Quotes about parents
page 6

“We sleep in peace in the arms of God when we yield ourselves up to His providence, in a delightful consciousness of His tender mercies; no more restless uncertainties, no more anxious desires, no more impatience at the place we are in, for it is God who has put us there, and who holds us in His arms. Can we be unsafe where He has placed us, and where He watches over us as a parent watches a child? This confiding repose, in which earthly care sleeps, is the true vigilance of the heart; yielding itself up to God, with no other support than Him, it thus watches while we sleep. This is the love of Him that will not sleep even in death.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 600.

Love, Death, God, Peace

“My parents ask if I'm alright; I say "I've just been staying up too late.
I need to sleep" I need to do something!
To get this awful weight up off my chest,
keep her pretty ghost from chasing me!”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Insound Tour Support No.12 (2000)

Sleep

“I like the War. It is only War that gives us a normal existence. What do you do in peace-time? You stay at home; you don't know what to do with your time; you argue with your parents, and your wife - if you have one. Everyone thinks you are an insufferable egotist - and so you are. The War comes; you only go home every five or six months. You are a hero, and, what women appreciate much more, you are a change. You know stories that have never been published. You've seen strange men and terrible things. Your father, instead of telling his friends that you are embittering the end of his life, introduces you to them as an oracle. These old men consult you on foreign politics. I you are married, your wife is prettier than ever; if you are not, all the girls lay siege to you.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

Life, Women, Men, War

“I enjoy kids, always have. It’s wonderful to see their reactions, to see their faces light up when you look at the pictures because most kids have been brought up on Star Wars from their parents. It’s just a crazy thing, but it’s wonderful to see the kids and they have fun. It’s one of those things, they either believe it and go, “wow, you really played Chewbacca?” And I say, “Yes.” Having big hands is an ice-breaker. Because you put one hand up against their little hand and see the expression on their face. Amazing.”

Peter Mayhew (1944–2019) British actor

Star Wars Weekends: Peter Mayhew/Chewbacca Interview http://www.disunplugged.com/2009/05/27/star-wars-weekends-peter-mayhewchewbacca-interview/ (May 27, 2009)

War, Star, Light

“On parent knees, a naked new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled;
So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,
Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

From the Persian, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Smile, Sleep

“I fully support the efforts of Mr. & Mrs. Schindler to save their daughter, Terri Schiavo, from a cruel starvation. Terri's husband should sign the care of his wife over to her parents so she can be properly cared for.”

Mel Gibson (1956) American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter

Gibson lending his support to Terri Schiavo, telling Terri's father that he supported his family's efforts to save his daughter's life. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/3/12/164305.shtml

Support, Effort, Daughters

“Divinity is not proved by having one parent instead of two. It could be argued that such a person is removed from us and could not have been truly man. As to sinlessness, we men are a wicked lot, but all the evil in our children does not come from us. Mothers can pass on evil as well as fathers, and sinlessness cannot be physically determined.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.99

Men, Children, Evil, Personality

“Frances Egan, the school nurse, left her nutrition charts long enough to tell me there was nothing that could have been done. "Evelyn had a rough time with her father," she said. "Once she came in beaten black and blue."
"What did you do for her?"
"I gave her a cup of tea."
"Tea? Why tea, for heaven's sake?"
"Why? Because I know all about it," she said, shaking with anger. "I know more than anyone here what goes on outside — poverty, disease, dope, degeneracy — yet I'm not supposed to give them even a band-aid. I used to plead, bang on my desk, talk myself hoarse arguing with kids, parents, welfare, administration, social agencies. Nobody really heard me. Now I give them tea. At least, that's something."
"But you're a nurse," I said helplessly.
She showed me the Directive from the Board posted on her wall: THE SCHOOL NURSE MAY NOT TOUCH WOUNDS, GIVE MEDICATION, REMOVE FOREIGN PARTICLES FROM THE EYE…
Are we, none of us, then, allowed to touch wounds? What is the teacher's responsibility? And if it begins at all, where does it end?”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part V, ch. 26 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Disease, School, Teachers, Time

“And they told me
The times have changed
Cause' our parents had Hendrix, Janis and Jim
But what about River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

War on Drugs Laughing Colors

Change, Time

“Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado has announced the birth of a new son, making him the only openly gay member of Congress to be a parent.”

Jared Polis (1975) American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and US Representative

[Gay congressman announces birth of new son, Associated Press, December 1, 2011, Houston Chronicle]
About

Birth

“Has it ever occurred to you…that parents are nothing but overgrown kids until their children drag them into adulthood? Usually kicking and screaming?”

Stephen King book Christine

Pt. 1, Ch. 3
Christine (1983)

Children, Adulthood

“I do not know a greater fault in the nurture of children than the conniving at the wanton acts of barbarity which they practise at an early age upon innocent insects; the judgment of that parent must be exceedingly defective, or strangely perverted, who can proportion the degree of cruelty to the smallness of the creature that unfortunately becomes the sufferer. It is but a fly, perhaps he may say, when he sees his child pluck off its wings or its legs by way of amusement; it is but a fly, and cannot feel much pain; besides the infant would cry if I was to take it from him, and that might endanger his health, which surely is of more consequence than many flies: but I fear worse consequences are to be dreaded by permitting it to indulge so vicious an inclination, for as it grows up, the same cruelty will in all likelihood be extended to larger animals, and its heart by degrees made callous to every claim of tenderness and humanity.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 388
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Cruelty to insects

Pain, Children, Health, Age

“There is an issue of vital importance that most well-meaning parents are not aware of: the modern diet that most children are eating today creates a fertile cellular environment for cancer to emerge at a later age. Trying to prevent breast, prostate, and other cancers as an adult may not be totally possible because most risk factors cannot be changed at this late stage. The bottom line is that in order to have a major impact on preventing cancer we must intervene much earlier, even as early as the first ten years of life. In other words, childhood diets create adult cancers.”

