Quotes about parenting
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“In wonder all philosophy began, in wonder it ends. … But the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance, the last is the parent of adoration.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Aids to Reflection (1873), Aphorism 107

Parent

“Reaganomics: You start a business in your parents' garage. Obamanomics: You move into your parents' garage.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

Tweet https://twitter.com/sentedcruz/status/358735839909515264 (20 July 2013) <br class="br">2010s

Business, Parent

“It dates back to a day in 1987 when Punjab was burning. I read about a spastic girl and her parents being killed in Amritsar. It disturbed me and I decided to march to Amritsar from Mumbai on foot. It was part of Gandhian philosophy that if your people are doing wrong you punish yourself. Gandhiji would fast; likewise, I decided to walk and inflict some pain on myself. It was a way of sharing the pain.”

Sunil Dutt (1929–2005) Hindi film actor

Kashmi Militanats want peace, 6 December 2013, Rediff.com http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/29inter.htm, <br class="br">We all are one, whichever religion we belong to

Pain, People, Way, Girl

“It is often said, as an excuse for the slaughter of animals, that it is better for them to live and to be butchered than not to live at all. … In fact, if we once admit that it is an advantage to an animal to be brought into the world, there is hardly any treatment that cannot be justified by the supposed terms of such a contract. Also, the argument must apply to mankind. It has, in fact, been the plea of the slave-breeder; and it is logically just as good an excuse for slave-holding as for flesh-eating. It would justify parents in almost any treatment of their children, who owe them, for the great boon of life, a debt of gratitude which no subsequent services can repay. We could hardly deny the same merit to cannibals, if they were to breed their human victims for the table, as the early Peruvians are said to have done.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

The Humanities of Diet

Life, Children, World, Parent

“We are not authors of our lives; we are not even part-authors of the events that mark us most deeply. Nearly everything that is most important in our lives is unchosen. The time and place we are born, our parents, the first language we speak - these are chance, not choice. It is the casual drift of things that shapes our most fateful relationships. The life of each of us is a chapter of accidents.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Vices of Morality: The fetish of choice (p. 109-110)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life, Fate, Parent, Chance

“I’m very lucky. I have terrific parents, but some kids have a really rotten time growing up and we should do all that we can to make their lives happier and more secure.”

Holly Johnson (1960) British artist

Frankie say war on cruelty http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=751 at zttaat.com, Accessed May 2014.

Parent, Time

“It is universally agreed, that custom, in time, becomes a second nature, forcing men to use that, whether good or bad, to which they have been habituated; in fact, we see habit, in many instances, gain the ascendency over reason. This is so undeniably true, that, virtuous men, by keeping company with wicked, often fall into the same vicious course of life. Seeing and considering all this, I have decided to write on the vice of intemperance, in eating and drinking. Now, though all are agreed, that intemperance is the parent of gluttony, and sober living the offspring of abstemiousness, yet, owing to the power of custom, the former is considered a virtue, and the latter as mean and avaricious, and so many men are blinded and besotted to such a degree, that they come to the age of forty or fifty, burdened with strange and painful infirmities, which render them decrepit and useless, whereas, had they lived temperately and soberly, they would in all probability, have been sound and hearty, to the age of eighty and upwards.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Life, Men, Pain, Age

“My parents approached me to go to rehab… So I ran away. I just took off running. I went to a friend's house and I went pretty buck wild. I was snorting Demerol, OxyContin. I don't really remember much.”

Jack Osbourne (1985) Son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

MTV.com Jack Talks About His Addiction and Recovery

Parent, Housing

“My parents were free about nudity, and we are too. I’d like our children to feel unashamed of whatever shape they are. People should worry about other things.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted in InStyle (September 2007)

Children, People, Feeling, Parent

“My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door, and so was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. Break the will. They didn't want to create an individual…. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform and whose will could not be broken. Therefore I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'You can't do this,' I said, 'This is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here… of course, I had no plan how.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Fortune magazine (August 2004).
2000s

Children, Way, Parent, Time

“A parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i. e., to allow it to die. The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e. g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die.”

