Quotes about children
page 44

“The pretty game of calling on the children of the audience of "Peter Pan" to declare their faith in fairies seemed to me disastrous—a game of men and women at the expense of children, a cumbersome frolic at best and an artificial, a tyrannous use of the adult sense of sentimental humour against the helpless. I could with better conscience use my superior physical strength upon them than exploit them for love of my own condescension. (And yet Sir J. Barrie has written the most adorable "pretending" story ever written about a child.)No, children love a fairy story not because they think it true, but because they think it untrue, and because it makes no fraudulent appeal to their excellent good sense. That sense they are delighted to put aside while they "pretend." That is their own word.[…] "Let's pretend," not "Let's believe."”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

Their mother does not put "Let's pretend" into the child's mouth; she finds it there. Without it there is no play. But the pretending is always drama and never deception or self-deception.
"V. Fairies", pp. 32–33
Childhood (1913)

Love, Women, Men, Making love

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Romans

Epistle to the Romans

God, Pain, Hope, Freedom

“We spend billions to get from dads the money few of them have, and virtually nothing to allow dads to give the time they do have—the time their children need.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 223

Money, Time

“A mom has the right to children, but a dad has to fight for children.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 191

Moms, Fight

“The word “warrior” is not added lightly. A warrior makes himself aware of the barriers to achieving his purpose. Then, rather than focus on what is standing in his way, a warrior focuses on how to get past those barriers. Which is exactly what he’ll be teaching his children.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 176

Making love, Way, Past

“Careers are for Now, Children are Forever.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 113

“Because most children are highly imaginative, it is supposed by some that to reach maturity we ought to leave imagination behind, like the habit of smearing our faces with jam or chocolate. But an adult in whom imagination has withered is mentally lame and lopsided, in danger of turning into a zombie or a murderer. It is the creative imagination that has given our ruthless bloodthirsty species its occasional gleams of nobility, its hope of rising above the muck it spreads.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 12, p. 305

Hope, Imagination

“Present excitement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our institutions and an entire conviction that if administered in the true form, character, and spirit in which they were established they are abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children the rich blessings already derived from them, to make our beloved land for a thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness springs from a perfect equality of political rights.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

Inaugural address (1837)

Happiness, Making love, Confidence, Spring

“I think we should have international, legal community studies of cybersecurity and necessary laws, and countries should be encouraged to adopt these laws through the United Nations just like they adopt laws to prevent the abuse of children and protect human rights.
There needs to be a multidimensional, multilayered and multi-azimuth defense. That is, defense has to look in all directions. When you're talking about cybersecurity, you're talking about being able to protect your points. It's not directed against a country, but to secure your points of access or specific end points or network access. It's not as though you're arming yourself against a specific threat — you're simply undertaking all aspects of protection.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

"Civilization's High Stakes Cyber-Struggle: Q&A With Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.)" by Richard Adhikari, TechNewsWorld (2 December 2009) https://www.technewsworld.com/story/68787.html

Law, Communication, Thinking, Study

“Our children, it seems to me, learn the history of events, but are woefully unversed in the history of thought… The result of this kind of teaching is to diminish all respect for intellect, reason and experience.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 48-49
Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

History, Learning

“Today in Germany the winner of the last Nobel peace prize is considered a traitor, and to attend any peace meeting would make one a candidate for a concentration camp. Today in Italy there is only one morality: the power and glory of Italy. Today in Russia all children are brought up to despise and hate ‘the class enemy.’”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 35

Hate, Making love, Peace

“I have seen a German youth camp, housing six thousand children around the age of ten, display in tree-high letters the words: ‘You were born to die for Germany!’ I have seen babies of six and seven, black-shirted and belted, march in Italy in military drill. I have seen children in Russia kindergartens taught how to adjust gas masks and the strategy of trench warfare.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Youth, Age, Tree, Baby

“I see the nations of the world arming in ways that have never before been known in the modern world. I am not speaking of new forms of poison gas, heavier or swifter bombing planes, or parachutes to land brigades of soldiers… What is revolutionary is that the minds of men, women and children are being deliberately trained, directed, distorted, by every conceivable instrument of education and propaganda, to make them tolerant of war, receptive of war, prepared for war, lovers of war. The greatest menace in the world today is not poison gas. There are gas masks against that. The menace is poisoned words, poisoned ideas.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Women, Men, War, World