Joel Fuhrman (1953) Family Physician and author

Introduction, p. xviii
Disease-Proof Your Child (2005)

Life, Children, Age, Change

“Although there is a delicate balance between children’s privacy and parental awareness, a good parent should always be attentive to their children’s activities and feelings – both online and offline.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

Children, Feeling

“The Conservative Party is the parent of trade unionism, just as it is the author of the Factory Acts. At every stage in the history of the nineteenth century it is to Toryism that trade unionism has looked for help and support against the oppressions of the Manchester School of liberalism, which cared nothing for the interests of the state, and regarded men as brute beasts whose labour could be bought and sold at the cheapest price, irrespective of all other considerations.”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Introduction to H. Hills and M. Woods, Industrial Unrest: A Practical Solution (1914)

Men, School, History, Support

“The circumstance-adaptive law, operating upon the slight but continued natural disposition to sport in the progeny (seedling variety), does not preclude the supposed influence which volition or sensation may have over the configuration of the body. To examine into the disposition to sport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent, as in many vegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by the mind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself during its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon external circumstance, and how far on the will, irritability and muscular exertion, is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the preceding links of the particular chain of life, varieties being often merely types or approximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the family, as well as of the individual, must be embraced by our experiments.”

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) British scientist

On naval timber and arboriculture (1831), Appendix F, part II

Life, Family, Law, Nature

“Better a loving single parent family than a 'conventional' family wherein the parents hate each other and the father is a demagogue.”

Moby (1965) Activist, American musician, DJ and photographer

"One problem with cultural conservatism," essay included with the compilation album I Like to Score (1997)

Love, Hate, Family

“God is no more intimidated by childish demands for instant gratification than are wise parents.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

God

“We won't win until the average parent believes drug reform protects kids better than the war on drugs.”

Ethan Nadelmann (1957) American writer; campaigner for the legalization of marijuana

Talk to the San Francisco Medical Society http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/198/nadelmann.shtml on July 25, 2001. <br class="br">The War on Drugs

War

“I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, "Well, that's heartless." And I said, "No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work."”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012

People, Age

“But the passion of jealousy cannot exist without the passion of love, and is like its parent, creative, impetuous, and credulous.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Love, Jealousy, Passion

“Let us never imagine that faith can ever be furthered by suppressing doubt, let alone by suppressing evidence. All truth is one, and religion must be as eager as science to know the truth as far as man can perceive it. If something we have treasured as truth is really contradicted by unanswerable evidence, then in the name of the God of truth we must part with it however venerable it may be. Let us never suppose that we can take over faith from our parents without examination, or believe anything merely because another says it is true. But let us not be content with a static agnosticism which never rouses itself to make inquiry. Let us examine the evidence and then in complete loyalty to its trend make a leap both of intellect and will, and, committing ourselves, acting as if all were established, try out in life the faith that carries us on wings after the hard road of fact and reason stops.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.231

Life, God, Truth, Faith

“A ban does not solve the underlying problem behind it. We have to reach out to parents and make sure girls are empowered to make their own choices. At the same time, women who voluntarily choose to wear a headscarf should not be disadvantaged.”

Annette Widmann-Mauz (1966) German politician

About banning headscarves in Germany. German state looks to ban headscarves for girls https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/10/german-state-looks-ban-headscarves-girls/ (10 April 2018), The Daily Telegraph.

Women, Girl, Problem, Time

“There are some issues I'm more conservative on. As a parent, I'm concerned that there are so many young, young, young kids — like 12 years old — that are starting to have sex.”

Lisa Kudrow (1963) American actress

Guardian interview (2006)

Sex

“The dinosaur world I grew up in was classical. They were universally seen as scaley herps that inhabited the immobile continents. There was no hint that birds were their direct descendents. Being reptiles, dinosaurs were cold-blooded and rather sluggish except perhaps for the smaller more bird-like examples. They all dragged their tails. Forelimbs were often sprawling. Leg muscles were slender in the reptilian manner. Intellectual capacity was minimal, as were social activity and parenting; the Knight painting of a Triceratops pair watching over a baby threatened by the Tyrant King was a notable exception. Hadrosaurs and especially sauropods were dinosaurian hippos, the latter perhaps too titanic to even emerge on land, and if they did so were limited by their bulk to lifting one foot of the ground at a time. Suitable only for the lush, warm and sunny tropical climate that enveloped the world from pole to pole before the Cenozoic, a cooling climate and new mountain chains did the obsolete archosaurs in, leaving only the crocodilians. Dinosaurs and the bat-winged pterosaurs were merely an evolutionary interlude, a period of geo-biological stasis before things got really interesting with the rise of the energetic and quick witted birds and especially mammals, leading with inexorable progress to the apex of natural selection: Man. It was pretty much all wrong. Deep down I sensed something was not quite right. Illustrating dinosaurs I found them to be much more reminiscent of birds and mammals than of the reptiles they were supposed to be. I was primed for a new view.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Autobiography, part I http://gspauldino.com/part1.html, gspauldino.com

