“Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon the young, especially when, at the age of three years old, they are taken from the maternal care and taught to unlearn the old language — except for the purpose of repeating it in the presence of their Mothers and Nurses — and to learn the vocabulary and idiom of science. Already methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of mathematical truth at the present time as compared with the more robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago.”

“My first memories are from when I was very little, maybe three or four years old playing in my neighbourhood at home. I can picture myself with the ball at my feet from a very young age.”

“Why make excuses close to the truth, especially when now I am presuming to try to grasp in my old age what I did not gain in my youth because my sins prevented me from making what I had read my own? But who will believe me, even though I should say it again? A young man, almost a beardless boy, I was taken captive before I knew what I should desire and what I should shun.”

“You often hear that the language of science is mathematics. I don't completely agree with the article. I don't think it is a definite article. Mathematics is "a" language of science. But, it is only "a" language of science. The language of science is English. The language of science is Spanish.”

“When I was about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learning to read, every increase of knowledge, especially anything respecting the free states, was an additional weight to the almost intolerable burden of my thought, 'I am a slave for life'. To my bondage I could see no end. It was a terrible reality, and I shall never be able to tell how sadly that thought chafed my young spirit.”

“In my opinion, besides science, language and mathematics, perhaps tolerance is the most important thing that should be taught in schools nowadays.”

“I compare that old relic with myself… ruins and dilapidation. What a difference between then and now. Then, youth, strength and riches; now age, weakness and poverty.”

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

“The young are of age when they twitter like the old; they are driven through school to learn the old song, and, when they have this by heart, they are declared of age.”

“Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old…

- Wang Lung”