Quotes about parenting

A collection of quotes on the topic of parenting, parent, children, doing.

Quotes about parenting

“When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Funny, For Parents, Parent

“The child is a combination of the father and the mother. Therefore, he is the role model of his parents.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Parent

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

15 July 1944
(1942 - 1944)

Graduation, For Parents, Parent, Personality

“I admit willingly that after the Normandy battles, my unit was composed of young fanatic soldiers. Many of them had lost their parents, or brothers and sisters in the bombardments. Some had seen for themselves at Cologne where thousands of bodies were crushed after the terrorist raids. Their hatred of the enemy was such that I admit that I could not always control them. At Malmédy, there were, no doubt, some excesses.”

Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer

Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 18, citing La Libre Belgigue in note 61.

Parent, Sister

“The function of a child is to live his/her own life, not the life that his/her anxious parents think he/she should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educators who thinks they knows best”

A.S. Neill (1883–1973) Scottish educator and theorist

Life, Education, Thinking, Parent

“The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Family, Parent

“And people say to me, they say Jesus wasn't Jewish. I say of course he was Jewish. 30 years old, single, lives with his parents. Come on! Work in his father's business, his mom thought he was God's gift! He's Jewish! Give it up!”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

God, People, Moms, Business

“I like my name. My parents were in the Uffizi Gallery looking at a Leonardo Da Vinci when my mom felt me kick. That's how I got my name. My parents were real hippies.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Moms, Parent

“I think part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids.”

Stephen King book Christine

Source: Christine

For Parents, Thinking, Parent, Parting

“Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

For Parents, Parent

“As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Parent

“Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don't want to know about ourselves, yet. They will point us to our freedom every time.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Source: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life

Children, Parent, Freedom, Time

“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.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Children, People, World, Parent

“How true Daddy's words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Children, Parent, Personality

“The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Tractate of Education (1644)

Parent, Learning

“My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three word loyalty pledge. It reads, "I'm with her." I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads, "I’m with you – the American people." I am your voice. So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for a better future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you. To all Americans tonight, in all of our cities and towns, I make this promise: We will make America proud again, we will make America strong again, we will make America safe again, and we will Make America Great Again! God bless you and good night! I love you!”

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

2010s, 2016, July, 2016 Republican National Convention (21 July 2016)

Love, God, People, Dreams

“Please, don't talk to me about 'Pure Awareness' or 'Dwelling in the Absolute'.
I want to see how you treat your partner,
your kids, your parents, your precious body.
Please, don't lecture me about 'the illusion of the separate self' or how you achieved permanent bliss in just 7 days.
I want to feel a genuine warmth radiating from your heart.
I want to hear how well you listen,
take in information that doesn't fit your personal philosophy.
I want to see how you deal with people who disagree with you.
Don't tell me how awakened you are, how free you are from ego.
I want to know you beneath the words.
I want to know what you're like when troubles befall you.
If you can fully allow your pain and not pretend to be invulnerable.
If you can feel your anger yet not step into violence.
If you can grant safe passage to your sorrow yet not be its slave.
If you can feel your shame and not shame others:
If you can fuck up, and admit it.
If you can say 'sorry', and really mean it.
If you can be fully human in your glorious divinity.
Don't talk to me about your spirituality, friend.
I'm really not that interested.
I only want to meet YOU.
Know your precious heart.
Know the beautiful human struggling for the light.
Before 'the spiritual one'.
Before all the clever words.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.facebook.com/LifeWithoutACentre/posts/1523252961105640

“I just didn’t want to see myself fall back. I don’t want to disappoint my coaches or my parents.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

"You Can’t Stop Suni Lee" in Elle (29 July 2021) https://www.elle.com/culture/a36503849/suni-lee-olympics-gymnastics-tokyo/

Disappointment, Parent

“Therefore, we wish not to judge our parents for being too severe or strict, because the majority of us will sooner or later become parents too.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Parent

“Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. I think his parents may have gone a little overboard. It's like naming someone Magnificent Bastard.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Thinking, Parent

“I have never known a patient to portray his parents more negatively than he actually experienced them in childhood but always more positively--because idealization of his parents was essential for his survival.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware : Society's Betrayal of the Child

Parent, Childhood

“A flower can't choose the place where it blooms, and a child can't choose the parents she's born to”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Flowers, Parent

“In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us…. More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Children, Parent, Affliction

“If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents, out-learn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Hate, Cars, Parent, Tree

“In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19

God, Children, Age, World

“Self Confidence has always been the parent of great actions.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

History of the Thirty Years War - Volume II
The Thirty Years War

Confidence, Parent, Self-confidence

“Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

Source: Apologeticus pro Christianis, Chapter 21

God, Parent, Light, Sun

“Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker; republished as Sermons of Martin Luther (1996), p. 291

God, Nature, Parent, Personality

“Parents always live a less pure life than their children, because they condone everything they do. The ability to condone everything in oneself but practically nothing in one's children is the boon that "experience" bestows on humanity. What parents call experience is really nothing but attempts, successful to the point of sheer cynicism, to belie everything which they found pure, true and right when they were young. They themselves don't notice the awful cynicism behind this incessant talk of "experience" being the highest aim in life: they only notice "inexperience" in their children, that is, the form of inexperience called purity and integrity, and then they get annoyed.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 135

Life, Children, Parent, Success

“My mom and I lived at Hollywood and Western, a drug-dealer and prostitute corner. It was pretty terrifying. I got beat up a lot. I saw people have sex in the alleys. I remember I was five years old, and this guy with a trench coat, needles and crack cornered me. Early on, seeing the devastation on my block, seeing heroin addicts, made me think twice about ever getting involved in drugs. It's evil. Once you take that step and experiment, drugs can take over your life. You are not yourself anymore. That's something I never wanted. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. It was kind of just me and my parents. But because of them, the neighborhood did not have a bad effect on me. My dad introduced me to artists, and every few months we'd go to some hippie doo-dah parade as Mudmen in our underwear, carrying sticks and covered in mud. My mother did everything to get me into the best schools she could find.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Life, People, School, Sex

“A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Rolling Stone interview (June 1970)

Children, World, Fear, Parent

“Let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Children, Hope, Parent, Change

“If they cry for their parents, they are beaten severely, sometimes hanged upside down from trees and even branded or burned with cigarettes.”

Kailash Satyarthi (1954) Indian children's rights activist

Kailash Satyarthi’s crusade to save childhood continues… (2014)

Parent, Tree, Cry

“It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

My Mother’s House, "The Priest on the Wall" (1922)

For Parents, Children, Parent

“The predicament of our time is that the Rationalists have been at work so long on their project of drawing off the liquid in which our moral ideals were suspended (and pouring it away as worthless) that we are left only with the dry and gritty residue which chokes us as we try to take it down. First, we do our best to destroy parental authority (because of its alleged abuse), then we sentimentally deplore the scarcity of 'good homes', and we end by creating substitutes which complete the work of destruction. And it is for this reason that, among much else that is corrupt and unhealthy, we have the spectacle of a set of sanctimonious, rationalist politicians, preaching an ideology of unselfishness and social service to a population in which they and their predecessors have done their best to destroy the only living root of moral behaviour; and opposed by another set of politicians dabbling with the project of converting us from Rationalism under the inspiration of a fresh rationalization of our political tradition.”

Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) British philosopher

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)

Home, Parent, Time, Drawing

“I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

" My Philanthropic Pledge http://givingpledge.org/pdf/letters/Buffett_Letter.pdf" at the The Giving Pledge (2010) Context: Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends. My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. Both my children and I won what I call the ovarian lottery. (For starters, the odds against my 1930 birth taking place in the U. S. were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.) My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious. The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.

Parent, Teachers

“If the child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system.”

