Quotes about child
page 9

Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Philip Roth photo

“It’s a family joke that when I was a tiny child I turned from the window out of which I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, "Momma, do we believe in winter?"”

Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
Variant: It’s a family joke that when I was a tiny child I turned from the window out of which I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, "Momma, do we believe in winter?

John Maynard Keynes photo

“Jevons saw the kettle boil and cried out with the delighted voice of a child; Marshall too had seen the kettle boil and sat down silently to build an engine.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: Essays In Biography (1933), Alfred Marshall, p. 188

Walter Rauschenbusch photo
Heloise photo

“To her Lord, her Father; her Husband, her Brother; his Servant his Child; his Wife, his Sister; and to express all that is humble, respectful and loving to her Abelard, Heloise writes this.”
Domino suo, imo Patri; Conjugi suo, imo Fratri; Ancilla sua, imo Filia; ipsius Uxor, imo Soror; Abaelardo Heloisa, &c. Abel. Op.

Heloise (1101–1164) French nun, writer, scholar, and abbess

Letter II : Heloise to Abelard, Heading
Letters of Abelard and Heloise

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Benjamin Franklin photo
Harry Chapin photo
Jerzy Vetulani photo
Ray Comfort photo
Johann Gottfried Herder photo
Charlotte Perkins Gilman photo
Delia Ephron photo
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo
Rick Warren photo

“Rick Warren: The issue to me, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.
Steven Waldman: Do you think, though, that they are equivalent to having gays getting married?
Rick Warren: Oh, I do.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Response to the question: "What about partnership benefits in terms of insurance or hospital visitation?", as quoted in "Rick Warren’s Controversial Comments on Gay Marriage" by Steven Waldman at Beliefnet (17 December 2008) http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/12/rick-warrens-controversial-com.html

Alfred Binet photo
Lucille Ball photo
Mike Huckabee photo

“Here's the clear "science:"When the male sperm and female egg join, a new and unique life form is created. At conception. Not at birth or viability, or when a lawyer says so. At conception this happens. John McCain got it right; Obama pled less scientific knowledge than a 5th grader.This life is either human or something else. Science irrefutably would declare that the life which is starting from that moment is human. It's not a stalk of broccoli, it's not a parrot, squirrel, or dolphin. It will never become a tree—it can only become a human. It has the entire DNA schedule that it will have for the rest of its life right then. In days it will begin to take on increasingly observable human characteristics and form, but at conception, it is biologically human.If this life is human, then the only issue left is whether this human life falls under the notion that it has a fundamental right of existence or not. If not, it is because we as a culture have decided that some human lives are simply not worth living. If we can decide that about an innocent and unborn baby, we can also decide it on the basis of less absolute criteria than that. If we make that choice (and this is all about "CHOICE," isn’t it?) then someone may decide that a terminally ill person is not a life worth living. Maybe a severely disabled child is a life not worth living; what about a person with a limited IQ? Say that's absurd—that an educated and enlightened society would never be so audacious as to begin to terminate life based on such arbitrary excuses? Maybe you haven't studied Nazi Germany, in which the murder of six million Jews was justified because of their religion and millions of others were murdered because of their politics. Germany was not a primitive, superstitious culture. It was one filled with the intelligentsia and enlightened.This is an important issue. It's why we can't trust Obama with America's future because he's not even sure which Americans are worth saving and which ones aren't. And it's why that for many of us, McCain's selection of a running mate really does matter. Because John McCain clearly is pro life, I will support and vote for him because Obama is not an option for me as a pro life person. I will be disappointed if McCain doesn't pick a true pro life person and realize that should that happen, he will lose many of the very people who supported me. I cannot expect all of you to vote for McCain if he chooses someone whose record isn't pro life. It will be a less than perfect decision for all of us—our only real choices are McCain and Obama; one will protect life and one won't. Some will argue for a 3rd party candidate and I respect that, but in political realities, that is essentially a vote for Obama and I can't go there.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

A Message from the Governor
HuckPAC
2008-08-23
http://www.huckpac.com/?Fuseaction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=1848&CommentPage=5
2011-03-01

Adolf Eichmann photo
Nora Ephron photo
Jean Piaget photo
Benedict of Nursia photo

“The Donkey whispered in His ear:
"Child, in thirty-some-odd years,
You'll ride someone that looks like me (untriumphantly)."”

