religious movement founder

Source: Mazdaznan Dietetics and Cookery Book (1913), p. 196

Love, Women, Men, God

“The study of inbreeding depression seems to me especially important in the study of human abilities, because inbreeding depression indicates genetic dominance, and the presence and degree of dominance are related to natural selection for the trait in the course of its biological evolution. It was of great interest to me to discover, for example, that of the several ability factors that can be extracted from the various subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the one that shows the greatest susceptibility to inbreeding depression is the g factor (Jensen, 1983b). This finding indicates that one of our most widely used standard psychometric tests of intelligence yields scores that reflect some part of the variance in the biological intelligence that has developed in the course of human evolution.”

Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology

Source: Differential Psychology: Towards Consensus (1987), p. 424

Intelligence, Nature, Study, Parting

“Your own creations are your own children; you gave life to them, so you’ll always have, if not more passion to them, more connections to them.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

TALKING "Y" WITH BKV: THE BRIAN K. VAUGHN INTERVIEW conducted by Nolan Reese May 21, 2003

Life, Passion

“Their efforts and their sacrifices for education are immeasurable. They started their schools for their own children. Over the years, increasing numbers of Fijian and other students were taken in. Today, in a majority of their schools Fijian children predominate. There is a large debt of gratitude owed here that I am pleased to acknowledge.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

(Paying tribute to Indian and Chinese schools in Fiji).
Opening address to the Education Summit, Suva, 31 August 2005

Education, School, Effort, Gratitude

“We’re going to have to dig deep into our souls, confront our own self-doubt, and recognize that our destiny is in our hands – that our future is what we make of it. So let’s build the future we all know is possible. Let’s prove to our children that they really can reach for their dreams.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, A Challenge to Overcome (November 2007)

Dreams, Soul, Future

“The real question is: "Should we have public schools?" Let's argue about that one for a while first. If we are going to have them, then we should discuss what could be taught in them. Who decides what is going to be taught in them? Does Bill Clinton decide what's taught? Or Osama Bin Laden decide what's taught? Should you decide what's taught, or should I decide? The whole problem is that some people have this idiot idea that children belong to the state. No, no, no, children belong to God, they are entrusted to parents. The parents should decide what God wants them to be taught, the state does not ever have children. It is sterile, it can't have children, they want to steal yours.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

God, People, School, Idea

“They were a lot of fun but at the time I had two children. I’m just a mother at heart, so I decided it was time to retire from the screen. I would hate to be around today. In my time you learned your craft with small roles. They always handed you a script and told you, ‘This is your role.’ Now, you have to read for a part, over and over. 2,000 people have to approve before you get anything. I liked my era, where you were groomed.”

Elyse Knox (1917–2012) American actress

Interview with Ekyse Knox http://www.westernclippings.com/interview/elyseknox_interview.shtml

Hate, People, Learning, Time

“Do I let my children listen to my music?' Of course I do. Shoot, the worst curse is a lie.”

Ol' Dirty Bastard (1968–2004) American rapper

From an MTV News video segment. 1995

Lie, Music

“Dull grown-ups and bright children form a particularly tolerant friendship.”

Samuel R. Delany book Nova

Source: Nova (1968), Chapter 3 (p. 44)

Friendship

“A key moment of my spiritual epiphany was the tale told by the property manager of our apartment block, Mrs Marina. Every year on All Saints Day if I remember correctly, she commemorated the death of her son who died from an overdose. She baked some holy bread, antidoro, and then took it to her parish Church as an offering for evening vespers. When I asked Mrs Marina why she was doing this, she replied simply, "So that Christ speaks to my son and takes pity", as it is on this particular day it is believed that the Christ descends once again into the bowels of hell, not to defeat death this time as in Holy Saturday, but to keep company with the so called damned. For mothers like Mrs Marina fearful that their dead children might inhabit this nether world because of their sins, despair of redemption etc, Christ's visit provides some hope- that He might take pity on them and relieve them of their eternal punishment. Christ as the God that Unshackles the power of Hell and Death, the Resurrected Christ that even reaches out to the damned, and not the Christ of Deo Satisfactio of the heretical western Churches is one of the great glories of Greek Orthodoxy and of Orthodoxy as a whole.”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

Death, God, World, Fear

“How is an ordinary citizen or subject of the King to stand up against this formidable machine, which, once it is in power, will prescribe for every one of them where they are to work; what they are to work at; where they may go and what they may say; what views they are to hold and within what limits they may express them; where their wives are to go to queue up for the State ration; and what education their children are to receive to mould their views of human liberty and conduct in the future?”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (4 June 1945) for the 1945 general election, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Never Despair': Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965 (London: Heinemann, 1988), p. 34
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Education, Future

“I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.”