World, Mountain, Nature, Bird

“It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognised for what it is.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Education in the New Age (1954), p. 75

Failure, Sense, Teachers

“We don't need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to re-read the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. We don't need to re-write, let's reread! And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that. So for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don't want us to go by the Constitution, there's a little section in there that talks about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believed in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," don't stop right there, keep reading. 'Cause that's when it says "when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

We've got some altering and some abolishing to do!
Lecturing Americans To ‘Reread’ Constitution, Herman Cain Confuses It With Declaration of Independence
Think Progress
Ian
Millhiser
2011-05-23
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/23/168628/cain-reread-constitution/
2011-10-08
Quoting parts of the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....”

Life, Happiness, People, Reading

“I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

2012
December
All Eyez on Him
Michael
Hainey
GQ
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201212/marco-rubio-interview-gq-december-2012?currentPage=2
Posed question: How old do you think the Earth is?
2010s, 2012

People, Age, Faith, History

“Who can you blame, parents or their friends or the children? In India every parent wants their child to earn more money and fame than any of their peers, no one wants their child to be set on a cultural journey and do tremendous things like other artists or musicians or sportsman have done. They think the entertainment sector won’t earn them any job or money. I blame the parents. They should inspire their children to pursue their interest along with the regular studies. I feel really sorry about this.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

On Parents and Passion.
Melodies of Brindavan: Pandit Hariprasad Chourasia

Money, Children, Feeling, Thinking

“When you tell me that father Adam was made as we make adobies from the earth, you tell me what I deem an idle tale. When you tell me that the beasts of the field were produced in that manner, you are speaking idle words devoid of meaning. There is no such thing in all the eternities where the Gods dwell. Mankind are here because they are the offspring of parents who were first brought here from another planet, and power was given them to propagate their species, and they were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. The offspring of Adam and Eve are commanded to take the rude elements, and, by the knowledge God has given, to convert them into everything required for their life, health, adornment, wealth, comfort, and consolation. Have we the knowledge to do this? We have. Who gave us this knowledge? Our Father who made us; for he is the only wise God”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 7:285 (October 9, 1859)
1850s

Life, God, Health, Knowledge

““Visitation” reflects the era of the absentee father; “parent time” influences the re-emergence of the involved father. “Visitation” reflects the destruction of the family; “parent time” influences the reconstruction of the family. “Parent time” influences an era that understands that as either parents loses, so lose the children.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 187.

Children, Family, Understanding, Time

“Life has a tendency to obfuscate and bewilder,
Such as fating us to spend the first part of our lives
being embarrassed by our parents and the last part
being embarrassed by our childer.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"What I Know About Life"
Versus (1949)

Life, Fate, Parting

“After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of the these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

Art, Universe

“There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.”

Leon Rene Yankwich (1888–1975) United States federal judge

Zipkin v. Mozon (June 1928)
Quoted in Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations by Peter McDonald (2004) p. 108

Children, For Parents

“I can’t evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven’t lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XI : “—citizens must protect themselves.”, p. 98

Learning

“Thank you … San Francisco. All right, you're ruining the show. Thank you … for clapping for what my parents are ashamed of.”

Daniel Tosh (1975) American stand-up comedian

Happy Thoughts (2011)

“Life with a Jolly Parent is a bit like life in a holiday camp. The beds are too small and there's an outbreak of Salmonella every five minutes.”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

Coping With series, Coping With Parents (1989)

Life, Holiday

“Buddhism's starting point is that all living things, we who are so full of pain and sadness, together with all these living things, want to liberate ourselves from this state of pain. … All living things have been repeating transmigration for immeasurable kalpa. … Sometimes a soul perceives itself as a human. At other times it is born in a beast, that is, what we call an animal. … As a result, the living things around us are all our parents and children, brothers and sisters, as they have been for a long time. People of different religions will think this idea too serious and terrifying. [Indeed] this is a serious world to a terrifying degree.”

Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933) Japanese poet and author of children's literature

The Great Vegetarian Festival (1934); as quoted in Miyazawa Kenji: Selections, edited by Hiroaki Sato (University of California Press, 2007), p. 14 https://books.google.it/books?id=D7IwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14.

Pain, Children, People, World

“Then came those years in which I was forced to recognize the existence of a drive within me that had to make itself small and hide from the world of light. The slowly awakening sense of my own sexuality overcame me, as it does every person, like an enemy and terrorist, as something forbidden, tempting, and sinful. What my curiosity sought, what dreams, lust and fear created — the great secret of puberty — did not fit at all into my sheltered childhood. I behaved like everyone else. I led the double life of a child who is no longer a child. My conscious self lived within the familiar and sanctioned world; it denied the new world that dawned within me. Side by side with this I lived in a world of dreams, drives and desires of a chthonic nature, across which my conscious self desperately built its fragile bridges, for the childhood world within me was falling apart. Like most parents, mine were no help with the new problems of puberty, to which no reference was ever made. All they did was take endless trouble in supporting my hopeless attempts to deny reality and to continue dwelling in a childhood world that was becoming more and more unreal. I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine. It was my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought-up children, I managed it badly.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 135