A Stick, a Carrot and String.
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (2009)

François Fénelon photo
Margaret Mead photo

“The older child who has lost or broken some valuable thing will be found when his parents return, not run away, not willing to confess, but in a deep sleep The thief whose case is being tried falls asleep”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Balinese Character (1942), p. 39 as cited in: E. Bruce Goldstein (1994) Psychology. p. 511

Hilaire Belloc photo

“What! Would you slap the Porcupine?
Unhappy child — desist!
Alas! That any friend of mine
Should turn Tupto-philist.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"The Porcupine"
More Beasts for Worse Children (1897)

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“If the child was helpless, was the grown up person, man or woman, in a much better position?”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter IV, "Laissez - Faire", p. 46.

Karel Appel photo

“The Cobra group started new, and first of all we threw away all these things we had known and started afresh, like a child — fresh and new. Sometimes my works look very childish, or childlike, schizophrenic or stupid, you know. But that was the good thing for me. Because, for me, the material is the paint itself. The paint expresses itself. In the mass of paint, I find my imagination and go on to paint it.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Quoted in: 'Karel Appel, Dutch Expressionist Painter, Dies at 85', by Margalit Fox, in 'Art & Design', New York Times May 9, 2006
Quote of an oral history in 'Contemporary Artists' - Karel Appel describes the wild artistic urgency that gave rise to the Cobra artist-group

Rāmabhadrācārya photo

“Why did you fight with my Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa)? You are a young maiden, and my Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa) is but a child, why did you hold his arm? My Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa) is crying, sobbing repeatedly, and you stand [looking at him] smirkingly! O Ahir lady (cowherd girl), you are excessively inclined to quarrel, and come and stand here uninvited." Giridhara (the poet) sings - so says Yaśodā, holding on to the hand of Giridhara (Kṛṣṇa) and covering [her face] with the end of her Sari.”

Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader

mere giridhārī jī se kāhe larī ।
tuma taruṇī mero giridhara bālaka kāhe bhujā pakarī ॥
susuki susuki mero giridhara rovata tū musukāta kharī ॥
tū ahirina atisaya jhagarāū barabasa āya kharī ॥
giridhara kara gahi kahata jasodā āʼncara oṭa karī ॥
[Nagar, Shanti Lal, The Holy Journey of a Divine Saint: Being the English Rendering of Swarnayatra Abhinandan Granth, Acharya Divakar, Sharma, Siva Kumar, Goyal, Surendra Sharma, Susila, B. R. Publishing Corporation, First, Hardback, New Delhi, India, 2002, 8176462888]
[Prasad, Ram Chandra, Sri Ramacaritamanasa The Holy Lake Of The Acts Of Rama, Motilal Banarsidass, 1999, Illustrated, reprint, Delhi, India, 8120807626, First published 1991]

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Colm Tóibín photo

“I wanted to be a poet as a child and I have a wall in my study dedicated to poetry books, all in alphabetical order, that reminds me daily of my failure.”

Colm Tóibín (1955) Irish novelist and writer

World of Colm Tóibín, writer http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/9108553/World-of-Colm-Toibin-writer.html, The Daily Telegraph (27 February 2012)

Ilana Mercer photo

“The great Roman statesman Cicero observed that, 'Not to know what happened before one was born is to be always a child.' In our ignorance of the Immoral values that form part of our history and heritage, we Americans have become perpetual children.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“A Burning Dilemma Among America’s Dhimma,” http://www.americandailyherald.com/pundits/ilana-mercer/item/a-burning-dilemma-among-america-s-dhimma American Daily Herald, May 10, 2013.
2010s, 2013

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Sun-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Lines Written among the Euganean Hills (1818)

Hans Arp photo
John Davidson photo
Paul Joseph Watson photo
David Fleming photo
Assata Shakur photo

“There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)

Thanissaro Bhikkhu photo
Norman Mailer photo

“Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Newsweek (22 October 1984)

Karel Čapek photo
John Wallis photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Orson Hyde photo
Margaret Mead photo

“[Among the Arapeh… both father and mother are held responsible for child care by the entire community…] If one comments upon a middle-aged man as good-looking, the people answer: 'Good-looking? Ye-e-e-s? But you should have seen him before he bore all those children.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 55; cited inWomen, History, and Theory : The Essays of Joan Kelly (1986), by Joan Kelly, p. 137

Billy Joel photo
Adam Gopnik photo
Charles Kingsley photo
Glen Cook photo
Michelle Obama photo

“Every time I meet a child I think, who knows what’s going on in her life, whether she was just bullied or whether she had a bad day at school or whether she lost a parent — that interaction that we have with that individual, that child for that moment, could change their life … so we can’t waste this spotlight. It is temporary and life is short, and change is needed. And women are smarter than men.”