Murray N. Rothbard book The Ethics of Liberty

Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.
Children and rights, p. 100
The Ethics of Liberty (1982)

Children, Education, Law, Question

“The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 148 (17 August 1751)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Parent

“Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-children's will be. But we learn to live with that love.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Everything Is Illuminated (2002)

Love, Children, Way, Parent

“Three boys. I think it's less about parenting now for me and more about crowd control.”

Victoria Beckham (1974) English businesswoman, fashion designer and singer

As quoted in Oh My Posh! Victoria Beckham's 10 Funniest Quotes http://www.people.com/people/gallery/0,,20360923_20769964,00.html#20769971, People (magazine)

Boy, Thinking, Parent

“Money talk tends to be confusing. When people talk money, they usually think “wealth”, “costs”, “profit”, “income”, “gold”, “greed”, “time” (as in “time is money”), or something like that. In everyday discourse money symbolises capitalism, for better or worse: money as the life or evil force of the economy. As sings to us in the classical musical Cabaret: “Money makes the world go round… ”. The tune resonates when people exclaim “money” in response to the question what they are after in life, or when they say that everything people do ultimately revolves around money. All this talk is clear enough. The confusion enters when we observe the very same people who are so enthused about money, stubbornly suppress any reference to money when it comes to goods like the love for their partner, parents and children, friendship, science (truth!) and art (beauty!).”

Arjo Klamer (1953) Dutch columnist, economist and politician

Arjo Klamer, and Harry van Dalen. "The double-sidedness of money." Etnofoor 13.2 (2000): 89-103.

Love, Life, Money, Friendship

“I'm not defined by where I came from. I never took part in the rules and hatred that sometimes go along with religion. But if my parents are happy with what they believe, then I'm happy to stay out of their way. We agree to disagree.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

Cosmopolitan magazine (2009)

Happiness, Religion, Way, Parent

“In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

Parent

“I'd like to thank my parents for providing me with a high IQ & I'd like to thank my grams for encouraging me not to be a self absorbed idiot”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

21 May 2013 https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666/status/337038794068987907 <br class="br"> Twitter https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666 posts

Parent

“For the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we fancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a Hero, of worth immeasurable; admiration for whom, transcending the known bounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate Thinking; and many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude, would the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their own destiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here, what to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him; he first has made Life alive!—We may call this Odin, the origin of Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse Thinker bore while he was a man among men. His view of the Universe once promulgated, a like view starts into being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world—!”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Life, Men, God, People

“The important thing with a child is that you love them, you protect them and you help them to grow and find out who they are. And as a parent, it's my responsibility to help them to become independent and get all the knowledge and a broad view of the world and life. I know that Nic [former wife Nicole Kidman] absolutely agrees with that. And that's what's important: being there.”

Tom Cruise (1962) American actor and film producer

Quoted in Neil Strauss, "The Passion of the Cruise" http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/the_passion_of_tom_cruise, Rolling Stone (August 2004).

Love, Life, World, Knowledge

“One of my first sculptures was made of bicycle parts. I was living at that time in a attic in the red light section of Amsterdam. I started to work without any specific materials. I was looking in the street like when I was a young boy, in the garbage cans, for ropes, wires, and paint. I left my parents in 1940. Years later I saw an exhibition of Kurt Schwitters at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam curated by Willem Sandberg and there I saw the real 'objet trouvé'; until then I had never heard about it. Schwitters was a shattering experience.”

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

Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 79 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

Boy, Parent, Light, Time

“From early on, my father talked to me like an adult. One of the earliest things he did was teach me the Latin names of the parts of the body. He was very analytic. We had no money, but intellectual curiosity was encouraged, and my parents constantly talked with each other. This develops the brain. I remember listening and thinking, listening to voices talking, talking, talking. … My father died of cancer but lived long enough to see me famous, though not long enough to read my book fully. If he were alive I wouldn't be quite so outrageous, speaking about my sex life, for instance. I don't believe in embarrassing my family.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Life, Money, Books, Family

“Most actors are basically neurotic people. Terribly, terribly unhappy. That's one of the reasons they become actors. Nobody well adjusted would ever want to expose himself or herself to a large group of strangers. Think of it. Insanity! Generally, by their very nature - that is if they're at all dedicated - actors do not make good parents. They are altogether egotistical and selfish. The better the actor - and I hate to say it, the bigger the star - why, the more that seems to be true. Honestly, I don't think I've ever known one - not one!”