“For those denounced by their smug, horrible children
For a peppermint-star and the praise of the Perfect State,
For all those strangled, gelded or merely starved
To make perfect states; for the priest hanged in his cassock,
The Jew with his chest crushed in and his eyes dying,
The revolutionist lynched by the private guards
To make perfect states, in the names of the perfect states.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Litany for Dictatorships (1935)

Making love, Star, Perfection

“For those slain at once.
For those living through the months and years
Enduring, watching, hoping, going each day
To the work or the queue for meat or the secret club,
Living meanwhile, begetting children, smuggling guns,
And found and killed at the end like rats in a drain.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Litany for Dictatorships (1935)

Secret, Hope

“The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don’t love them anymore. They’re embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten. And so they’re vulnerable. We all define ourselves by the people around us, because that’s the kind of monkey we are. We can’t transcend it. So when they watch you, they hand you the power to change what they are too.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Prologue (p. 5)

Love, People, Stupidity, Making love

“Finally, our greatest asset in this struggle is the American people--their willingness to pay the price for these programs--to understand and accept a long struggle--to share their resources with other less fortunate people-to meet the tax levels and close the tax loopholes I have requested--to exercise self-restraint instead of pushing up wages or prices, or over-producing certain crops, or spreading military secrets, or urging unessential expenditures or improper monopolies or harmful work stoppages--to serve in the Peace Corps or the Armed Services or the Federal Civil Service or the Congress--to strive for excellence in their schools, in their cities and in their physical fitness and that of their children--to take part in Civil Defense-to pay higher postal rates, and higher payroll taxes and higher teachers' salaries, in order to strengthen our society--to show friendship to students and visitors from other lands who visit us and go back in many cases to be the future leaders, with an image of America--and I want that image, and I know you do, to be affirmative and positive-and, finally, to practice democracy at home, in all States, with all races, to respect each other and to protect the Constitutional rights of all citizens.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Friendship, People, Secret, School

“The world is your oyster if you’re unafraid to tell your own story and keep it universally appealing. But you have reason to be afraid of making live action children’s drama in Australia if the system is dismantled.”

Jonathan M. Shiff Australian television producer

Source: Interview with Jonathan Shiff https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/screen-news/2018/06-18-international-tv-sales-snapshot-for-2017/part-4-interview-with-jonathan-shiff (18 June 2018)

World, Making love, Universe

“Our nation is founded on the principle that we do not have kings. We have presidents. And the Constitution is our compass. When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, ‘What did you do? What did you say?'”

John Lewis (civil rights leader) (1940) American politician and civil rights leader

For some, he concluded, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history. Source: Quoted in Impeachment is Over, But Don’t Despair by Diallo Brooks, CounterPunch https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/07/impeachment-is-over-but-dont-despair/, (7 Feb 2020)

“Our children and their children will ask us what did you do? What did you say? For some this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”

John Lewis (civil rights leader) (1940) American politician and civil rights leader

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1211661167728480256, (18 December 2019)

History

“We live in a country afflicted by a senile and selfish capitalist system...where families are homeless, sick people unattended, children untaught whilst building workers, nurses and teachers are unemployed”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Source: ‘Introduction’, in Why Vote Labour? (1979), p. 2, quoted in Tudor Jones, ‘Neil Kinnock's socialist journey’, Contemporary Record, Volume 8, Issue 3 (1994), p. pp. 568–569

People, Family, Affliction, Teachers

“All people respect and love their own parents and children, as well as the parents and children of others.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, A Great Utopia (The World of Da-Tong)

Love, People, Making love, Parent

“A civilization of life is one that embraces life, caring for families, supporting children and the elderly. A civilization of death authorizes the killing of unborn human beings, condones the killing of the elderly and encourages people to live only in their own interest. A culture of life is the one with eternal and timeless values.”