Francis Galton Hereditary Genius

Hereditary Genius (1869; 2005), p. 56
Hereditary Genius (1869)

School, Boy, Nature, Effort

“Next he will be foxtrotting down to the Tory party's fundraising ball, auctioning City internships for the children of the highest bidder. Is that not the Government's idea of social mobility?”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

On Nick Clegg's social mobility pledges, during a debate in the House of Commons http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8441262/Harriet-Harman-facing-questions-over-sons-internship.html, 11 April 2011.

Idea

“Under the category, "Air Force aided by Hitler youth," the children wear military uniforms and become used to handling the artillery. Fifteen- and sixteen-year-old children as warriors! If the war still continues to last for a long time, perhaps infants also will be used. Total war!”

Friedrich Kellner (1885–1970) German Justice inspector

December 14, 1943; Vol. 1, p. 580.
Diary (1939 - 1945)

War, Youth, Time

“I am honored to be at the forefront of our battle to ensure that all children have a happy and healthy opportunity at life.”

Sean Pittman (1968)

www.WCTV.tv CBS Channel 6. Posted 1:08 PM EST 3 June, 2009. http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/46824847.html

Life, Happiness

“Women gather together to wear silly hats, eat dainty food, and forget how unresponsive their husbands are. Men gather to talk sports, eat heavy food, and forget how demanding their wives are. Only where children gather is there any real chance of fun.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Women, Men, Food, Sport

“Nonviolence begins with the insights that all life is sacred, that all human beings are children of the God of peace, and that as God’s children, we are under certain obligations. Of course, we should never hurt or kill another human being, wage war, build nuclear weapons, or sit idly by while millions of human beings starve to death each year. Nonviolence invites us, also, to reevaluate the way we treat animals in our society. While we resist violence, injustice, and war, and while we practice nonviolence, seek peace, and struggle for justice for the poor, we are also invited to break down the species barrier, extending our belief in Christian compassion to the animal kingdom by, among other things, adopting a vegetarian diet.”

John Dear (1959) Catholic priest from the United States

Christianity and Vegetarianism (1990)

Life, Death, God, War

“No more massive injections. Tiny children are not horses—one vaccine at a time, over time.”

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

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/507158396051927041 ], quoted in * 2018 Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics J. Eric Oliver, Thomas J. Wood The University of Chicago Press 022657850X
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / Donald Trump on social media / Twitter
2010s, 2014

Time, Horse

“The current American diet is based on animal flesh and processed food: saturated fat, denatured animal protein, cholesterol, oils, refined sugars. This food is incredibly toxic to the blood vessels and the immune system, and it flows through our bloodstreams, and our children's, every four or five hours. The results are predictable. We're becoming grossly obese, arteries are clogging up. High blood pressure, diabetes, cancers. Autoimmune diseases have direct correlations with the meat and salt in animal products. The vast majority of diseases are created today by what people are eating in the West. Until that is recognized, we're just going to be treating symptoms. We're not getting to the root cause of disease, and that is the great transgression that the medical profession inadvertently perpetrates on the public.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Interview in the book What the Health https://books.google.it/books?id=FIY8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Eunice Wong (Xlibris, 2017), ch. 1.

People, Disease, Food, Animals

“As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children.”

Anita Bryant (1940) American singer

Source: Parting Glances: Oranges & lemons sliced http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=17348 (February 2, 2006).

“Before I knew the Lord, my love for children led me to desire to write for them and those who educated them, keenly feeling my own need of sympathy in childhood, and still smarting from the loveless surroundings of a delicate organisation and uncomprehended mind.”

Anna Shipton (1815–1901) British religious writer

Love, Education, Feeling, Childhood

“Reform Jews are the children of Conservative Jews, or as they are sometimes known, Christians with curlier hair.”

Jon Stewart book Naked Pictures of Famous People

Naked Pictures of Famous People (1998)

“We know that there are children out there whose parents do not take the kind of interest in their upbringing and in their existence that we would wish, but I don't think censorship is ever the solution to any problem, be it societal or be it the kind of information or ideas that you have access to.”

