Quotes about parenting
page 12

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Parents are indeed capable of routinely torturing their children without anyone interceding.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

François Fénelon photo
Marc Chagall photo

“When I painted Christ's parents I was thinking of my own parents. The bearded man is the Child's father. He is my father.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Chagall stated this in 1950
as quoted in From Rebel to Rabbi: Reclaiming Jesus and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture, Matthew B. Hoffman; Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 219
after 1930

Invader (artist) photo
Bill Engvall photo
Bill Clinton photo
Billy Corgan photo

“My earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

Winston S. Churchill photo
William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley photo
Tryon Edwards photo

“Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. – In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? – Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Misattributed to Tryon Edwards by a number of websites, thinkexist.com and quoteland.com among others. This quote does appear on p. 23 of Edwards' compilation, A Dictionary of Thoughts; however, it is clearly identified there as a quote by Hugh Blair, the Scottish author and preacher.
A genuine Tryon Edwards quote on the subject of anxiety appears above in the Sourced section ( from p. 22 of A Dictionary of Thoughts. )
Misattributed

Muhammad photo

“The most beloved of deeds in the eyes of Allah are: offering prayers at the stipulated times; (then) goodness and kindness towards parents; (and then) Jihad in the way of Allah.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Kanzul `Ummal, Volume 7, Tradition 18897
Shi'ite Hadith

Evelyn Waugh photo
Warren Farrell photo

“If we want our children to have a balance between their abilities to earn money and show love, it will help if both their parents model that balance.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

page 114.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)

John Updike photo
Nakayama Miki photo

“Whoever comes to this house shall never leave without being filled with joy. To Me, the Parent, all human beings in the world are My children.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, p. 19
The Life of Oyasama

Bai Juyi photo

“For ten years I never left my books;
I went up … and won unmerited praise.
My high place I do not much prize;
The joy of my parents will first make me proud.”

Bai Juyi (772–846) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"After Passing the Examination" (A.D. 800)
Arthur Waley's translations

Warren Buffett photo

“Love is the greatest advantage a parent can give.”

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

As quoted in "Should You Leave It All to the Children?" by Richard I. Kirkland Jr, in Fortune (29 September 1986) http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/09/29/68098/index.htm

Michelle Obama photo

“See, the truth is that if Princeton hadn’t found my brother as a basketball recruit, and if I hadn’t seen that he could succeed on a campus like that, it never would have occurred to me to apply to that school — never. And I know that there are so many kids out there just like me — kids who have a world of potential, but maybe their parents never went to college or maybe they’ve never been encouraged to believe they could succeed there.”

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

Statements proceeding introduction of husband at College Opportunity Summit (16 January 2014) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/16/remarks-president-and-first-lady-college-opportunity-summit
2010s

Usama Mukwaya photo

“It affected me so much having to adapt to different parenting environments.”

Usama Mukwaya (1989) Ugandan screenwriter

Source: " Mukwaya, the self made filmmaker http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18171:mukwaya-the-self-made-filmmaker" at The Observer. 12 April 2012 written by Polly Kamukama

Robert N. Bellah photo
Courtney B. Vance photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo
Gloria Estefan photo

“[To beginning readers (ages 4 to 8) at a reading of "Noelle's Treasure Tale"]: If you discover a word in my book that you don't understand, ask your parents so they can look it up in the dictionary for you.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment to audience at book signing at Macy's in New York City (November 21, 2006
2007, 2008

Margaret Cho photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Eugene J. Martin photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
David Hume photo
Mary Wollstonecraft photo
Chelsea Clinton photo
C. N. R. Rao photo
Yolanda King photo
Warren Farrell photo
David Hunter photo
Doug Stanhope photo

“If you're offended by any word, in any language, it's probably because your parents were unfit to raise a child.”

Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author

Before Turning the Gun on Himself (2012)

George Bernard Shaw photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Richard Ford photo
Steven M. Greer photo
Rachel Notley photo

“My parents taught me that an NDPer in Alberta has to work three times harder than any other politician to earn votes. It's a lesson I won't forget.”

Rachel Notley (1964) 17th Premier of Alberta

On her parents Grant and Sarah Notley. "Knocking at the door of the Dome." http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/insight/story.html?id=b13ff6fa-715c-4810-ad19 April 14, 2007