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

Children from the Laboratory (May 1973), An Interview in Prism Magazine
Context: Watson: Our society just hasn't faced up to this problem. In a primitive society, if you saw that a baby was deformed, you would abandon it on a hillside. Today this isn't permissible, and with our medicine getting better and better in the sense of being able to keep sick people alive longer, we are going to produce more people living wretched lives. I don't know how you get a society to change on such a basic issue; infanticide isn't regarded lightly by anyone. Fortunately, now through such techniques as amniocentesis, parents can often learn in advance whether their child will be normal and healthy or hopelessly deformed. They then can choose either to have the child or opt for a therapeutic abortion. But the cruel fact remains that because of the present limits of such detection methods, most birth defects are not discovered until birth. If the child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.

Birth, Parent

“The parents always insisted on telling their child that their secret friends didn't exist — perhaps because they had forgotten that they too had spoken to their angel at one time.”

Paulo Coelho book The Valkyries

Source: The Valkyries (1992), p.132.
Context: The parents always insisted on telling their child that their secret friends didn't exist — perhaps because they had forgotten that they too had spoken to their angel at one time. Or, who knows, perhaps they thought they lived in a world where there was no longer any place for angels. Disenchanted, the angels had returned to God's side, knowing that they could no longer impose their presence.

Secret, Angels, Parent, Time

“Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is

the one you love. And easily proved.
Didn't Helen, who far surpassed all
mortals in beauty, desert the best
of men, her king,

and sail off to Troy and forget
her daughter and her dear parents? Merely
Aphrodite's gaze made her readily bend
and led her far

from her path. These tales remind me now
of Anaktoria who isn't here,
yet I
for one

would rather see her warm supple step
and the sparkle in her face than watch all
the chariots in Lydia and foot soldiers armored
in glittering bronze.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 16 Voigt
The Willis Barnstone translations, Supreme Sight on the Black Earth

Love, Men, Beauty, Parent

“My parents took my ambitions seriously. They took an hour each way to training. They were waiting for me, and when I wanted to go home alone, I took the bus from Warsaw to Leszno for two hours. When I was late, I had to seize an opportunity, sometimes someone took pity and took me away.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

Home, Waiting, Way, Parent

“We may have the same parents, but we can't all have the same mindset.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Parent

“BEFORE YOU GET MARRIED
discuss bills, parenting styles, credit, debt, religion, how to deal with family, what beliefs will be instilled in your children, childhood traumas, sexual expectations, partner expectations, financial expectations, family health history, mental health history, bucket list, dream home, careers and education, political views and whatever else come to mind.
LOVE ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH!”

Unknown author

Childhood, Home, History, Parent

“That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Source: Bridge to Terabithia

Life, School, Home, Parent

“I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Thinking, Parent

“You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life”

John Irving book The World According to Garp

Source: The World According to Garp

Life, Parent

“It was one thing to snuggle a little when the world seemed about to end, and quite another to explain to her parents that she wanted to date an ancient magical horse.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Keys to the Demon Prison

World, Parent, Horse

“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Life, Children, Parent

“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

For Parents, Love, Smile, Parent

“When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Parent

“Kids don’t do what their parents say-they do what they see their parents do. So who was to blame here?”

Harlan Coben Hold Tight

Source: Hold Tight

Parent

“The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents — because they have a tame child-creature in their house.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

"Ben Watson interviews Frank Zappa", in MOJO magazine (October 1993).

Parent, Housing

“I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life, Parent, Learning

“Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Health, Way, Parent, Time

“A parent gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

Source: The Education of Henry Adams

Life, Parent, Teachers

“My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and US support for these policies.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

Support, Parent

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

As quoted in InfoWorld https://books.google.gr/books?id=qjgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA49&dq=, Vol. 23, No. 16, 16 April 2001, p. 49. This had been attributed previously to many other sources from 1908 on, according to this analysis https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/ by Quote Investigator. Misattributed

Children, Books, Parent, Time

“You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.”