Don Feder (1946) writer; Media consultant

Is Formal Marriage Out of Fashion? Interview with Communications Director of the World Congress of Families Don Feder https://youth-time.eu/don-feder-communications-director-of-the-world-congress-of-families/ (November 15, 2014)

Life, Death, People, Family

“I helped deliver one of my best friend's children. I just was so amazed by my friend, because she was not just a woman, she was not just a mother. At that moment she was creation; she was life; she was God. And as I looked in her eyes, BOOM! Her pussy exploded.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, Revolution Tour

Life, God, Help

“The ignorant creature knows nothing of the wise doctrines of Malthus, but spawns forth as many children of all sorts as ever she can, without the least prudential restraint. She has consequently far more than she can properly feed and rear; so that a large part perishes in infancy (and we are told that none of these except the human sucklings will rise to another life; poor bereaved monkey and donkey mothers, for instance, being altogether without the precious consolations of immortality); a considerable part is eaten up by mankind and other hungry animals, and the remainder can seldom get food enough.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 60
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Life, Food, Animals, Parting

“Ay, soon upon the stage of life,
Sweet, happy children, you will rise,
To mingle in its care and strife,
Or early find the peaceful skies.
Then be it yours, while you pursue
The golden moments, quick to haste
Some noble work of love to do,
Nor suffer one bright hour to waste.”

Daniel Clement Colesworthy (1810–1893) American writer

School is out (1876); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Life, Happiness, Making love

“Give me four years to teach the children, and the seed I have sown shall never be uprooted.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in Pan-Sovietism: The Issue Before America and the World, Bruce Campbell Hopper, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company (1931) p. 87
Attributions

“You run an NGO, wear jeans ripped at the knees, move about in society, children are with you, what values you will teach?”

Mahesh Sharma (1959) Indian politician

Criticizing a random woman he met on a plane, as quoted in " Why India is talking about ripped jeans and knees https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56453929" by Geeta Pandey, BBC News (22 March 2021)

“We’re all migrants in Brazil, but we can’t fling our doors open wide for [everybody] to just come. [...] To come here and marry 11-year-old children... […] We can’t tolerate certain types of people coming to Brazil and disrespecting our culture and our religion,”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

During a broadcast on social media on 12 December 2018. Bolsonaro says Brazil may “quit” Paris Agreement http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/politica/noticia/2018-12/bolsonaro-says-brazil-may-quit-paris-agreement. Agência Brasil (13 December 2019). 2018

People, Religion

“Perhaps, for the first time ever there is now a real chance to put an end to despotism and to dismantle the totalitarian order, whatever shape it may take. I trust that after all the unthinkable tragedies and tremendous losses that it has suffered, mankind will reject this legacy. It will not allow the 21st century to bring new suffering and deprivations to our children and grandchildren.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

Address https://apnews.com/article/e5458697cf06bbb518a9ffafffd650e5 to the U.N. Security Council (31 January 1992) 1990s

Suffering, Loss, Chance, Time

“Children go to school because their parents don't want them in the house.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Source: Prompting giggles from Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban after campaigning for the right of girls to go to school without fear - October 2013.

School, Parent, Housing

“I am sure that no more certain method, not only of dechristianizing, but demoralizing the youth of the classes who send their children to the Universities could be found than subjecting them to the influence of tutors who would start with the idea that all beliefs should be submitted for free selection to the consciences and intelligences of their pupils.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords (8 May 1871) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1871/may/08/committee#column_346 1870s

Youth, Intelligence, Idea, Universe

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”

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

June 1857
Correspondence, Letters to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie

Education, Reading

“You can't choose your children.”

Bernard MacLaverty (1942) Irish writer

Short story, "Some surrender", p.119
Short Stories, The Great Profundo and Other Stories (1987)

“The father guards the nest and fans it with his pectoral fins until the children are able to shift for themselves. Then he eats them.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Footnote: He does this because of his altruistic (parental) instinct. The higher one rises in the vertebrate scale the more altruistic one becomes. The higher vertebrates are just one mass of altruism.
The Three-Spined Stickleback
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“My friends, a new day has dawned on Ontario! A day of opportunity, a day of prosperity and a day of growth. We’re going to turn this province around, so our children and their children will always be proud to call Ontario home. We will make sure Ontario is the greatest place on Earth to live, to do business and to raise a family. And we will make Ontario once again the engine of Canada.”

Doug Ford (1964) 26th Premier of Ontario

Victory speech the night of the 2018 Ontario general election https://www.macleans.ca/politics/doug-fords-victory-speech-ontario-is-open-for-business-full-transcript/ (7 June 2018) 2018

Making love, Family, Home, Business

“I know that God only works for good in the lives of His children. Our responsibility is to search for God's will, find it, and do it to the best of our imperfect ability. The outcome is already decided. And it is always for good. As a matter of faith, I never question outcomes.”