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

"Easy Access?" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec97/library_8-7.html by Spencer Michels, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (August 7, 1997)

Idea, Problem, Thinking, Parent

“I would rather sit with the rural poor, the desperate children of urban blight, the victims of racism, and working people seeking a better life than with those whose religion is the status quo, whose goal is profit and whose hearts are cold.”

Douglas Fraser (1916–2008) American labor leader

Resignation letter from National Committee of Labor-Management Group http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fraserresign.html, July 17, 1978; Published in: North Country Anvil, Nr. 28, (1978) p. 22

Life, People, Religion, Heart

“Children, if we observe them, seem normally to be abounding in simple faith. They rush headlong and there is ground underfoot. They ask for information and are told. They cry for something and get it or are refused, but they are not disregarded. They go exploring and see something interesting. It is the evil genius of our society to blight, more or less disastrously, this faith of its young as they grow up; for our society does not, for most, continue to provide enough worth-while opportunities and relevant duties, and soon it ceases to take them seriously as existing.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), pp. 139-140.

Faith, Evil, Cry

“What gives me concern in so much of the comment is the implication that the people of Hong Kong have to be given a reward, like children, for being good last year, and bribed, like children, into being good next year. I myself repudiate this paternalistic, indeed colonialist, attitude as a gross insult to our people”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 27, 1968, page 215.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

People

“Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for pornography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it… Every time I hear someone say, I want to protect the children, I want to pull my hair out.”

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

"Preventing Kids From Seeing Illegal Smut Is Not Unconstitutional; It's Common Sense" http://www.ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt051700a.html by Janet M. LaRue, Senior Director of Legal Studies at the Family Research Council, National Policy Center: Idea House (2001)

Time

“I believe that most of us are too quick to name things when we are with small children. By simply naming a thing and letting it go at that when a child asks, "What is that?" we communicate that the name or label is the most important thing, that naming is sufficient. We deprive our children of their sense of wonder and discovery by labeling and categorizing things in the physical world. Instead of merely naming a tree, for example, try also guiding your child through an exploration of the tree both physically and mentally. This exploration may include touching, smelling, seeing from various angles, comparing one tree with another, imagining the inside of the tree and the parts underground, listening to the leaves, viewing the tree at different times of the day or during different seasons, planting its seeds, observing how other creatures — birds, moths, bugs — use the tree, and so on. After discovering that every object is fascinating and complex, a child will begin to understand that the label is only a small part of the whole. Thus taught, a child's sense of wonder will survive, even under our modern avalanche of words.”

Betty Edwards (1926) American artist

Source: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979), p.239

World, Imagination, Communication, Understanding

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Death, Hunger, People, World

“In the end if the system still ‘works’ it is because women guarantee unpaid transportation… because they repair their homes, because they make meals when there are no canteens, because they spend more time shopping around, because they look after others’ children when there are no nurseries, and because they offer ‘free entertainment’ to the producers when there is a social vacuum and the absence of cultural creativity. If these women who ‘do nothing’ ever stopped to do ‘only that’, the whole urban structure as we know it would become completely incapable of maintaining its function”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: City, Class and Power, 1978, p. 177–178 as cited in: McDowell, Ward, Fagan, Perrons and Ray (2006) "Connecting Time and Space: The Significance of Transformations in Women’s Work in the City". In: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Vol 30.1 p. 141–158

Women, Home, Time

“For many years I visualized the Soviet Union as a land where the sun never came out and enslaved Catholic peasants labored under lowering skies for their godless rulers.
But our theology was often very practical: All men are created equal. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Follow the Ten Commandments, which we studied at length, except for adultery, “which you children don’t have to worry about.””