Margaret Sullavan (1909–1960) actress

star who was successfully able to combine a career and family life
from Haywire (1977) by Brooke Hayward. Jonathan Cape Ltd., p. 218. ISBN 0224014269.

Life, Hate, People, Family

“I used to do Grade Exams, but my mum will tell you I didn't over-practise for them at all. I never practised, just played. I loved to play. I loved to play a lot* If one mistake is made with young children, it is trying to make them practise rather than just letting them play.' She played hymns at church ('My parents were very religious when we were young') and 'all the Top of the Pops number ones next morning at school. Things like David Bowie's "Life On Mars". That's got a very good piano part. And ever since I was six or seven years old, I always liked Bach - that's why I recorded the Anna Magdalene Notebook, little 16-bar preludes that Bach wrote for children.' I was amazed at how serious the other kids were about the whole thing, much more disciplined than I was, and with this attitude of "Ooh, I can't play sports because I might hurt my fingers" or "I can't listen to pop music because that's really terrible.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

Childhood

Love, Life, Children, School

“I began to realize that my parents were going to build the biggest damn house in the whole town! I was shocked! “Are we rich?” I asked my brother. “Yes,” he said. “We are? Then why do I always wear dirty, old work clothes?” I asked. “Because we’re ranchers,” said my brother. “We’re not city people.” “Oh,” I said, “then it’s okay for us to be dirty?” “We aren’t dirty,” he said, laughing. “To be dirty means you never wash. We wash our clothes and take baths all the time. It’s just that people that live on a ranch get dirt on themselves.””

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

My eyes went big. I’d never thought of this. My brother was really smart.
Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

People, Parent, Time, Housing

“I was glad to get away from those students when I was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in London. I found myself in the British Museum, at first content, reading English Renaissance literature. But then came the crisis: the domed silence; the dusty pages of books all around me; the days accumulating in lists of obsequious footnotes; the wandering doubts about the value of scholarship. My year in Britain came to an end and I rushed to ‘come home.’ Then quickly discovered that I could not. Could not cast off the culture I had assumed. Living with my parents for the summer, I remained an academic—a kind of anthropologist in the family kitchen, searching for evidence of our ‘cultural ties’ as we ate dinner together.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

Books, Family, Home, Search

“His parents had abdicated responsibility to an illusion.”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

Source: Chasm City (2001), Chapter 6 (p. 83).

Parent

“If there be any thing in my style or thought to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 33

Love, Parent

“Cursed be he above all others
Who's enslaved by love of money.
Money takes the place of brothers,
Money takes the place of parents.
Money brings us war and slaughter.”

Anacreon (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns

Odes, XXIX. (XXVIL, b), 8.

Love, Money, War, Parent

“Each generation's job is to question what parents accept on faith, to explore possibilities, and adapt the last generation's system of values for a new age.”

Frank Pittman (1935–2012) American psychiatrist

How to Manage Mom and Dad (November/December 1994)

Age, Faith, Question, Parent

“You can’t look at Hollywood and blame it, you have to make up your own mind whether you want to be fit, or super skinny. You can’t blame other people. It’s your own choice and if you have children, it is up to the parent to educate your children so they are healthy and they don’t go into a direction of anorexia or obesity. It is up to you as a parent, it is hard to feed children right. I deal with it on a daily basis; it is much harder to make sure they eat right.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Discussing the pressure to be thin. Quoted by Hollie McKay for Fox News, 30 September 2009 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,557721,00.html.

Children, People, Education, Parent

“Of the huge part of our generation who have used drugs, how many have told their parents, to this day, even though they are now successful professionals and parents and what have you? There's a need to come out of the closet and talk openly about drug use. As things stand, the only kind of use that is visible is either the dysfunctional drug use or the media portraits of it. So there's this incredibly skewed view of what drugs are about.”