L. Lin Wood (1952) American lawyer

20 May 2021 https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1395227279748255745/photo/1

God, Faith, Search, Question

“As children, we learned that if no one hits first, no fight is possible. Therefore, refraining from ‘first-strike’ force, theft, or fraud, is the first step in creating peace.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism, (2015), p. 21

Peace, Fraud, Learning, Fight

“When you subsidize anything, you get more of it. Paying teens even a pittance to have more children encourages them to do so. By the time they are old enough to vote, they finally realize that they will always be poor unless they can get into the work force. By then, however, it is almost too late. Unless a relative helps out, child care costs are prohibitive for someone starting in an entry level job. They find themselves forever stuck in the ‘Poverty Trap.’”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 137

Time, Help

“[T]he United States of America, is not only the most powerful and the most prosperous country on earth, but the most free and the most just. Then I do my best to tell them how and why this is so. And I teach them about the principles from which those blessings of liberty flow. I invite them to consider whether they can have any greater honor than to pass undiminished to their children and grandchildren this great inheritance of freedom.”

Peter W. Schramm (1946–2015) American academic

"Born American, But in the Wrong Place" (2006)

Freedom, Country

“I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

Radio talk, 22 May, 1942
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)

Life, People, Health, Home

“And we see it in the mothers and the fathers who get up at the crack of dawn; they work two jobs and sometimes three jobs. They sacrifice every day for the furniture and — future of their children.”

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

Remarks by President Trump at the 2017 Values Voter Summit https://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/random-words-donald-trump/5573/ (13 October 2017) 2017, October 2017

Future

“We should teach our children nothing which they shall ever need to unlearn; we should strive to transmit to them the best possessions, the truest thought, the noblest sentiments of the age in which we live.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Life and Destiny (1913)

Age

“I’ve also seen both sexes mistreat their servants, servants’ children, and scream abuses at poor people in the markets. In Pakistan, abuse is not as openly discussed as it is in the West. Abuse seems to be more acceptable as long as one maintains a luxury lifestyle.”

Cynthia D. Ritchie

Cynthia D. Ritchie attributed in Who let the dogs out?, Pakistan Today . Com https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/06/21/who-let-the-dogs-out-3/ 2020 June, 21.

People, Sex

“This population rise in not because of Hindus. Population has risen due to those who support the concept of four wives and 40 children.”

Sakshi Maharaj (1956) Indian politician

Blaming the population growth in India on the Muslim minority, as quoted in " Those with 4 wives behind population rise: Sakshi Maharaj stirs row in UP https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/politics/070117/those-with-4-wives-40-children-responsible-for-population-rise-sakshi-maharaj.html", Deccan Chronicle (7 January 2015)

Support

“Many of the Dioceses of Papua have been gifted with an old evangelization: the Christian population has grown and has received an excellent education. Today, in the new social and cultural context, opportunities to transmit the faith have decreased and new roads and new ways to bring the Gospel to children, youth and families are needed.”

Stephen Joseph Reichert (1943) American priest

The Church in Papua committed to the new evangelization http://www.fides.org/en/news/31701-OCEANIA_PAPUA_NEW_GUINEA_The_Church_in_Papua_committed_to_the_new_evangelization (11 June 2012)

Youth, Education, Family, Faith

“I love both acting and meeting children around the world. But I think that meeting children is something I should do for the rest of my life.”

Kim Hye-ja (1941) South Korean actress

As quoted in "Kim Hye-ja returns to stage with 'Doubt'" in Han Cinema (20 November 2006) https://www.hancinema.net/herald-interviewkim-hye-ja-returns-to-stage-with-doubt--7779.html

Love, Life, World, Thinking

“Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

“The aged are cared for until death; adults are employed in jobs that make full use of their abilities; and children are nourished, educated, and fostered;...orphans... the disabled and the diseased are all well taken care of....”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, A Great Utopia (The World of Da-Tong)

Death, Age, Education, Disease

“Immigrant parents don’t want their children to suffer or have to live harder than they did.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

As quoted in "Jenny Han Has Been Here All Along" in Elle (24 February 2020) https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a30913764/jenny-han-interview-to-all-the-boys-sequel/

Parent, Suffering

“I got offended on behalf of my imaginary kids. [...] My children are not gonna be playing out on grass. They will be up in their rooms playing violent video games and catfishing pedophiles.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

The Comeback Kid (2015)

Game, Grass

“I didn't mean to make it sound like we don't want children. We don't, but I didn't mean to make it sound like that.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

The Comeback Kid (2015)

“It was difficult to be an actress and have a home and children. My family always came first, and that is something I don’t regret.”