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God

Men, Study, Sun

“I dont think it makes a difference if you have children or you don't have children. I think it's all in the head about how you feel and, I don't know, I always like to be active and work out and eat right and just be active so I never see it as, oh when you're a mom you can't be sexy or you cant be in lingerie anymore looking good.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Discussing modeling lingerie at age 35, quoted by Megan Glaros, WCBS-TV http://wcbstv.com/topstories/heidi.klum.victorias.2.879295.html, 3 December 2008

Feeling, Moms, Thinking

“I read your letters with my sister, and they give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us two, when you talk in a religious strain,—not but we are offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter—you say, “it is by the press [sic], that God hath given finite spirits both evil and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence!” Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind and it, which makes such language blasphemy? Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle you say, “you are a temporary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature.” What more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,—men, whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak and ignorant being, “servile” from his birth “to all the skiey influences,” with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the pride of speculation, forgetting his nature, and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; I know I cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament (our best guide), is represented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent: and in my poor mind ’tis best for us so to consider of Him, as our heavenly Father, and our best Friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of His nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of “dear children,” “brethren,” and “co-heirs with Christ of the promises,” seeking to know no further… God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race!”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Lamb's letter to Coleridge in Oct. 24th, 1796. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (1905). Letter 11.

Love, Men, God, Angels

“Our founding fathers knew that if we went this direction, there was no more moral compass and you won’t be able to explain to your children — you’ll have to face the fact that we lost holding the line on one of the most principle issues in the Bible, and that is sex is not about fun. If you want to have fun, read a book, go see a movie. Sex is about the procreation of children. It’s a sacred responsibility that is meant by God to have men and women commit their lifetime to children.”

Jerome Corsi (1946) American conservative author

"Tea party speaker: ‘Well, they want to call me a racist? Go ahead’" http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/28/tea-party-speaker-well-they-want-to-call-me-a-racist-go-ahead/ www.rawstory.com (2013-8-23)

Women, Men, God, Books

“Like Rimbaud before them, the surrealists abandoned the aesthetic altogether; it takes a certain courage to leave poetry for Africa [as Rimbaud himself did]. They revealed their insight as essentially moral in never forgetting for a moment that most living is a process of conforming to an established order which is inhuman in its drives and consequences. Their hatred sustained them through all the humiliating situations in which the modern artist find himself, and led them to conceptions beyond the reach of more passive souls. For them true 'poetry' was freedom from mechanical social responses. No wonder they loved the work of children and the insane – if not the creatures themselves.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

Source: 1940's, Beyond the Aesthetics (1946), pp. 39-40

Love, Soul, Courage, Freedom

“Every generation has its defining works. More than 300,000 people worked to put a man on the moon – including that janitor. Millions of volunteers immunized children around the world against polio. Millions of more people built the Hoover dam and other great projects. These projects didn’t just provide purpose for the people doing those jobs, they gave our whole country a sense of pride that we could do great things.”

Mark Zuckerberg (1984) American internet entrepreneur

Harvard Graduation Speech (2017)

People, World, Sense, Country

“How many children, discontented with the exercise of needful authority, might learn submission and thankfulness from the lot of others; such a temper as that we have been describing is very uncommon; the treatment of children oftener errs on the side of over-indulgence than aught else. How many might be taught better to appreciate the blessings which surround them by considering what some, less fortunate than themselves, are called upon to endure!”

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

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Exercises, Learning

“Under the plan of heaven, the husband and the wife walk side by side as companions, neither one ahead of the other, but a daughter of God and a son of God walking side by side. Let your families be families of love and peace and happiness. Gather your children around you and have your family home evenings, teach your children the ways of the Lord, read to them from the scriptures, and let them come to know the great truths of the eternal gospel as set forth in these words of the Almighty.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Selections from Addresses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Mar. 2001, 64.

Love, God, Happiness, Truth

“In the stupendous rush of change which is coming on the human world as a result of the present tornado of upheaval, ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping…. Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence…. To follow a law or principle involuntarily or ignorantly or contrary to the truth of one's consciousness is a falsehood and a self-destruction. To allow oneself to be killed, like the lamb attacked by the wolf, brings no growth, farthers no development, assures no spiritual merit. Concert or unity may come in good time, but it must be an underlying unity with a free differentiation, not a swallowing up of one by another or an incongruous and inharmonious mixture. Nor can it come before the world is ready for these greater things. To lay down one's arms in a state of war is to invite destruction and it can serve no compensating spiritual purpose…. India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose,… for the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

December, 1918
India's Rebirth

War, Truth, World, Law

“When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks.”

J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird

Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 16

Bird, Time, Cheating, Forgetting

“In this country, we believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential, from the boy whose descendents arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers. We're all God's children, and we're all Americans. We believe -- we believe in low taxes, spending discipline, and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk-takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

God, People, Boy, Daughters

“Children's health depends on the mothers, so if we can scale up the achievement of the MDGs, it would benefit people in Africa. We should also look at how we can empower women to leverage their resources and their creativity and become change agents. We have seen example after example where women who are appropriately motivated and given the right environment can make changes, not only to themselves but also to their families and their communities.”