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

The War on Drugs

Parent, Success, Parting

“…you have to give them both credit for being good parents simply because of the way their kids turned out. We're happily married, successful, ethical, and we remained close as siblings. If your kids can say the same thing later in life, won't you think you did a good job as a parent?”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Dana Sparks, Chapter 14, p. 247
2000s, Three Weeks with My Brother (2004)

Life, Way, Thinking, Parent

“I went to school like other children until I was about 11 or 12 years of age, when the greatest misfortune of my life occurred, namely — the death of my mother, peace to her, she was a good mother to me; after she died my father broke up his home and went to lodgings; unfortunately for me he married his landlady; henceforth I never had one moment's comfort, she having children of her own, and I not being so handsome as they, together with my deformity, she was the means of making my life a perfect misery; lame and deformed as I was, I ran, or rather walked away from home two or three times, but suppose father had some spark of parental feeling left, so he induced me to return home again.”

Joseph Merrick (1862–1890) English man with severe deformities

Autobiographical sideshow pamphlet

Life, Death, Children, Age

“They would receive the same care and attention as those who belong to the establishment. Nor will there be any distinction made between the children of those parents who are deemed the worst, and of those who may be esteemed the best members of society: indeed I would prefer to receive the offspring of the worst, if they shall be sent at an early age; because they really require more of our care and pity and by well-training these, society will be more essentially benefited than if the like attention were paid to those whose parents are educating them in comparatively good habits.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

On educating children of the poor, and of neighboring communities.
Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark (1816)

Children, Age, Education, Parent

“It's very stressful becoming a parent. You know what was hard for me? Coming up with names for our children. I panic when I have to name a new document on my computer…. I got so desperate toward the end of my wife's third pregnancy that I found myself reading the credits at the end of movies, looking for names. Which means at some point, I'll have to explain to my little boy that he was named after the key grip on "Dude, Where's my Car?"”

Jeff Stilson American comedian

Comedy Central Presents Jeff Stilson (2003)

Children, Cars, Boy, Parent

“This is a “come and take it” moment for Texas parents. It seems clear to me that these bathroom edicts violate the Texas’ Education Code. I believe the Attorney General agrees with me. We will not let Obama force this insanity on Texas schools. During the 2017 legislative session, I intend to pass legislation to assure that common sense policies prevail. The parents of Texas and I believe all of America will not be bought by the president’s 30 pieces of silver.”

Dan Patrick (politician)

Op-Ed: Obama’s Transgender Directive a “Come and Take It” Moment for Texas Parents https://www.ltgov.state.tx.us/2016/05/20/op-ed-obamas-transgender-directive-a-come-and-take-it-moment-for-texas-parents/ (May 20, 2016)

Education, School, Parent, Sense

“Back in the early 1960s, when I was eight or nine. Some neighborhood boys and I saw a disc-shaped, windowless object that hovered, silent, then simply vanished. My parents said, "That's very nice" and ignored it, but I knew what I'd seen, and it was life-changing.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Greer describing a close encounter he had with a UFO.
Undated
Source: [Bassior, Jean-Noel, UFOs: What the Government Really Knows, Hustler, November 2005, http://nbgoku.googlepages.com/Hustlergreer.pdf, pp. 52, 2007-05-13, http://www.disclosureproject.org/bassiorinterview.htm, 2007-05-13]

Life, Boy, Parent, Change

“I am now pretty far advanced in life, and all my views are centered in the Happiness and well-fare of my children; you will, therefore, find from me every Indulgence which you have a right to expect from an affectionate Parent.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to his son, George Mason V. (8 January 1783)

Life, Happiness, Children, Parent

“For the past three years, young Wimfort had enjoyed so ample a competence from his parent, that he’d been able to buy his way deep into the mysteries of the arts of Power. He purchased no real understanding, of course, for that’s bought by the coin of toil and thought.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, “The Fishing of the Demon-Sea,” Chapter 3 (p. 116)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Art, Way, Understanding, Parent

“Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty.”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 57 (2 October 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Parent, Sister, Daughters

“The beauty of “spacing” children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones — which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

Leaving the Surface (1968)

Children, Beauty, Parent, Learning

“The child most at risk [to be accessed by a predatory pedophile] is the child not bonded deeply to anything or anybody. Children who are most deeply bonded with parents, parents who are protective, it's almost like, I don't know if you've seen predatory animals that put a kind of smell on their young to protect them? Okay? I think your 'luck' was much more likely due to your parent[s] than it was to any blind confluence of the planets.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Spence Abbott in a two–part interview, published on IGN.com in November 2000

Children, Thinking, Parent, Animals

“Such parents or children as aim at the gain and preferment of religion do often mistake gain and gold for godliness, godbelly for the true God, and some false for the true Lord Jesus.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)

God, Children, Religion, Parent

“My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them.”