Alice Munro book Open Secrets

Source: Open Secrets (1994)

For Parents, Parent

“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Parent

“The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Parent, Teachers

“Ohmygod. Did hell just freeze over?" - Zoey Redbird when Aphrodite LaFonte tells her parents that Zoey deserves to be leader of the Dark Daughters”

P. C. Cast book Betrayed

Source: Betrayed

Hell, Parent, Daughters

“Have you ever noticed how parents can go from the most wonderful people in the world to totally embarrassing in three seconds?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

For Parents, People, World, Parent

“Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"The Parent"; paraphrased variants:
Children aren't happy without something to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
Happy Days (1933)

Children, Parent, Happiness

“And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we're us.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

People, World, Parent

“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune … to lose both seems like carelessness.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Lady Bracknell, Act I
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Parent

“Drugs will turn you into your parents.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Parent

“[Citing a familiar "American joke":] In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?" http://www.mtwain.com/What_Paul_Bourget_Thinks_of_Us/0.html, in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (1897)

Parent

“The thinking man always finds himself in a gigantic orphanage in which people are continually proving to him that he has no parents.”

Thomas Bernhard book Gargoyles

Source: Gargoyles

People, Thinking, Parent

“If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it.”

Jodi Picoult book Songs of the Humpback Whale

Source: Songs of the Humpback Whale

Love, Understanding, Parent

“The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.”

Arthur Golden (1956) American novelist

World, Beauty, Way, Parent

“Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

People, Thinking, Parent

“Oh, Daja," moaned Jory, "you sound just like my parents." She ran from the schoolroom.

"Well, there's no reason to insult me, "muttered Daja, half offended.”

Tamora Pierce book Cold Fire

Source: Cold Fire

Parent

“Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

For Parents, Peace, Justice, Parent

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”

Aristotle book Politics

Book II, Section VI ( translation http://archive.org/stream/aristotlespolit00aris#page/69/mode/1up by Benjamin Jowett) Politics Context: One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Parent

“Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Mrs. Arbuthnot http://books.google.com/books?id=RHkWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Children+begin+by+loving+their+parents+after+a+time%22+%22they+judge+them+rarely+if+ever+do+they+forgive+them%22&pg=PA187#v=onepage, Act IV A Woman of No Importance (1893) Variant: Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

For Parents, Love, Children, Forgiveness

“I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

For Parents, Thinking, Parent

“The next day, Greg is so large that he cannot even ride the car to school because he can't fit in the car. His parents believe this to have been caused by a food allergy and resolve to take him to the doctor later.”

R.L. Stine book Say Cheese and Die!

Source: Say Cheese and Die!

School, Food, Cars, Parent

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Love, Parent

“THE MAJORITY of children born into the world tend to inherit the beliefs of their parents, and that to me is one of the most regrettable facts of them all”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Children, World, Parent

“At the end of your life you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Source: Reflections: Life After the White House

Family, Life, Parent, Time

“Back in the old days, when I was a child, we sat around the family table at dinner time and exchanged our daily experiences…. It wasn't very organized, but everyone was recognized and all the news that had to be told was told by each family member. We listened to each other and the interest was not put on; it was real. … A child needs to be listened to and talked to at 3 and 4 and 5 years of age … Parents should not wait for the sophisticated conversation of a teenager.”

Bob Keeshan (1927–2004) United States Marine

Essay in The New York Times (1979); as quoted in "Bob Keeshan, Creator and Star of TV's 'Captain Kangaroo,' Is Dead at 76" in The New York Times (24 January 2004) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/24/arts/bob-keeshan-creator-and-star-of-tv-s-captain-kangaroo-is-dead-at-76.html?pagewanted=all

Age, Family, Parent, Time

“It is a stupid observation, but the Labour Party are not an smart lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same town, you would blame bad parenting, wouldn't you all?”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, July 1997 (rebroadcast on BBC 7, 23 July 1999)
Variant: It seems a shallow observation, but… the Tory Conference are not an attractive lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same village, you'd blame pollution, wouldn't you?