Margaret Chan (1947) Director-General of the World Health Organization

WHO Interview on taking office as Director-General http://www.who.int/dg/chan/interviews/taking_office/en/, Frontlines, 4 January 2007.

Women, People, Health, Family

“Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 251.

Age

“Ibn 'Umar reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "All of you are shepherds. Each of you is responsible for his flock. An amir is a shepherd. A man is a shepherd in respect of his family. The woman is a shepherd in respect of her husband's house and children. All of you are shepherds and each of you is responsible for his flock."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 283
Sunni Hadith

Family, Peace, Housing

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
He saw the townlands
and learned the minds of many distant men,
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
But not by will nor valor could he save them,
for their own recklessness destroyed them all—
children and fools, they killed and feasted on
the cattle of Lord Hêlios, the Sun,
and he who moves all day through the heaven
took from their eyes the dawn of their return.”

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985) American poet, critic and translator

opening lines
The Odyssey (1961)

Life, Men, Fools, Way

“The United States not only helped to encircle Germany with a strangle-hold but continued to maintain that starvation blockade for more than seven months after the Armistice, on the ground that if the blockade were lifted Germany might refuse to accept the peace treaty. No sane American desired to prolong the process of starving German women and children; this atrocity was continued because it was considered necessary. No idea is more inextricably interwoven into war than the doctrine of military necessity.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Must We Go to War? (1937)

Women, War, Peace, Idea

“Like the Democrats, Playboy just wants to liberate women to behave like pigs, have sex without consequences, prance about naked, and abort children.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2004, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) (2004)

Women, Sex

“At a certain age children are greatly intrigued by the possibility of locating themselves on a map. It appears strange that one's familiar life should actually have all occurred in an area delineated by a set of quite impersonal (and hitherto unfamiliar) coordinates on the surface of the map. The child's exclamations of "I was there" and "I am here right now" betray the astonishment that the place of last summer's vacation, a place marked in memory by such sharply personal events as the ownership of one's first dog or the secret assembling of a collection of worms, should have specific latitudes and longitudes devised by strangers to one's dog, one's worms, and oneself. This locating of oneself in configurations conceived by strangers is one of the important aspects of what, perhaps euphemistically, is called "growing up". One participates in the real world of grown-ups by having an address. The child who only recently might have mailed a letter addressed "To my Granddaddy" now informs a fellow worm-collector of his exact address – street, town, state and all – and finds his tentative allegiance to the grown-up world view dramatically legitimated by the arrival of the letter.”

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) Austrian-born American sociologist

Source: Invitation to Sociology (1963), p. 81

Life, Secret, Age, World

“Empirically, all pornography is made under conditions of inequality based on sex, overwhelmingly by poor, desperate, homeless, pimped women who were sexually abused as children.”

Catharine A. MacKinnon book Only Words

Source: Only Words (1993), p. 20

Women, Sex

“Both parents’ rights must be in balance so children can grow up with a balance between both parents.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 126.

Parent

“I would take school instruction out of the hands of the old order of decrepit, stammering, journeymen-teachers as well as from the new weak ones, who are generally no better for popular instruction, and entrust it to the undivided powers of Nature herself, to the light that God kindles and ever keeps alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interest of parents who desire that their children should grow up in favour with God and man.”

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer

How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (1801), ed. Ebenezer Cooke, trans. Lucy E. Holland and Frances C. Turner (Syracuse, NY, 1894), letter VII, p. 97 http://www.archive.org/stream/howgertrudeteach00pestuoft/howgertrudeteach00pestuoft_djvu.txt

God, School, Nature, Parent

“There is no doubt that this kingdom is one that the children of God's direct lineage can reign over by upholding the heavenly decree. In other words, it is a nation in which they rule on behalf of God's commands and kingship. Democracy and communism cannot exist in such a kingdom. Once established, it will remain as an eternal state system. Considering these things, isn't it mortifying that you have not yet become the citizens of that kingdom?”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

March 4th Address http://www.tparents.org/moon%2Dtalks/sunmyungmoon05/SM050304.htm (2005-03-04)