Stephen Leacock book Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

On leaving England at age seven.
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

Parent

“Our own unresolved authority problems from our youth sometimes get transferred to our youthful patients, because we are still "covert adolescent rebels." In subtle ways, we encourage the adolescent patient to rebel towards parents, school authorities, and society in general.”

Virgil Miller Newton (1938) American priest

Source: Adolescence: Guiding Youth Through the Perilous Ordeal, p. 67

Youth, School, Way, Problem

“Thus we see that the child is almost led to tell lies — or what seem to us lies from our point of view — by the very structure of his spontaneous thought. Given this situation, what will be the result of the laws laid down by adults about truthfulness? On the occasion of the first very obvious lies, or of those connected with some offense or other and told therefore with the object of averting punishment or scolding, the parents point out to the child that he has just done something very wrong and thus inculcate in him the respect for truth.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism

Truth, Law, Parent

“Unconscionable Love, bane and tormentor of mankind, parent of strife, fountain of tears, source of a thousand ills, rise, mighty Power, and fall upon the sons of our enemies with all the force you used upon Medea when you filled her with insensate fury.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV. Homeward Bound, Lines 445–449

Love, Parent, Tear

“It is long overdue for parents to realize they have the right and duty to protect our children against the intolerant evolutionists.”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

Children, Parent

“I did a piece about four years ago about coming out. Telling my parents that I'm gay. It occurred to me that my parents have known for years that I'm gay. I'm sure of it. They have never told me; they have never needed to tell me. In some ways I will never be gay to them. And they would prefer that I never use that word with them. They know the man that I have been closest to. They also know that he's godfather to two of my nephews. They invite him to Christmas dinner. They know he's part of my life. When he had the flu this Christmas they knew I had to leave early, and no one protested. Will he ever be introduced as my lover? No”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Violating the Boundaries: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez (1999)

Life, Way, Lovers, Parent

“The imagination of teenagers is often -- I'm tempted to say always -- the only sure capital they possess apart from the love of their parents, which is a force far beyond their capacity to comprehend or control.During my own adolescence, my imagination, the kingdom inside my own skull, was my sole source of refuge, my fortress of solitude, at times my prison. Like all teenagers, I provisioned my garrison with art: books, movies, music, comic books, television, role-playing games. Given their nature as human creations, as artifacts and devices of human nature, some of the provisions I consumed were bound to be of a dark, violent, even bloody and horrifying nature; otherwise I would not have cared for them.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Nanny Nation http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/15/EDG8D64JFR1.DTL, San Francisco Chronicle (April 15, 2004)

Love, Books, Art, Music

“A strong church is made up of well-ordered families, where intelligent, Christian parents bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, where the home of the week has its counterpart in the home of the Sabbath, where the hopes and joys of the living, and the blessed memories of the dead bind to the Lord and His church, where young men and maidens are glad when it is said to them, " Let us go unto the house of the Lord," where the tranquillity, and purity, and holy peace, the light and the love, form to the opening minds of the children a type and prophecy of the eternal Sabbath and the heaven above.”

John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 144.

Love, Men, Children, Fear

“The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Declaring the Era of the Peace Kingdom, Address to the United States Congress http://www.unification.net/2004/20040323_1.html (2004-03-23)

Love, World, Family, Way

“For the first time in human history a child is born into a home in which television is on an average of about seven hours a day. In some countries a little more in some countries a little less, but in all industrial countries this is about the situation. And for the first time in human history most of the stories are told not by the parent, not by the school, not by the church, not by the tribe or the community, and in many places not even by the native country, but by a relatively small and shrinking group of global conglomerates who have something to sell. And it changes in a very fundamental way, the cultural climate, the cultural environment into which our children are born, in which they grow up, in which they become socialized, in which they become human beings.”