Noreen Nash (1924–2023) American film and television actress

Encountering the Phantom Beyond Space https://books.google.com/books?id=MllCLkc3Q_EC&q=Noreen+Nash#v=onepage&q=Noreen%20Nash&f=true (2000)

Family, Home

“I believe we must set up three children's colonies, the aim of these colonies is above all to furnish us with soldiers.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: King Leopold's Ghost https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kingleopoldsghost Leopold II in a letter to the Congo Governor General: Camille Janssen, 1890.

“Pretend to be friendly. Eat with them. Laugh with them. When they are sated and trust you, attack them, kill all their men and kidnap their women and children!”

Cornstalk (1720–1777) Native American in the American Revolution

Plan of attack at the Muddy Creek Massacre.

Women, Men

“There was no readiness for soldiering in this truck, no stern and cocky welcoming of challenges. They sounded - oh, Mother of God - they sounded like children.”

Richard Yates A Good School

Source: Novels, A Good School (1978), p.165 (Ch.7)

God

“They teach their children: ‘Don’t get involved in conflicts, you’ll only lose.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), The Defeated Ones

“God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

God, Revenge

“The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial, and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I’m a parent. And I think anybody who has children, you come to this realization, you know—what’ll it be? Alienated, cynical intellectual? Or slack-jawed, half-wit consumer of the horseshit being handed down from on high? There is not much choice in there, you see. And we all want our children to be well adjusted; unfortunately, there’s nothing to be well adjusted to!”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Stupidity, Feeling, Thinking, Parent

“We are already struggling to teach morality to our children at all levels in our schools and they want to bring this in. It is unacceptable.”

Philip Naameh (1948) Ghanaian Catholic archbishop

CATHOLIC BISHOPS REJECT COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION http://radioangelus.com/catholic-bishops-reject-comprehensive-sexuality-education/ (September 30, 2019)

School

“A genuine era of happiness is only possible when we aren’t clouded by the uncertainties of aging and when bearing and raising children is truly considered a blessing. No citizen should be left to fear that he or she might not be able to meet the basic requirements of life.”

Park Geun-hye (1952) eleventh President of South Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (February 25, 2013)

Life, Happiness, Age, Fear

“Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor; and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of that universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

1870s, The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Men, God, World, Family

“One of the ironies in social climbing is that if you are successful, your children will ultimately belong to a different class from yours. There is something sad in that this was your ambition, yet if you achieve it, you have in a sense alienated yourself from your own children.”

Julian Fellowes (1949) English actor, dramatist, director, novelist, producer and screenwriter

Q&A with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes https://britishheritage.com/interviews/downton-abbey-julian-fellowes (July 22, 2021)

Sadness, Sense, Success

“Save the children...”

Lu Xun book A Madman's Diary

Kuang Ren Ri Ji (Diary of a Madman), thirteenth entry
Original: (zh-CN) 救救孩子……
Source: A Madman's Diary (1918)

“Even if teen-age children aren't making a sound, it's quieter when they're gone. They put a boiling in the air around them. As they left, the whole house seemed to sigh and settle. No wonder poltergeists infest only houses with adolescent children.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter V

Age, Housing

“You can't pick & choose on human rights and equality. Children should understand a modern and diverse Britain they're growing up in.”

Justine Greening (1969) British politician

Tory leadership contest: Iain Duncan Smith warns of 'chaos' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48458370 BBC News (30 May 2019) 2019

Understanding

“Women and children are vulnerable to brutal violence and some have lost everything... We cannot ignore what is happening to the Syrian people.”

Justine Greening (1969) British politician

Syria conflict: UK pledges extra £100m https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25743571 BBC News (15 January 2014) 2014

Women, People

“Children grow up and discover that the world is not as it seemed within the four walls of their homes. Humankind as a whole does the same.”

Carlo Rovelli book The Order of Time

Source: The Order of Time (2018), p. 11

World, Home

“If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.”

Luciano Pavarotti (1935–2007) Italian operatic tenor

As quoted in A Gift of Days: The Greatest Words to Live By (2009), p. 81, by Stephen Alcorn

Age, Music

“All my journey, I help children, building school, building hospital, orphanage home. It’s about relationship. Now I’m working, not because of my duty, not because of my mission, but because of my love.”