God, Democracy, Communication

“When we try to develop and procure benefits for the world with universal love as our standard, then attentive ears and keen eyes will respond in service to one another, then limbs will be strengthened to work for one another, and those who know the Tao will untiringly instruct others. Thus the old and those who have neither wife nor children will have the support and supply to spend their old age with, and the young and weak and orphans will have the care and admonition to grow up in. When universal love is adopted as the standard, then such are the consequent benefits. It is incomprehensible, then, why people should object to universal love when they hear it.”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

Book 4; Universal Love III
Mozi

Love, People, Age, World

“He’d abolish the bedrock constitutional principle that says if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen. He says that children born in America to undocumented parents are, quote, "anchor babies" and should be deported. Millions of them.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Quotes, Parent, Baby

“But he, with these burthens on him, planned, commenced, and completed, the History of India; and this in the course of about ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual education.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/4/mode/1up p. 4

Education, History, Time, Reading

“Has anyone ever known a school to organize a field trip to a slaughterhouse? Never. Why? Where does this sense of shame come from that obliges us to keep silent in front of our children about the fate that we impose on animals? Throat-cutting, electrocution, and evisceration—are these scenes that would be obscene in the eyes of innocents? The answer is yes.”

Aymeric Caron (1971) French journalist

No steak (2013); as quoted in A Plea for the Animals by Matthieu Ricard, trans. Sherab Chödzin Kohn (Shambhala Publications, 2016), p. 44 https://books.google.it/books?id=bTLuDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44.

Fate, School, Sense, Animals

“Childhood, after all, has to be an age of discovery. These are days you'll remember vividly all your life, even when you're old and forget why you came into a room. It must never be allowed to become the age of anxiety.
The anxiety has been greatly increased by this government's multiplication of exams and emphasis on starting training as a middle manager in a computer company from the age of six. Parents have made things worse by worrying unduly about exam results and seeing that their children work a great deal harder than most middle managers in computer companies.”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 14 : Living with Children

Life, Age, Parent, Childhood

“We need to develop within our children and young people the capacity to respect the cultures and beliefs of the different groups that make up our society; and we need to develop the resolve to treat each other justly. Secondly, we must eliminate, so far as any society can, the under-achievement of many of our children and young people from all sections of the community. We need to raise the performance of all pupils and to tackle the obstacles to higher achievement which are common to all. But we also need to tackle those special factors which additionally may contribute to the under-achievement of many members of our ethnic minorities.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Speech in London (20 May 1986).
1980s

People, Communication

“Everyone at the Hayholt had seemed obsessed with the empty ritual of power, something Miriamele had lived with for so long that it held no interest for her. It was like watching a confusing game played by bad-tempered children.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 4, “A Thousand Leaves, A Thousand Shadows” (p. 99).

Game

“I wouldn't blow my head off. I'd overdose or do something that didn't hurt. But I wouldn't do that to the children. A comedian who committed suicide in the Sixties left a note saying, 'Too many things went wrong too often.”

Phil Collins (1951) English musician, songwriter and actor

I often think about that. On his suicidal thoughts in recent years — "Exclusive: Phil Collins Admits Suicidal Thoughts" http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-phil-collins-admits-suicidal-thoughts-20101109, Rolling Stone (9 November 2010)

Thinking, Suicide, Hurt

“And it's the same when there's a war on: it's the men who go to fight
Women and children are civilians, when they're killed it's not right
Men kill men in uniform, its the way war goes
When they run they're cowards, when they stay they are heroes.”

Loudon Wainwright III (1946) American singer-songwriter, humorist, and actor

Men
Lyrics

Women, Men, War, Way

“Now, you think it's a coincidence that on September 11, 2001, we were struck by terrorists an evil that has at its heart the disregard of innocent human life? We who have for several decades killed not thousands but scores of millions of our own children, in disregard of the principle of innocent human life — I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a warning. I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a shot across the bow. I think that's a way of Providence telling us, "I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?"”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Reaping the Fruits of the Moral Crisis, May 7, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_05_07hellewell.htm. 2009

Love, Life, Way, Thinking

“Well, I first, uh, started doing this after World War II when I was kind of tramping around France, Germany, and the lowlands, and I came upon these frightened, waif-type children, and, uh, they actually looked like rats running around and they acted like it. And, uh, I started painting this type of thing of these chi—these children, they didn't even seem to know why—these children didn't even seem to know how to talk; they couldn't even pray. And it started like, uh, an artist work—it-it does—you don't know how to talk about it, but the painting can talk for you, and I think this is the difference between an artist and a poet and a writer: in other words, an artist, uh, paints what he has to say, where other people do it in, uh, in more verbal type of…”