Life, Children, Secret, World

“At the Everyman Cinema there is a season of Satyajit Ray. He watches the Apu trilogy on successive nights in a state of rapt absorption. In Apu's bitter, trapped mother, his engaging, feckless father he recognizes, with a pang of guilt, his own parents. But it is the music above all that grips him, dizzyingly complex interplays between drums and stringed instruments, long arias on the flute whose scale or mode — he does not know enough about music theory to be sure which — catches at his heart, sending him into a mood of sensual melancholy that last long after the film has ended.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

Youth (2002)

Music, Mood, Success, Heart

“I learned the right way to live from my parents. I never heard any hate in my house. I never heard my father say a mean word to my mother, or my mother to my father, either. During the war, when food was hard to get, my parents fed their children first and they ate what was left. They always thought of us.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente, 32, Pays Tribute to Parents" by Les Biederman, in The Sporting News (September 3, 1966), p. 12
Other, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Hate, War, Children, Food

“Those of us whose parenting style can be described as "a series of reflexes, instincts, and minute-by-minute adjustments," as Julie of A Little Pregnant puts it, rather than as a philosophy, are less invested in our own practices. What we do is often less a matter of conviction than one of convenience. What we need to remember is that there is no need to apologize for that, even in the face of the most red-faced outrage.”

Ayelet Waldman (1964) American- Israeli writer

Salon.com column http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/waldman/2005/08/15/judgment/index1.html

“It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 1.
Naturalis Historia

Nature

“There was never a conspiracy, never a tremendous fear. This is a society which is now in its third generation of severe political repression, so that children in North Korea have several hours of political education a day. Their parents did, and their grandparents did.”

Ash Carter (1954) United States Secretary of Defense

pbs.org interview http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kim/interviews/acarter.html

Children, Education, Fear

“"Forgive my parental panic. I tend to get a little nervous when you're not in my immediate line of sight these days."
"Oh yeah? How long do you think that's going on for?"
"Not long. Five, maybe six years."
"Luke!"
"I plan to let you start dating when you're thirty, if that helps."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Luke and Clary, pg. 440
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Forgiveness, Thinking, Help

“Each one of us should ask himself; Am I being the best I can be to my family? Am I being the best parent I can be? Am I being the best child I can be? The best friend? The best neighbor? The best for my brothers and sisters? The best for my society? The best for humanity? Where am I from the saying: “The best of people, is the best TO the people?””

Mohammed Alkobaisi (1970) Iraqi Islamic scholar

Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media

People, Family, Sister

“Children internalize their parents' unhappiness. Fortunately, they absorb our contentment just as readily.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Page 235
Love, Lucy (1996)

Children

“So all you people here, despite evidence to the contrary, still choose to support a man that for all intents and purposes can't even support himself? OK, OK, so if you're a Jeff Hardy fan, if you're wearing a Jeff Hardy t-shirt, if you're wearing one of his diabolical little handsleeves, God forbid if you have your face painted, I want to see you stand up right now. I want to hear you make some noise! Go ahead, if you love and support Jeff Hardy, let the world know! (Crowd cheers, stands up.) Cameraman, cameraman get a good shot, get a real good shot at all these people. The truth is ladies and gentlemen, I don't blame you. I don't blame anybody here for supporting Jeff Hardy. The people I blame, are their parents. Or let's be realistic here, I said parents, what I should have said was parent. Because it's obviously a single parent situation, just like the way Jeff Hardy grew up. See you people are so concerned with the relationship with your children failing, just like your marriage did, that you acquiesce to their every whim and their every desire. I hate to tell you, this doesn't make you a good parent, Philadelphia, it makes you an enabler. (Crowd boos. Starts chanting for Hardy.) And the fact that you even let your children look up to a guy like Jeff Hardy, just shows that you really don't care what happens to them to begin with. It's a sad situation. So I don't blame anybody here or sitting at home watching this, that supports Jeff Hardy if they're under 17, because they're young and they're, well, they're impressionable. The real problem lies with the parents, it's the parents who don't make a conscious effort to sit their children down and teach them the proper way to live! (Crowd boos.) You see it starts with a Jeff Hardy t-shirt, next thing you know they're smoking a pack of cigarettes, after that, they're drinking a bottle of beer. Right after that they move on to shots of Jack Daniels, which is a gateway drug for marijuana…(Crowd pops for marijuana.) And the fact that you people sit here and cheer that goes to show that I'm telling the truth! How about some old fashioned street drugs? And before you know it they're digging through Mom's purse because they're addicted, they're addicted to prescription medication. (Crowd cheers, Punk mouths,"That's not cool!" to fans.) All of this can be stopped before it's too late! Parents, all you have to do is talk to your children. Sit them down and show them the way, tell them the words that can save their lives, show them that sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you who you are! For weeks, for weeks I've been saying to people like you, just say no. But today I think we should just say yes. Yes to the future of a straight edge, drug free America! Just say yes to the winner of tonight's match, just say yes, to the World Heavyweight Champion! Thank you!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

At Night of Champions 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Love, God, Hate, Marriage

“Supernatural agents are critical components of all religions but not of all ideologies. They are, in part, by-products of a naturally selected cognitive mechanism for detecting agents-such as predators, protectors, and prey-and for dealing rapidly and economically with stimulus situations involving people and animals. This innate releasing mechanism is trip-wired to attribute agency to virtually any action that mimics the stimulus conditions of natural agents: faces on clouds, voices in the wind, shadow figures, the intentions of cars or computers, and so on. Among natural agents, predators such as snakes are as likely to be candidates for deification as are protectors, such as parent-figures.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 15
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

People, Religion, Cars, Nature

“As an analogy one can imagine an intelligent amoeba with a good memory. As time progresses the amoeba is constantly splitting, each time the resulting amoebas having the same memories as the parent. Our amoeba hence does not have a life line, but a life tree.”