People, Stupidity, Parent

“Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is there any cause I should alienate myself from being careful over this country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to others' harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth, that I should be suspected to have no regard to the same? How have I governed since my reign? I will be tried by envy itself. I need not to use many words, for my deeds do try me.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Speech to a joint delegation of the House of Lords and the House of Commons (5 November 1566), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (The University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 95.

Parent, Envy, Country

“I think the most important thing for young people is that they're not trapped in the past. And human progress is driven by looking at a problem with fresh eyes, with new eyes. […] And that's the power of young people, is asking why. Little kids, they naturally do that, right? When you talk to a four-year-old or a five-year-old, six-year-old, you tell them to do something -- "Why?" "Why?" And sometimes, as parents, we try to say, "because I told you so." And we don't want to talk about it, right? But that impulse to ask why is actually what drives human progress. […] Vision is important, but then you also have to have the persistence to keep working to make progress. And I always tell young people to have big dreams, but then also be willing to work for those dreams. It's not going to come right away.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President in YSEALI Town Hall at Taylor's University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (November 20, 2015) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/20/remarks-president-yseali-town-hall 2015

People, Dreams, Nature, Problem

“There is some irony in the fact that children imagine that parents can do what they want, and parents imagine that children do.”

Shulamith Firestone book The Dialectic of Sex

http://books.google.com/books?id=YnY10fNqqp4C&q=%22There+is+some+irony+in+the+fact+that+children+imagine+that+parents+can+do+what+they+want+and+parents+imagine+that+children+do+When+I+grow+up+parallels+Oh+to+be+a+child+again%22&pg=PA102#v=onepage The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Children, Imagination, Parent

“As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot leaves I tried in vain to pick up the strands of frogs’ eggs, believing they were beads. But every time I put my little fingers under them they would break. Later, I saw thousands of tadpoles: black, energetic and wriggling through the clear water against the background of the brown earth. This is the world I inherited from my parents. Today, over 50 years later, the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost. The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder.”

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist

Nobel lecture http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/2004/maathai-lecture.html (10 December 2004)

Women, Children, World, Beauty

“I was born undisciplined. Never, even as a child, could I be made to obey a set rule. What little I know I learned at home. School was always like a prison to me, I could never bring myself to stay there, even four hours a day, when the sun was shining and the sea was so tempting, and it was such fun scrambling over cliffs and paddling in the shallows. Such, to the great despair of my parents, was the unruly but healthy life I lived until I was fourteen or fifteen. In the meantime I somehow picked up the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic, with a smattering of spelling. And there my schooling ended. It never worried me very much because I always had plenty of amusements on the side. I doodled in the margins of my books, I decorated our blue copy paper with ultra-fantastic drawings, and I drew the faces and profiles of my schoolmasters as outrageously as I could, distorting them out of all recognition.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in Denis Rouart (1972) Claude Monet, p. 21 : About his youth
after Monet's death

Life, Books, School, Home

“Furthermore, the best way to restore humanity to the position of the children of God through conversion of lineage is through the inter-cultural “exchange” marriage blessing. It is the greatest of moral acts, creating the Heavenly lineage on a whole new level, transcending the walls of race, culture, nationality and religion. It is an act that severs all links of enmity. It is the sacred rite of the conversion of lineage, through which all can be re-created through the True Parents, the King and Queen of Peace, the substantial manifestations of God who enable Him to exercise His providence in the present world.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

The Mission of the Clan Messiah in the Revolutionary Era after the Coming of Heaven http://www.unification.net/2006/20060601_1.html (2006-06-01)

God, Marriage, Children, World

“Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical certificate that the parents were such as to give a reasonable result of a healthy child – this would afford a very good inducement to some sort of care for the race, and gradually as public opinion became educated by the law, it might react on the law and make that more stringent, until one got to some state of things in which there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin. It should be noted that in his talk of "the race", he is referring to "the human race". Smith married Russell in December 1894; they divorced in 1921.
1890s