Walter Keane (1915–2000) American plagiarist

Interviewed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WgStC6fvtM by Gary E. Park (circa 1964). 1964

War, People, World, Thinking

“I'm having Sunday lunch with my family. I'm vigorously campaigning, inculcating my children in the benefits of a Tory government.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"2-minute interview: Boris Johnson", The Guardian, 11 April 2005, p. 7.
Asked whether he was canvassing at Sunday lunchtime.
2000s, 2005

Family

“When children are bored, it reflects on us all.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

“Answer me, sycophant, ought you not to have instructed me on one point at least, so essential to be known by a king; namely on the reciprocal duties between the sovereign and his subjects? Ought you not also to have foreseen that I might, at some future period, be compelled to contend with my brothers, sword in hand, for the crown, and for my very existence. Such, as you must well know, has been the fate of the children of almost every king of Hindustan. Did you ever instruct me in the art of war, how to besiege a town, or draw up an army in battle array? Happy for me that I consulted wiser heads than thine on these subjects! Go, withdraw to the village. Henceforth let no person know either who thou art, or what is become of thee.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

François Bernier quoting https://books.google.com/books?id=1SNVqzrDJmIC&pg=PA179 Aurangzeb's statement to his tutor. Also in The Moghul Saint of Insanity https://books.google.com/books?id=_o_WCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 by Farzana Moon, p. 15 Also in European travel accounts during the reigns of Shahjahan and Aurangzeb by Meera Nanda, p.132 Also in History of Education in India by Suresh Chandra Ghosh, p. 200. Also inEncyclopaedia Indica: Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal Emperor by Shyam Singh Shashi, p. 75 Quotes from late medieval histories

Fate, War, Happiness, Art

“Tiamak closed his eyes to make a short prayer of thanks, hoping that the gods, like children, could be confirmed in good behavior by praise.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 13, “The Nest Builders” (p. 405).

God, Hope, Behavior

“Experience is also a product of chance and individual faculties… I detest greasy objectivity, and harmony, the science that finds everything in order. Carry on, my children, humanity… Science says we are the servants of nature: everything is in order, make love and bash your brains in. Carry on, my children, humanity, kind bourgeois and journalist virgins… I am against systems, the most acceptable system is on principle to have none.”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1910s, Dada Manifesto', 1918

Love, Making love, Nature, Science

“The doctor asserted, 'Sure religion is a fine influence—got to have it to keep the lower classes in order—fact, it's the only thing that appeals to a lot of these fellows and makes 'em respect the rights of property. And I guess this theology is O. K.; lot of wise old coots figured it out, and they knew more about it than we do.' He believed in the Christian religion, and never thought about it; he believed in the church, and seldom went near it; he was shocked by Carol's lack of faith, and wasn't quite sure what was the nature of the faith that she lacked. Carol herself was an uneasy and dodging agnostic. When she ventured to Sunday School and heard the teachers droning that the genealogy of Shamsherai was a valuable ethical problem for children to think about; when she experimented with the Wednesday prayer-meeting and listened to store-keeping elders giving unvarying weekly testimony in primitive erotic symbols and such gory Chaldean phrases as 'washed in the blood of the lamb' and 'a vengeful God…' then Carol was dismayed to find the Christian religion, in America, in the twentieth century, as abnormal as Zoroastrianism—without the splendor. But when she went to church suppers a felt the friendliness, saw the gaiety with which the sisters served cold ham and scalloped potatoes; when Mrs. Champ Perry cried to her, on an afternoon call, 'My dear, if you just knew how happy it makes you to come into abiding grace,' then Carol found the humanness behind the sanguinary and alien theology.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

God, Happiness, School, Faith

“If we had more land, we could provide space to non-profit organisations to offer more elderly home services … the elderly and their children could afford a better service.”