Hugh Everett (1930–1982) American physicist, author of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics

illustrating the branching of individuals in many worlds each time an observation is performed, in an early draft of his doctoral dissertation (1950s). Accessible at Read original documents http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyworlds/original.html of Nova's Parallel worlds documentary of Hugh Everett's work.

Life, Imagination, Intelligence, Tree

“Phil and I were never political, ever, ever, ever, our parents just told us we were Democrats because everybody in South St. Paul are Democrats. So we went through life just thinking we were Democrats, and would vote that way until our late 30s, when I basically started to Google, ‘What are you?’ I was like, "Oh my gosh, Phil, we’re Republicans."”

Karin Housley (1964) American politician

Minnesotans Phil and Karin Housley make sports and politics mix http://www.startribune.com/minnesotans-phil-and-karin-housley-make-sports-and-politics-mix/425842693/ (June 2, 2017)

Life, Way, Thinking

“It is hardly possible to over-calculate the evils accruing to individuals and to society in general from this custom, gradually increasing, of late and ultra-prudent marriages. Parents bring up their daughters in luxurious homes, expecting and exacting that the home to which they transfer them should be of almost equal ease; forgetting how next to impossible it is for such a home to be offered by any young man of the present generation, who has to work his way like his father before him. Daughters, accustomed to a life of ease and laziness, are early taught to check every tendency towards "a romantic attachment" — the insane folly of loving a man for what he is, rather than for what he has got; of being content to fight the worldly battle hand-in-hand — with a hand that is worth clasping, rather than settle down in comfortable sloth, protected and provided for in all external things. Young men … But words fail to trace the lot of enforced bachelorhood, hardest when its hardship ceases to be consciously felt.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10

Love, Life, Men, Marriage

“In my own therapy it was my experience that it was precisely the opposite of forgiveness —namely, rebellion against mistreatment suffered, the recognition and condemnation of my parents' destructive opinions and actions, and the articulation of my own needs— that ultimately freed me from the past.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

Forgiveness, Suffering, Past

“Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. – In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? – Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?”

Hugh Blair (1718–1800) British philosopher

Quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern, https://books.google.com/books?id=zlMxAAAAIAAJ ed. Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company (1908), p. 23.

Life, World, Disappointment

“In a sense, in the area of child care, children's relationships with parents' working has come full circle. We have gone from the mom-and-pop store (or mom-and-pop farm), with its integration of child care and work, to children-at-home and dad-at-work; to the mom-plus-daddy working at home, with its integration of childcare and work again. From mom-and-pop back to mom-and-pop.”

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

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 131.

Children, Home, Moms, Sense

“What, for instance, induced me, when so far distant from my country, voluntarily to devote myself to her cause? Her commerce? I neither knew nor cared any thing about it. Her funds? I was so happy as hardly to understand the meaning of the word. Her lands? I could, alas! lay claim to nothing but the graves of my parents.—What, then, was the stimulus? What was I proud of? It was the name and fame of England. Her laws, her liberties, her justice, her might; all the qualities and circumstances that had given her renown in the world, but above all her deeds in arms, her military glory.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (27 October 1804).

Happiness, World, Justice, Law

“Our country also needs citizens working to rebuild our communities. We need mentors to love children, especially children whose parents are in prison. And we need more talented teachers in troubled schools. USA Freedom Corps will expand and improve the good efforts of AmeriCorps and Senior Corps to recruit more than 200,000 new volunteers.”

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

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Love, Children, School, Communication

“The only group in America that ought to be the final arbiters, the only group in America that deserves to scrutinize what we are doing, and then judge its worth… are parents.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

On the TV rating system, as quoted in "U.S. TV industry unveils ratings system" CNN (19 December 1996) http://www.cnn.com/US/9612/19/tv.ratings.update/index.html

“I wish my parents took good care of their grow-op.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

“Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder.”

Nick Bostrom (1973) Swedish philosopher

In Defence of Posthuman Dignity http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/dignity.html, Bioethics, Vol. 19, Iss. 3 (2005), p. 211

Nature

“The absence of all these values (marriage commitment, parental authority, and grandparent-grandchild relationships) is one of the main reasons for why our societies are faced by these violent criminal offences. As legislators, our primary role is to ensure the freedom and rights of every citizen of this country are protected.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

Senate speech, 30 May 2003 (excerpts)

Marriage, Freedom, Country

“Who is there that can recognize real intellect, and do reverence to it; and discriminate it well from sham intellect, which is so much more abundant, and deserves the reverse of reverence? He that himself has it!—One really human Intellect, invested with command, and charged to reform Downing Street for us, would continually attract real intellect to those regions, and with a divine magnetism search it out from the modest corners where it lies hid. And every new accession of intellect to Downing Street would bring to it benefit only, and would increase such divine attraction in it, the parent of all benefit there and elsewhere!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

“We need to fund relationship language in our schools so that future parents will know how to communicate about whether they want children; to communicate with the children they have, and teach their children how to communicate with the world. Technical progress without social skills is a Tower of Babel.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 243.

