“Would that all excellent books were foundlings, without father or mother, that so it might be, we could glorify them, without including their ostensible authors.”

“Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
Et sane arduum debet esse, quod adeo raro reperitur. Qui enim posset fieri, si salus in promptu esset et sine magno labore reperiri posset, ut ab omnibus fere negligeretur? Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt.

“We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.”

“We are now in the 21st century: all books, including the Koran, should be fair game for flushing down the toilet without fear of violent reprisal.”

“I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without the author's knowing it.”

“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”

“Freedom is not possible without authority - otherwise it would turn into chaos and authority is not possible without freedom - otherwise it would turn into tyranny.”

“Ooh, little boy, in between changing fathers.
Little girl has to live without Mother.
They don't understand why they seem not to need them,
Although all they need is a loving hand.”

“The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman's rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father, a task usually assumed by the mother.”

“In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us:
they are weaned from earth's sorrows and joys, and as gently as children
outgrow the soft breasts of their mothers. But we, who do need
such great mysteries, we for whom grief is so often
the source of our spirit's growth — : could we exist without them?”