Leung Chun-ying (1954) Hong Kong politician

2015
Source: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1811121/cy-leung-saddened-absue-case-elderly-made-stand

Home

“People are always talking about how bad the seventies were, but things in the popular culture have gotten much worse even since then. I grew up watching Laverne & Shirley, and Lenny and Squiggy never slept over. Now with shows like Friends or Married… with Children, sex is everywhere. I mean, can you imagine the minds that were raised on those shows?”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

America's Sexual Right Turn
Insight
1997-06-02
2010-09-15
Remembering Christine O'Donnell: Praising Helms, Missing Lenny and Squiggy, and Worries of Rampant Satanism
Kyle
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/remembering-christine-odonnell-praising-helms-missing-lenny-and-squiggy-and-worries-rampant-
2010-10-20

People, Sex, Imagination

“How is it right that while this fierce suppression goes on, free copies of the Spielberg film, Schindler's List, are given to schools to indoctrinate children with the unchallenged version of events. And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

ibid. p135

People, School, History, Freedom

“In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.”

Charles Dickens book Great Expectations

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 7

World, Horse

“With all the efforts made by modern society to nurture and educate the young, how stupid it is to permit the mothers of young children to spend themselves in the coarser work of the world!”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

Source: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), Ch. 9

Stupidity, World, Education, Effort

“The central question about vegetarian diets used to be whether it was healthy to eliminate meat and other animal foods … Now, however, the main question has become whether it is healthier to be a vegetarian than to be a meat eater. … The answer to both questions, based on currently available evidence, seems to be yes. A properly planned vegetarian diet can provide all the essential nutrients, even for growing children … And, on the whole, vegetarians are less likely to be afflicted with the chronic diseases that are leading killers and cripplers in societies where meat is the centerpiece of the diet.”

Jane E. Brody (1941) American writer

"Personal Health; New Research on the Vegetarian Diet", in The New York Times (12 October 1983) http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/12/garden/personal-health-new-research-on-the-vegetarian-diet.html

Disease, Food, Question, Affliction

“It spurs me on. I'm going to get over that, I'm a good songwriter, my kids are happy, the band is great and I've almost sorted out all my debts. At least I've never sold my story. I've had countless offers but I'd rather be in a bedsit council flat than splashed all over Hello! or the tabloids. I really would, I have a responsibility to my band and my children as well. I don't believe in it, I'm never ever tempted.”

Lisa Moorish (1972) British singer

Source: " A life on the edge http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/aug/20/popandrock8" at The Guardian, 20 August 2004 : On conquering her past.

Happiness

“History should remember Blair and Bush as the killers of children or as the lying prime minister and president.”

Mahathir bin Mohamad (1925) Prime Minister of Malaysia

Bush and Blair, 'children killers', PressTV, 09 Oct 2007 http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=26422&sectionid=3510203,

History, Lying

“Hillary (Clinton) has spent decades doing the relentless work to actually make a difference in their lives. Advocating for kids with disabilities as a young lawyer, fighting for children's health care as first lady, and for quality child care in the senate.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, 2016 Democratic National Convention (2016)

Health, Fight

“My obsession with wolves hadn't helped past relationships. I had split up with Jan, the mother of my four children, after 11 years together, but there was never any animosity; it was more a case of separation by default. Maybe I never gave that relationship a chance. I was so passionate about wolves that I wonder whether any human relationship could have come close. If I'd had to choose between spending a night in the wolf enclosure or at home, I would probably have chosen the wolves.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

I howled for the woman I loved... and she howled back - British wolfman tells how his obsession drove away the love of his life http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1245507/I-howled-woman-I-loved--howled--British-wolfman-tells-obsession-drove-away-love-life.html, Daily Mail, (23 January, 2010)

Home, Wolf, Passion, Chance

“Another workingman named Bóndaref, was also of immense practical help to Tolstoy, chiefly through his remarkable book "Industry and Idleness.".. Bóndaref insists that the "chief, primary, and most immutable" law for humanity is that every man must earn his own bread with his own hands. "Bread labor," as thus understood, includes all heavy rough work necessary to save man from death by hunger and cold and this bread includes, of course, food, drink, clothes, shelter, and fuel…. As the world has rarely heard such teachings since the days of the Apostles and the early Christian Fathers, Tolstoy seemed to consider Bóndaref as the discoverer of a new truth which he eagerly accepted as fundamental to a just life…. he emphasized the point that children must he taught above all things to do hard productive labor. They must be taught to be ashamed from the very beginning to use, and profit by, the labor of others.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 24-25

Life, Death, Hunger, Truth

Quotes about children page 37

Quotes about children
page 37