Children, World, School, Communication

“If GML was an infant, SGML is the bright youngster who far exceeds expectations and made its parents too proud, but XML is the drug-addicted gang member who had committed his first murder before he had sex, which was rape.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article). <br class="br">Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Sex

“"Oh, I am so glad to see you have come. God the Parent lent a hand to bring you home. You had a hard time, slipping at many places. However, you were joyful. Sah, sah, God the Parent accepts fully, fully. Whatever you ask, it is accepted. God protects you. Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it!"
So saying, Oyasama grasped Rin’s cold hands with both Her own. It was something more than warming them over the brazier. Rin was moved with gratitude and awe at the inexpressible warmth of Oyasama.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

Anecdotes of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, from Anecdote 44, "A Snowy Day," p. 39.
Nakayama's exchange with Masui Rin, upon her arrival at the Nakayama residence during a stormy day.
Anecdotes of Oyasama

God, Home, Time, Gratitude

“I think the initial reason why I became interested in farming is that I wanted to be outdoors. I've always enjoyed being outdoors. And so, I looked around and when I was at high school, probably 14 or so, my parents through friends arranged for me to be able to go work on farms on the weekend.”

Ian Wilmut (1944) embryologist

Interview at the Academy of Acheivement (23 May 1998) http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/wil0int-1.

School, Thinking

“There is a sense of widespread neglect and decay in the field of indigenous education within a few decades after the onset of British rule. (…) The conclusion that the decay noticed in the early 19th century and more so in subsequent decades originated with European supremacy in India, therefore, seems inescapable. The 1769-70 famine in Bengal (when, according to British record, one-third of the population actually perished), may be taken as a mere forerunner of what was to come. (…) During the latter part of the 19th century, impressions of decay, decline and deprivation began to agitate the mind of the Indian people. Such impressions no doubt resulted from concrete personal, parental and social experience of what had gone before. They were, perhaps, somewhat exaggerated at times. By 1900, it had become general Indian belief that the country had been decimated by British rule in all possible ways; that not only had it become impoverished, but it had been degraded to the furthest possible extent; that the people of India had been cheated of most of what they had; that their customs and manners were ridiculed, and that the infrastructure of their society mostly eroded. One of the statements which thus came up was that the ignorance and illiteracy in India was caused by British rule; and, conversely, that at the beginning of British political dominance, India had had extensive education, learning and literacy. By 1930, much had been written on this point in the same manner as had been written on the deliberate destruction of Indian crafts and industry, and the impoverishment of the Indian countryside.”

Dharampal (1922–2006) Indian historian

Dharmapal: The Beautiful Tree, Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century. (1983)

People, Education, Way, Sense

“The worst decay in the two-parent black family unit seems to have occurred not during slavery or as a result of slavery, but much later and for different reasons. Nor is there any evidence that as a consequence of slavery, blacks condoned illegitimacy as acceptable within the community. For the decline and fragility of the contemporary black family, the institution of slavery bears only a minor responsibility.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, The End of Racism (1995), Ch. 3: An American Dilemma

Family, Communication

“The purest love is the one between parents and their children. The rest may be more elevated, but never as deep or long-lasting”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 44
The Other Wife (2003)

Love, Children

“Just because you are struggling on a farm or in a factory, doing something against which your whole nature rebels, because there is no one to help you support your aged parents or an invalid brother or sister, do not conclude that your vision must perish. Keep pushing on as best you can, and affirming your divine power to attain your desire. Hundreds and thousands of poor boys and girls with poorer opportunities than yours have done immortal deeds because they had faith in their ideal and in their power to attain it.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

How to Get What You Want (1917).

Age, Faith, Girl, Boy

“I was raised Vegan since birth. … I remember watching undercover investigation videos and reading the pamphlets that were mailed to the house when we were kids—I felt deeply for the animals at an early age. I remember how the other parents of my childhood friends would either get upset or interested when their kids would come home after sleepovers at my house—I felt it was my duty to show my friends what was happening to animals. … Veganism is the ultimate form of compassion. … I never considered my being Vegan was for health reasons—it was always for the love and respect I had for animals. And because of that love and respect I have for non-human animals my compassion flows over to all living beings, of all types. … I am encouraged by compassionate souls and the love I see in the eyes of those I've committed my life to stand up for.”

Seba Johnson (1973) Olympic skier

"Interview with Seba Johnson: Vegan Olympic Ski Racer" http://www.vivalavegan.net/articles/561-interview-with-seba-johnson-vegan-olympic-ski-racer.html, Viva La Vegan! (August 2013).

Love, Life, Health, Age

“It didn’t matter that they were terrible at being parents; they were also very rich, which meant they could pay other people to love Alec.”

Kage Baker book The Life of the World to Come

Source: The Life of the World to Come (2004), Chapter 4, “Smart Alec” (p. 55)

Love, People

“You should always cook eggs slowly" was Joan's advice in the kitchen on 118th Street. Joan did everything slowly, Edie reflected; she spoke, walked, dressed and read slowly, as if savoring every moment. She read everything, every newspaper and magazine. She liked the cartoons of William Steig in The New Yorker, particularly the one of the dejected fellow saying, "My mother loved me but she died." Joan didn't get along with her mother, and felt that she had nothing in common with her parents' country-club existence. She had rebelled against her background by living the New York City bohemian life.”