Education, Law, Way, Parent

“My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal -– that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will. That’s the country our parents and grandparents and generations before them built for us. That’s the tradition we must uphold. That’s the legacy we must leave for those who are yet to come.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to the Nation on Immigration (November 2014)

Parent, Chance, Country

“Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act III
An Ideal Husband (1895)

Nature, Parent, Appearance, Time

“My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Obama: 'If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon' http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2012/03/obama-if-i-had-a-son-hed-look-like-trayvon-118439, Politico (23 March 2012) 2012

Parent

“You can’t believe something like that is happening to you; meeting the President of Ireland and the spectacle of the parade. And everyone is so nice. They all feel like they know you. That’s the nice thing about being in something that’s as universally recognised as Star Wars. Parents normally tell kids ‘Don’t talk to strangers’, but everyone thinks they know me, wherever I go.
I embrace being the more Obi-Wan like character, because that’s the natural progression of life.
There was a period after Return of the Jedi when Star Wars had not come back. These movies are timeless, not dated by their cars or fashions. So, you have these fans who are parents with young children who have just seen Star Wars for the first time and think we made it two weeks ago. The parents say, ‘Look who it is, it’s Luke Skywalker!’ And there I am at 50, and the child is aghast. ‘What happened to this guy, he really let himself go!’ It’s natural and good to see the ageing process. So at least now, when they see me, it’s OK because they’ve seen me in the current film rather than thinking about me in my 20s.”

Mark Hamill (1951) American actor, voice actor, producer, director, and writer

6 April 2018 interview with Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/mark-hamill-interview-star-wars-last-jedi-luke-skywalker-leaving-a8292541.html

Life, War, Children, Age

“According to the pronouncements of our state rulers and their intellectual bodyguards (of whom there are more than ever before), we are better protected and more secure than ever. We are supposedly protected from global warming and cooling, from the extinction of animals and plants, from the abuses of husbands and wives, parents and employers, from poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers. In fact, however, matters are strikingly different. In order to provide us with all this protection, the state managers expropriate more than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers year in and year out. Government debt and liabilities have increased without interruption, thus increasing the need for future expropriations. Owing to the substitution of government paper money for gold, financial insecurity has increased sharply, and we are continually robbed through currency depreciation. Every detail of private life, property, trade, and contract is regulated by ever higher mountains of laws legislation), thereby creating permanent legal uncertainty and moral hazard. In particular, we have been gradually stripped of the right to exclusion implied in the very concept of private property. … In short, the more the state has increased its expenditures on social security and public safety, the more our private property rights have been eroded, the more our property has been expropriated, confiscated, destroyed, or depreciated, and the more we have been deprived of the very foundation of all protection: economic independence, financial strength, and personal wealth.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949) Austrian school economist and libertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher

"The Private Production of Defense" http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf (15 June 1999)

Life, Money, Disease, Law

“If the slavery of the parents be unjust, much more is their children's; if the parents were justly slaves, yet the children are born free; this is the natural, perfect right of all mankind; they are nothing but a just recompense to those who bring them up: And as much less is commonly spent on them than others, they have a right, in justice, to be proportionably sooner free.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

Children, Justice, Nature, Parent

“Gay brothers and sisters,…You must come out. Come out… to your parents… I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives… come out to your friends… if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors… to your fellow workers… to the people who work where you eat and shop… come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

"That's What America Is," speech given on Gay Freedom Day (1978-06-25) in San Francisco

People, Thinking, Parent, Sister

“[The Jewish people no longer deserves] sympathy for the suffering it went through during the Holocaust. … Living under the shadows of the Holocaust and willing to be forgiven for anything they do on behalf of what they have suffered seems abusive to me. They didn't learn anything from the suffering of their parents and grandparents.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Quoted in News Brief http://www.jta.org/2003/10/15/archive/nobel-laureate-jose-saramago-said-the-jewish-people, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 15, 2003.

People, Parent, Suffering, Learning