George Gerbner (1919–2005) American writer, freelancer and sociologist

The Killing Screens: Media and the Culture of Violence, Media Education Foundation (1994) Online transcript http://www.mediaed.org/assets/products/111/transcript_111.pdf

Children, School, Way, Home

“Our Republican Party platform is opposed to all methods of birth control, both preventative contraception and the morning after pill. Remember that in Texas they oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage. That's why our state has the highest rate of repeat teen pregnancies of the country. So they're creating a welfare dependent populace, but they also want to abolish all social welfare programs that these struggling kids will need. This will not only create unnecessarily stressful conditions for both parents and children, it will also ultimately eliminate the middle class. Our republicans want to do away with all government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development, and they include pre-school and kindergarten in that list, but they don't stop there. They also want to abolish the Department of Education, because why would a religious organization want people to be educated? The real reason is because our secular government (which this country still is) will not permit state-funded schools to promote one religion over any other, and that is exactly what Texas republicans want to do.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Marriage, Children, People, Education

“Militant leftism in politics appears to have its roots in broadly analogous sentiments. Every labour politician has observed that the most indignant members of his local Party are not usually the poorest, or the slum-dwellers, or those with most to gain from further economic change, but the younger, more self-conscious element, earning good incomes and living comfortably in neat new council houses: skilled engineering workers, electrical workers, draughtsmen, technicians, and the lower clerical grades. (Similarly the most militant local parties are not in the old industrial areas, but either in the newer high-wage engineering areas or in middle-class towns; Coventry or Margate are the characteristic strongholds.) Now it is people such as these who naturally resent the fact that despite their high economic status, often so much higher than their parents’, and their undoubted skill at work, they have no right to participate in the decisions of their firm, no influence over policy, and far fewer non-pecuniary privileges than the managerial grades; and outside their work they are conscious of a conspicuous educational handicap, of a style of life which is still looked down on by middle-class people often earning little if any more, of differences in accent, and generally of an inferior class position.”

Anthony Crosland book The Future of Socialism

The Future of Socialism by Anthony Crosland
The Future of Socialism (1956)

Life, People, Education, Nature

“You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behavior. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.”

George Gerbner (1919–2005) American writer, freelancer and sociologist

George Gerbner, 86; Educator Researched the Influence of TV Viewing on Perceptions, Los Angeles Times, 29 December 2005, 1 December 2014, Oliver, Myrna http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/29/local/me-gerbner29,

School, Behavior, Communication, Parent

“Sociologists and historians have avoided looking for the family sources of wars and social violence. Whenever a group produces murderers, the early parental relationship must have been abusive and neglectful. Yet this elementary truth has not even begun to be considered in historical research; just stating that poor mothering lies behind wars seems blasphemous.”

Lloyd deMause (1931) American thinker

Source: The Emotional Life of Nations (2002), Ch. 6, p. 153.

War, Truth, Family, Parent

“Some of the parents of beaten up girls personally called me and thanked for saving their daughters as none of them till then knew about their kids’ habits.”

Pramod Muthalik (1963) Indian politician

Defending the 2009 Mangalore pub attack, as quoted in " Sex & drugs led to pub attack: Mutalik http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/cover-story/Sex-drugs-led-to-pub-attack-Mutalik/articleshow/22222486.cms", Bangalore Mirror (6 February 2009)

Girl, Parent, Personality, Daughters

“It would be hard to find a single example in history in which a group that cast more than 50 percent of the vote got away with calling itself the victim… Women are the only 'oppressed' group to share the same parents as the 'oppressor'; to be born into the middle class and upper class as frequently as the 'oppressor'; to own more of the culture's luxury items than the 'oppressor'…”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 40.

Women, History, Parent

“I’d like to tell you that I come from a long line of German aristocracy and that I’m very rich, but actually it’s a very boring explanation. A man called Tommy Tutt married a lady called Jane Rhind, and suddenly I’ve got a very posh name. And then my parents called me Julian, and suddenly I sound like a prospective Tory MP for West London!”