Joan Vollmer (1923–1951) Common-law wife of William S. Burroughs

About

Love, Life, Reading, Cooking

“Many parents are worried in America about the gay agenda and indoctrination of their children to see homosexuality in a certain way.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

2007-10-26
see Mackris lawsuit quote below, expressing contrary attitude on homosexuality indoctrination

Children, Way

“I think my experience as an adoptee who was given beautiful, loving parents, makes me sympathetic to the plight of the voiceless and those who are disregarded or tossed away or thought to not have value in a society. I feel like no one is expendable because it’s convenient. So many animals out there without homes have so much love to give, and I want to do all I can to get them in forever homes so they can give that love. … Fostering a little life is so humbling and sacred. It reminds you we’re all here to help each other and that you’re not the central character in the story of life. You’re a supporting role and your hands are meant to help get someone or something where they should be. Helping and loving an animal is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Every time you save them, you save yourself a little bit, too.”

Bellamy Young (1970) American artist

"Scandal's Bellamy Young has a soft spot for rescue pets", interview with USA Today (13 May 2017) https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2017/05/13/scandals-bellamy-young-has-soft-spot-rescue-pets/101588612/.

Love, Life, Beauty, Feeling

“The claim that women have a stronger average parental urge than men is sometimes viewed as a sexist generalization. But it’s only sexist if we take a dim view of the trait in question: the parental urge. One could turn the accusation on its head: Those who view the evolutionist’s claim (that women are more parental than men) as sexist are actually being sexist themselves, because they’re taking a negative view of a trait that’s usually found more strongly in females than males. They are therefore prizing prototypically masculine traits more highly than prototypically feminine ones.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 230

Women, Men, Question

“That’s what being a parent is like. It’s like Platoon.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

http://entertainment.time.com/2011/06/22/louis-ck-interview-part-1-fatherhood-and-fear/#ixzz2LfKg3gu2

“The Fable of the Parents who Tinkered with the Offspring”

George Ade (1866–1944) American writer, newspaper columnist and playwright

Moral: It all depends.

“A little unsure of himself in her presence, he always addressed her in questions, a habit common to parents, sovereigns, generals, and teachers.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

A Time for Silence

Question, Teachers

“The inference to be drawn from all this is, that the made-up and dogmatic Christianity of the Constantinian period is simply an offspring of the numerous conflicting sects, half-castes themselves, born of Pagan parents. Each of these could claim representatives converted to the so-called orthodox body of Christians. And, as every newly-born dogma had to be carried out by the majority of votes, every sect colored the main substance with its own hue, till the moment when the emperor enforced this revealed olla-podrida, of which he evidently did not himself understand a word, upon an unwilling world as the religion of Christ. Wearied in the vain attempt to sound this fathomless bog of international speculations, unable to appreciate a religion based on the pure spirituality of an ideal conception, Christendom gave itself up to the adoration of brutal force as represented by a Church backed up by Constantine. Since then, among the thousand rites, dogmas, and ceremonies copied from Paganism, the Church can claim but one invention as thoroughly original with her — namely, the doctrine of eternal damnation, and one custom, that of the anathema.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter VII

World, Religion, Color, Understanding

“I have finally realized how rarely you will find a flawless woman, one who is simply perfect. No doubt there are many who seem quite promising, write a flowing hand, give you back a perfectly acceptable poem, and all in all do credit enough to the rank they have to uphold, but you know, if you insist on any particular quality, you seldom find one who will do. Each one is all too pleased with her own accomplishments, runs others down, and so on. While a girl is under the eye of her adoring parents and living a sheltered life bright with future promise, it seems men have only to hear of some little talent of hers to be attracted. As long as she is pretty and innocent, and young enough to have nothing else on her mind, she may well put her heart into learning a pastime that she has seen others enjoy, and in fact she may become quite good at it. And when those who know her disguise her weaknesses and advertise whatever passable qualities she may have so as to present them in the best light, how could anyone think ill of her, having no reason to suspect her of being other than she seems? But when you look further to see whether it is all true, I am sure you can only end up disappointed.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Tale of Genji

Spoken by Tō no Chūjō in Ch. 2: The Broom Tree (trans. Royall Tyler)
Tale of Genji

Life, Men, Disappointment, Girl

“So many people these days, it seemed, believed that these things (personal fulfillment and self-esteem) could come only from work, not from parenting, and many people believed that having children had nothing to do with raising them.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Taylor McAden, Chapter 18, p. 200
2000s, The Rescue (2000)

Children, People, Personality

“Fidel made it clear in his opening remarks that the parents were important but not nearly as important as the baby. In some pictures Fidel had a big patch of wet saliva on his uniform because he had come over early to cuddle the baby.

A very warm and charming man — I enjoyed him.

I am very proud that Canada helped facilitate this; we have long, trusted ties.... This is good news and I celebrate with the Cuban people.

It was very kind of him, he was very proud of what he was doing with their children in establishing them as strong citizens.

What a fabulous place. The people are filled with life and music and happy in spite of very difficult times. Some of them work four jobs to support their families. They are wonderful people and I think this is an opportunity for them to really evolve as they need to.”

Margaret Trudeau (1948) ex-wife of the late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau

per 19 December 2014 article in National Post http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/margaret-trudeau-fondly-remembers-1976-trip-to-cuba-and-the-charming-dictator-who-cuddled-her-baby

Life, Happiness, Children, People

“The Christmas just before I turned four, my parents bought me a pair of little black skates and the Bay of Quinte was frozen and my two sisters took me out there and held my hands and taught me to skate. Now I don't know if this is true—although it sounds good!—but rumour has it by the end of the day they couldn't keep up with me.”