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

Speaking at a women's forum at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, alongside former first lady Laura Bush, as quoted in "Michelle Obama: ‘Women are smarter than men’" in The Washington Times (6 August 2014) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/6/michelle-obama-women-are-smarter-than-men/
2010s

Connie Willis photo

““How dare you contradict their opinions! You are only a common servant.”
“Yes, miss,” he said wearily.
“You should be dismissed for being insolent to your betters.”
There was a long pause, and then Baine said, “All the diary entries and dismissals in the world cannot change the truth. Galileo recanted under threat of torture, but that did not make the sun revolve round the earth. If you dismiss me, the vase will still be vulgar, I will still be right, and your taste will still be plebeian, no matter what you write in your diary.”
“Plebeian?” Tossie said, bright pink. “How dare you speak like that to your mistress? You are dismissed.” She pointed imperiously at the house. “Pack your things immediately.”
“Yes, miss,” Baine said. “E pur si muove.”
“What?” Tossie said, bright red with rage. “What did you say?”
“I said, now that finally have dismissed me, I am no longer a member of the servant class and am therefore in a position to speak freely,” he said calmly.
“You are not in a position to speak to me at all,” Tossie said, raising her diary like a weapon. “Leave at once.”
“I dared to speak the truth to you because I felt you were deserving of it,” Baine said seriously. “I had only your best interests at heart, as I have always had. You have been blessed with great riches; not only with the riches of wealth, position, and beauty, but with a bright mind and a keen sensibility, as well as with a fine spirit. And yet you squander those riches on croquet and organdies and trumpery works of art. You have at your disposal a library of the great minds of the past, and yet you read the foolish novels of Charlotte Yonge and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Given the opportunity to study science, you converse with conjurors wearing cheesecloth and phosphorescent paint. Confronted by the glories of Gothic architecture, you admire instead a cheap imitation of it, and confronted by the truth, you stamp your foot like a spoilt child and demand to be told fairy stories.””

Source: To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998), Chapter 22 (p. 374)

Robert Charles Wilson photo
Rahul Bose photo

“Fifty three per cent children in India face sexual abuse – both boys and girls – but we still feel uncomfortable talking about it. We are still hypocrites when it comes to issues like child abuse, sex or for that matter homosexuality. It is high time that we brought the issue from under the carpet.”

Rahul Bose (1967) Indian actor

Times of India, September 26, 2009, " Rahul Bose: We are all hypocrites http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Rahul-Bose-We-are-all-hypocrites-/articleshow/5056023.cms"

Theresa May photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Q: Why is America the land of the overrated child and the underrated adult? Q: How can children grow up in a world in which adults idolize youthfulness? Q: What happens when the ad makers taker over all the popular myths and poetry?”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 141

Ehud Barak photo

“The Left is acting like a young child, saying 'I want peace'… A child says 'I want candy right away,' an adult takes all of the factors into account and understands who he's dealing with.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

Barak Fights Labor MKs over Goldstone http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134060 Israel National News, October 26, 2009.

Phil Brooks photo
N. K. Jemisin photo

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

Van Morrison photo

“Way over on the railroad,
Tomorrow all the tipping trucks will unload together,
Every scrapbook stuck with glue,
And I'll stand beside you,
Beside you, child.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Beside You
Song lyrics, Astral Weeks (1969)

Jack Vance photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Shaun Ellis photo
Leonard Peikoff photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Leszek Kolakowski photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Jimi Hendrix photo

“I'm a Voodoo Child, Voodoo Child,
Lord knows I am a Voodoo Child”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Song lyrics, Electric Ladyland (1968)

Samuel Rutherford photo
Ken Ham photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Warren Farrell photo
Bel Kaufmanová photo
Ron Paul photo
H. G. Wells photo
H. G. Wells photo

“Great and little cannot understand one another. But in every child born of man, Father Redwood, lurks some seed of greatness — waiting for the Food.”

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904) - Online PDF and Epub http://books.google.com/books?id=VOyeAAAAIAAJ

Johannes Warnardus Bilders photo

“.. buried soberly, as simple as a child of the people, as I am.”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders, in Nederlands): ..eenvoudig begraven, zoo eenvoudig als een kind uit het volk, zooals ik ben.
Source: 1880's, Johannes Warnardus Bilders' (1887/1900), p. 100

Herbert Hoover photo
William J. Brennan photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“It was an epoch in my life, it is an epoch in every child's life, the first reading of Robinson Crusoe.”

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

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Berthe Morisot photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Bryce Dallas Howard photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Fran Lebowitz photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"An Unread Book," introduction to The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (Holt, Rinehart, 1965 edition)
General sources

Michael Swanwick photo
Tim Shieff photo