Phan Thi Kim Phuc (1963) Child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972

"Kim Phuc Phan Thi: Vietnam War Survivor" in PBS https://www.pbs.org/newshour/brief/329035/kim-phuc-phan-thi

Love, School, Home, Help

“Children are the most sweet burden of life.”

Đuro Zrakić (1945)

Original: (hr) Svi me vole, samo tata ne

Life

“Instead of paying more attention upon self-improvement. Nowadays, people are spending their valuable time to pray for LOVE. These people are similar to children who're trying to hold water firmly into their hands. Which will prove impossible at the end of the day!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, People, Water, Time

“We must not, at any cost, behave like little children who are ready to take credit for good deeds but run away wherever evil ones appear.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Appearance, Evil

“There are worlds beyond worlds and times beyond times, all of them true, all of them real, and all of them (as children know) penetrating each other.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

From "Personal View," by P. L. Travers, in the Sunday Times (London), issue 8575, December 11, 1988.

World, Time

“To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Letter VIII: Things Written, section 33
Time and Tide (1867)

Education

“Our children are not individuals whore rights and tastes are casually respected from infancy, as they are in some primitive societies . . . . They are fundamentally extension of our own egos and give a special opportunity for the display of authority.”

Ruth Benedict Patterns of Culture

Patterns of Culture, 7

Whore

“The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children, apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind, the lower animals.”

John Stuart Mill book Principles of Political Economy

Book V, Chapter 11, Section 9
Principles of Political Economy (1848-1871)

Animals, Parting

“Natural selection has designed all parts of our bodies to last just long enough to see our children into independence, no more.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 14 “Immortality” (p. 202)

Nature, Parting

“Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Interview with Forbes Magazine (2009)

Education, Sense, Dependency, Wealth

“Notwithstanding my grandmother's long and faithful service to her owners, not one of her children escaped the auction block. These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.”

Harriet Jacobs book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Source: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861), p. 16

God, Faith, Horse

“Let the United States know that with God's permission, the battle will continue to be waged on its territory until it leaves our lands, stops its support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi people who have lost more than one million children.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: In full: Al-Qaeda statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1590350.stm (10th October, 2001)

God, People, Support

“Whoredom and bastardy are defects with regard to a female slave, but not with regard to a male ; because the object in the purchase of female slave, is cohabitation and the generation of children...”

Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani (1117–1197) muhaddith, faqih and author (1135-1164)

Al-Hidayah (593 AH, 1197 CE), Charles Hamilton's translation, 1791 Source: Hidayah (Muslim law book), Hamilton, II, 409. https://archive.org/details/TheHedayaCommentaryOnIslamicLawsByShyakhBurhanuddinAbuBakrAlMarghinani/page/n249/mode/1up (Also quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Ch. 11)

“Everyone threw himself, with his wife and children, upon the flames and departed to hell.”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

Khazainu’l-Futuh
Source: quoted in (Oxford in India readings, Themes in Indian history.) Richard Maxwell Eaton - India's Islamic traditions, 711-1750-Oxford University Press (2003) 38.

Hell

“Again, irrationality can hurt, and here we have evidence that a particular form of it is widespread. The people accused around hurt, and the clients—be they children or grown adults—are hurt. Irrationality is not simply an amusing diversion provided by tarot cards or Ouija boards.”

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 9, “Sexual Abuse Hysteria” (p. 179)

People, Hurt

“Maybe it’s like being a parent, you never really see your children as adults.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Burning Page (2016), Chapter 12 (p. 145)
Context: Maybe it’s like being a parent,” she said, bringing up a Library map. “You never really see your children as adults. “You’re exaggerating,” Kai said, with the easy confidence of someone who hadn’t tested the issue yet.

Parent

“As a nation, we have the moral obligation to protect our children from sexual abuse. We need to love, nurture and protect these children ensuring that this protection is both emotional and physical.”

Neo Masisi (1962) first lady of Botswana

Source: Neo Masisi https://www.unicef.org/botswana/media/191/file/E-Seng-Mo-Ngwaneng-Report-2019.pdf Campaign Brief, Botswana Country Office: Interim Update (17 January 2019) Retrieved 5 November 2021.

Love

“God gave His children memory
That in life's garden there might be
June roses in December.”

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (1883–1929) British saint

Source: from Roses in December, in Songs of Faith and Doubt (1922) https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/roses-december

Life, God, Memory

“I would love to write more children’s books. I think children can understand complex things so long as you explain them in words they can wrap themselves around.”