Julian Rhind-Tutt (1968) British actor

An interview on the Green Wing microsite, asking about where his name came from. http://www.sitcom.co.uk/green_wing/interview_julian.shtml

Parent

“Being an MP is the sort of job all working-class parents want for their children — clean, indoors and no heavy lifting.”

Diane Abbott (1953) British Labour Party politician

Independent, 18 January 1994.
1990s, 1994

Children, Parent

“I have always been a proponent of a national health care system. It just seemed eminently fair and right. How can we call this a civilized society when the children or parents of the rich get the medical attention they need in order to stay alive, while members of working-class families, who lack health insurance, have to die or needlessly suffer--or go hopelessly into debt to get the care they need? This is an outrageous injustice and it cannot be rationally defended.”

Bernie Sanders book Outsider in the House

Outsider in the House (1997), p.175
1990s

Children, Health, Family, Parent

“A boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed continent; vast wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for Civilization. Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of toil.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Introduction
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Death, Men, Mountain, Parent

“I have a lot to weigh: the basis of public service, which I've given my life to, a career choice. And most importantly, what I want to do as a parent. I know something about the White House. That, I assume, is one of the reasons that President-elect Obama would like me to serve. But I also know something about what it means to a family.”

Rahm Emanuel (1959) politician, investment banker, White House Chief of Staff

Quoted in San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/06/MN6C13VKH5.DTL&type=politics.

Life, Family, Parent, Housing

“I’m always looking for opportunities to explore that freewheeling imagination and insanity of children. To be able to plug in to that and let that carry you in to a performance is such a gas, I have so much fun with that. I love kids; I raised two girls and I love being a parent. Being a parent is hands down the greatest thing of my life, and I loved when they were young because as a parent you can spend that special time with them when they’re young and you can attach your imagination on to their ride and go with them and do what they’re doing. I always loved that and it’s kind of how I approach Patrick. I don’t know if this makes sense, but I guess that’s my approach and that’s what I continue to do because I’m so fortunate to keep going with this character. It’s very satisfying and enjoyable.”

Bill Fagerbakke (1957) American actor

Interview With Bill Fagerbakke: The Voice of Spongebob's Patrick Star http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/spongebob-squarepants/225197/interview-with-bill-fagerbakke-the-voice-of-spongebobs-patrick-star (November 11, 2013)

Love, Life, Children, Imagination

“The Truth that is to be Realized may be summarized simply as the Realization that no matter what is arising, no matter how many others are present, there is only One Being. This is precisely different from the childish but common religious notion that even when you are alone there is always Someone Else present, Who will look out for you if you do the right thing. True freedom is not a matter of striking a deal with an All-Powerful Parental Deity; no such God exists. True freedom is in the Realization that there is only God and You are That One.”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

http://www.aboutadidam.org/readings/index.html

God, Truth, Parent, Freedom

“What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

18 June 2018 Tweet https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1008806858176585730 affirmed by Vox article https://www.vox.com/2018/6/18/17476268/hillary-clinton-family-separation-border-immigration <br class="br">Post Presidential Election, Separation of illegally immigrating adults and children (2018)

Family, Parent, Sense

“Optimism is the parent of despair, while pessimism allows the mind to accustom itself to the inevitable disappointments of human existence by degrees, just as some drugs induce a state of tolerance. Pessimists, moreover, have the better sense of humour, for they have a livelier apprehension of pretension and absurdity. In a meritocracy, furthermore, those who fail must either indulge in elaborate mental contortions to disguise reality from themselves or sink into a deep melancholy.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

British Medical Journal Views and Reviews: Desperate house calls (BMJ 2009;338:b212).