Bobby Hull (1939) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Andrew Podnieks, "One on One with Bobby Hull," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198302.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2001-12-11)

Sister, Christmas

“The softness, and the glare, and the temptations, and the licence, and the lax examples about us, are more seducing and dangerous than the winter of penal laws. They hardened the manhood of Catholic parents. The summer sun relaxes many.”

Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892) English Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal

Source: Towards Evening (1889), p. 144.

Law, Winter, Sun, Summer

“Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/resident-evil-apocalypse-2004 of Resident Evil: Apocalypse (10 September 2004) <br class="br">Reviews, Half-star reviews

Children

“I've had marvelous and incredible luck, and devoted parents, sisters, friends, and teachers. What more can one ask? These things contribute enormously. Probably the major part of one's success is due to these factors.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

As stated in his interview with Martyn Lewis in Lewis' book, Reflections on Success(1997)

Sister, Teachers, Success, Parting

“Parents are frequently inclined, because of a time-flattered sense of security, to take their children for granted. Nothing ever has happened, so nothing ever will happen. They see their children every day, and through the eyes of affection; and despite their natural charm and their own strong parental love, the children are apt to become not only commonplaces, but ineffably secure against evil. […] The astonishment of most parents at the sudden accidental revelation of evil in connection with any of their children is almost invariably pathetic. […] But it is possible. Very possible. Decidedly likely. Some, through lack of experience or understanding, or both, grow hard and bitter on the instant. They feel themselves astonishingly abased in the face of notable tenderness and sacrifice. Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity and uncertainty of life—the mystic chemistry of our being. Still others, taught roughly by life, or endowed with understanding or intuition, or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that incomprehensible chemistry which we call life and personality, and, knowing that it is quite vain to hope to gainsay it, save by greater subtlety, put the best face they can upon the matter and call a truce until they can think. We all know that life is unsolvable—we who think. The remainder imagine a vain thing, and are full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Theodore Dreiser book The Financier

Source: The Financier (1912), Ch. XXVI

Love, Life, Children, Hope

“Parents should worry if their children haven't been arrested by the time they turn sixteen. Being a juvenile delinquent is a birthright and as much a part of healthy adolescence as smoking cigarettes or getting pimples.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)

Children, Time, Parting

“By learning to yield to the loving authority… of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life — his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers.”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

From Dare to Discipline discussed on Good-Natured Child Needs His Share of Parents' Attention, Focus on the Family, 11/21/2004
2004

Love, Life, School, Learning

“My first conflict with NOW erupted in the mid-’70s when NOW chapters increasingly rejected father involvement by rejecting shared parent time as the preferred arrangement after divorce.”

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

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

Time

“That night my parents told me what my cousin had suggested. I said no, absolutely not! I turned and walked away as fast as I could. My parents really had no idea how much it had hurt me all these years to go to school. I was done with all book learning.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Books, School, Idea, Learning

“It seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don’t want to put them in a position to fail.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 92

People, Age, Decision

“I was born in Iowa. My mom was a social worker and my dad had an education degree but they decided to teach my siblings and me at home. However, Iowa was one of the last three states in the country where homeschooling was illegal. You could literally be taken away from your parents by the government for truancy. That experience as a child really burned into me how an intrusive government could completely change your life. My parents dragged me to the Capitol at 10 and I started working on my first campaign at 12. I still maintain my healthy fear of a big and burdensome government.”

Elijah Haahr (1982)

Up Close and Personal with Speaker Pro Tem Elijah Haahr https://themissouritimes.com/40993/close-personal-speaker-pro-tem-elijah-haahr/ (May 18, 2017)

Life, Education, Fear, Home

“The pressure to give A grades is intense. It comes from the students and increasingly from their parents as well.”

Jon Appleton (1939) American composer

"The Decline of Academic Freedom at Dartmouth College", 20 October 2005.
Letter published in "Appleton Leaves Dartmouth", 2005

“Stop any person on the street and they will tell you their own version of what it means to be an American, perhaps accurately, but mostly not. Some might say that being an American means wearing the US flag as a lapel pin. Others might say that in order to be defined as an American, one must attend the right church and be the right type of Christian. Still others will tell you that supporting the troops and, above that even, supporting the President is what makes one American.

Some might even venture that being born in this country or of parents who are citizens of this country is surely enough. On this last point there is some truth, but only in terms of rights, not responsibilities. As such, it presents only half of the equation.”

Larisa Alexandrovna (1971) Ukrainian-American journalist, essayist, poet

What is an American? in You Are An American http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/you-are-an-american_b_5928.html.

Truth, Support, Personality, Country

“In ancient Rome, the gladiators went into the arena with these words on their lips: let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt. Today, all of you young athletes are in the arena. Many of you will win. But even more important, I know you will be brave and bring credit to your parents and to your country. Let us begin the Olympics, thank you.”

Eunice Kennedy Shriver (1921–2009) sister of John F. Kennedy and founder of Camp Shriver

Speech at the first http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/eunice-kennedy-shriver-1921-2009-she-changed-the-world-for-people-with-mental-disabilities-128100168/115313.html Special Olympics, Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois (20 July 1968)

Country