Padma Lakshmi (1970) Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer

Source: "What I’ve Learned: Padma Lakshmi" in Esquire https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a37862708/padma-lakshmi-what-ive-learned-interview-2021/ (2 November 2021)

Love, Books, Understanding, Thinking

“I suppose there were other institutions in Embassytown where the dynamic of the quotidian sustained—some hospitals, perhaps some schools, perhaps houses where shiftparents most deeply loved the children. Whenever any society dies there must be heroes whose fightback is to not change.”

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 15 (p. 213)

Love, School, Change, Housing

“I firmly believe in the importance to empower infertile women, who are mistreated and discriminated against in many cultures for not being able to have children and start a family.”

Neo Masisi (1962) first lady of Botswana

Neo Masisi https://www.africanews.com/2018/12/17/african-first-ladies-pledge-to-support-merck-foundation-to-empower-infertile-women-as-ambassadors/ African First ladies pledge to support Merck Foundation to empower infertile women as Ambassadors. (09/12/2019) Retrieved 5 November 2021.

Women, Family

“The issue, rather, is this: Are we prepared to embrace the undeniably vast potential of genetics to improve the human condition, individually and collectively? Most immediate, would we want the guidance of genetic information to design learning best suited to our children’s individual needs?”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

Coda: Our Genes and Our Future (p. 432)
Source: DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution (2003/2017)

Learning

“Ending our support of Saudi Arabia isn’t about political gamesmanship. It’s about basic humanity. It’s about doing everything to stop the bombing in Yemen so we can get food and medicine to the hundreds of thousands of children who are at immediate risk of starving to death.”

Ro Khanna (1976) U.S. Representative from California

Source: Twitter post https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1078370178595991552 (27 December 2018)

Death, Food, Support

“People who have children have the best work-avoidance excuses in the world. If you don't have kids, get some immediately. The playgrounds are full of them.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Books, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel (2002)

People, World

“American dollars should be spent on Americans’ safety and security, and if the national security threat is having an armed gunman in our school rooms, then we need to put our children first and stop sending our dollars overseas.”

Christina Hagan (1988) Member of the Ohio House of Representatives

Source: NRA-Endorsed Christina Hagan: ‘Stop Sending Our Dollars Overseas,’ Pay Armed Veterans to Protect Schools https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/04/24/nra-endorsed-christina-hagan-stop-sending-our-dollars-overseas-pay-armed-veterans-to-protect-schools/ (24 April 2018)

School

“They tore unborn babies out of bellies, took what we were intended to be, our children before they were children, babies before they were babies.”

Tommy Orange book There There

Describing the events of the Sand Creek massacre in the prologue of the book
There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo, There There by Tommy Orange review – Native American stories, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/18/there-there-tommy-orange-review, 9 August 2018, The Guardian, July 18, 2018]

Baby

“Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves... Aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all things, unselfish.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book The Key to Theosophy

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

Love, Women, Men, Thinking

“When the school children of Australia are told more truths about their own country, and fewer lies about the virtues of Royalty, the day will be near when we can place our own national flag in one of the proudest places among the ensigns of the world.”

Henry Lawson (1867–1922) Australian writer and poet

Source: A Neglected History (1887)

Truth, World, School, Country

“Your emotions are, of course, only the children of your background and are not to be condemned - merely changed.”

Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953)

Change

“No one is excluded from their proclamation that Jesus is Lord, that God loves all people, that all of us are sisters and brothers, beloved children of the one God, for God alone is able to feed the deepest hungers of the human heart.”

Gustavo García-Siller (1950) Roman Catholic archbishop

Source: New San Antonio archbishop asks Catholics to listen for God’s call https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/21492/new-san-antonio-archbishop-asks-catholics-to-listen-for-gods-call (27 November 2010)

Love, Hunger, God, People

“With a 97 per cent vaccination rate (against COVID-19 as of July 2021), it is a tremendous result, and it shows that the majority have chosen to be vaccinated for the safety and wellbeing of the country, and for our children.”

Dalton Tagelagi (1968) New Zealand politician, Premier of Niue and bowler

Source: Dalton Tagelagi (2021) cited in " Covid-19: Niue days from full vaccination, travel bubble in place by end of year https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/125617802/covid19-niue-days-from-full-vaccination-travel-bubble-in-place-by-end-of-year" on Stuff, 7 July 2021.

Country

Quotes about children page 44

Quotes about children
page 44