Disappointment, Optimism, Reality, Parent

“Cameron made the Hugo Young speech, where he claimed the co-operative movement, building societies, the mutuals, the early trade unions for the Conservatives, and we were completely silent. That's linked to the excessive statism of Brown. We had to reclaim Labour history. It was also a way of talking about capitalism again, and resistance to capitalism. And working [in London Citizens] with low-paid people, most of whom were women, had reminded me of their concern for their parents and their children, and their commitment to work and not wanting to be on welfare.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

The Guardian article, 19 July 2011 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jul/19/lord-glasman-radical-traditionalist

Women, Children, People, Way

“At least Alzheimer's patients do not know what is happening to their brains and bodies. Some say this makes Alzheimer's less terrible than ALS, where the patient understands everything. But if lack of comprehension is of some small blessing to the Alzheimer's victim, it does nothing to help the family. Care of the stricken spouse or parent can consume a family's time, energy and resources. Instead of enjoying retirement years, a husband or wife, whose own strength may be declining with age, can find every day consumed by care giving. Then there is the wrenching decision of whether to place the loved one in a nursing home, a decision that can result in enormous cost, not to mention guilt.”

John Danforth (1936) American politician

Page 95
Faith and Politics (2006)

Love, Age, Family, Home

“"What kind of parent would want their children to have servants?" he asks, disgusted by the idea. "The moment a child thinks it is entitled to anything, they think they deserve everything. Why do you think the Core is such a Babylon? Because it's never been told no.
"Look at the Institute you attended. Sexual slavery, murder, cannibalism of fellow Golds?" He shakes his head. "Barbaric. It's not what the Ancestors intended. But the Coreworlders are so desensitized to violence they've forgotten it's to have a purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock. To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like."”

Pierce Brown book Morning Star

Source: Morning Star (2016), Ch. 41: The Moon Lord

Children, Sex, Idea, Thinking

“There is no tie
Like that last holiest link of love, which binds
The lonely child to its more lonely parent.”

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

(5th July 1823) A Tale Founded on Fact
12th July 1823) Glencoe see The Vow of the Peacock (1835
(19th July 1823) Execution of Crescentius see The Improvisatrice (1824) Crescentius
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Love, Parent

“In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Mornings in Florence, part III, section 49 (1875).

Women, Men, Children, Parent

“The discovery of the art of Printing unbarred afresh the gates of Heaven, and let in that flood of light, of knowledge, and of wisdom, which enabled men to emancipate themselves again from the slavery of superstition—to take their proper place in the ranks of created beings—and in ennobling themselves, in gradually exalting their understandings and amending their hearts, to pay at length the worthiest homage to the goodness of their common Parent, and prove themselves to be—as the Almighty himself originally formed them—inferior only to the Angels.”

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (1788–1856) Scottish metaphysician (1788–1856)

The History of Medicine, Surgery, and Anatomy, from the Creation of the World, to the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century (1831), Vol. 1

Wisdom, Men, Art, Angels

“A micromutation can produce what Goldschmidt would have described as macromutation leading to macroevolution. Since mutations in homeobox genes are inherited in the same way that earlier fruit-fly population geneticists understood the inheritance of the alleles for wing length or bristle number, we can appreciate that evolutionarily significant novelty—which, in turn, could result in the emergence of a new species—can be passed on from parent to child as easily and simply as eye color.”

Jeffrey H. Schwartz (1948) American anthropologist

p, 125
Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species (1999)

Color, Way, Parent, Flying

“Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out."”

Tom Rath (1975) American author

Tom Rath & Donald O. Clifton (2004) How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life. p. 36

Children, Parent

“To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.”

Emma Goldman book My Disillusionment in Russia

My Disillusionment in Russia (1923)

Life, Law, Parent, Future

“When I was a boy I was always depressed and confused, now I think I'm not garbage. I don't try to prove to my parents that I am good at something anymore. But I am a failure with women. I can only be a one night lover.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

GIOIA Magazine Interview

Women, Boy, Lovers, Failure

“I had an idyllic childhood and when my parents bought me a Punch and Judy Show and a ventriloquist's dummy, I'd perform anywhere, anytime. My parents were wonderful when I told them I wanted to be an entertainer.”

Ken Dodd (1927–2018) English comedian, singer-songwriter and actor

Quoted in Manchester Evening News, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/comedy/s/234/234894_dodds_bolton_bonus.htmlDodd's Bolton bonus, Natalie Anglesey. (2008-04-28)

Parent, Childhood