Craig David photo
Jefferson Davis photo

“Julia Hayden, the colored school teacher, one of the latest victims of the White man's League, was only seventeen years of age. She was the daughter of respectable parents in Maury County, Tennessee, and had been carefully educated at the Central College, Nashville, a favorite place for the instruction of youth of both sexes of her race. She is said to have possessed unusual personal attractions as well as intelligence. Under the reign of slavery as it is defined and upheld by Davis and Toombs, Julia Hayden would probably have been taken from her parents and sent in a slave coffle to New Orleans to be sold on its auction block. But emancipation had prepared for her a different and less dreadful fate. With that strong desire for mental cultivation which marked the colored race since their freedom, in all circumstances where there is an opportunity left them for its exhibition, the young girl had so improved herself as to become capable of teaching others. She went to Western Tennessee and took charge of a school. Three days after her arrival at Hartsville, at night, two white men, armed with their guns, appeared at the house where she was staying, and demanded the school teacher. She fled, alarmed, to the room of the mistress of the house. The White Leaguers pursued. They fired their guns I through the floor of the room and the young girl fell dead within. Her murderers escaped.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

"Louisiana and the Rule of Terror" http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=EL18741010.2.9#, The Elevator (10 October 1874), Volume 10, Number 26.

Bill Hybels photo
Vincent Gallo photo
Friedrich Engels photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Geert Wilders photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“I would say that compassion for our parents is the true sign of maturity.”

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Muhammad al-Baqir photo

“Goodness to parents, and paying visits to ones own relatives, will ease the accounting on the Day of Judgement.”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.74, p. 86

Emo Philips photo
Rupert Boneham photo
Kelly Osbourne photo

“With parents like heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne and entertainment impresario/personality Sharon Osbourne, you might have anger management issues, too.”

Kelly Osbourne (1984) English singer-songwriter, actress, television presenter and fashion designer

Baltimore Jewish Times, Jan 30 2009 http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/celebrities/jt/celebrities/kelly_osbourne/
About

Joyce Brothers photo
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor photo
Joshua Jackson photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
Warren Farrell photo

“During what years should a child be introduced to better ways of giving and receiving criticisms – to what I call “relationship language”? Before school age. The best teacher? Parents.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 36.

Francis Galton photo
Milo Yiannopoulos photo

“I would say, that situation I am describing on Joe Rogan show I was very definitely a predator on both occasions. As offensive as some people would find that I don’t much care. That was certainly my experience. The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them. You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.”

Milo Yiannopoulos (1984) British journalist

Episode 193 http://drunken-peasants-podcast.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_193 of Drunken Peasants Podcast debuted 4 January 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azC1nm85btY&t=3552s, transcript circulated 20 February 2017 by Heavy http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/milo-yiannopolous-pedophilia-transcript-pederasty-video-full-sex-boys-men-catholic-priest-cpac-quotes/ with supplements from discover-the-truth https://discover-the-truth.com/2017/02/20/full-unedited-video-of-milo-yiannopoulos-defending-pedophilia/
2017

Joseph Addison photo

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

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Samuel Johnson in The Rambler no. 148 (17 August 1751).
Misattributed

“I agree that you might clone some people who would look amazingly like their parental cell donors, but the odds are that they’d be almost as different as you or me, and certainly more different than any of today’s identical twins.”

Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator

"On Cloning a Human Being", p. 53
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)

Neal D. Barnard photo
Albert Einstein photo
Conway Zirkle photo

“Whenever like mates with like (genetically), the statistical distribution curve, which describes the frequency of the purely fortuitous combinations of genes, is flattened out, its mode is depressed, and its extremes are increased. The reduces the number of the mediocre produced and increases the numbers both of the sub-normal and the talented groups. It is possible that, without this increase in the number of extreme variants, no nation, race or group could produce enough superior individuals to maintain a complex culture. Certainly not enough to operate or advance a civilization. …Any number of social customs have stood, and still stand, in the way of an optimum amount of selective matings. In a feudal society, opportunities are denied to many able men who, consequently, never develop to the high level of their biological potential and thus they remain among the undistinguished. Such able men (and women) might also be diffused throughout an "ideal" classless society and, lacking the means to separate themselves from the generality, or to develop their peculiar talents, would be effectively swamped. In such a society they could hardly segregate in groups. In fact, only a few of the able males might ever meet an able female who appealed to them erotically. Obviously an open society—one in which the able may rise and the dim-wits sick, and where like intelligences have a greater chance of meeting and mating—has advantages that other societies do not have. Our own society today—incidentally and without design—is providing more and more opportunities for intelligent matrimonial discrimination. It is possible that our co-educational colleges, where highly-selected males and females meet when young, are as important in their function of bringing together the parents of our future superior individuals as they are in educating the present crop.”

Conway Zirkle (1895–1972)

"Some Biological Aspects of Individualism," Essays on Individuality (Philadelphia: 1958), pp. 59-61

Ehud Barak photo

“[How is it consistent with what you advocated this evening in terms of a vision for peace, that you continued to allow the building of settlements in the West Bank, during your primeministership? ] Let me tell you, first of all, during my term as a Prime Minister, we have not built a single new settlement. I ordered the dismantling of many voluntary -- I don't know how to call it -- new settlements that had been set on top of hills in different parts of the West Bank, basically. But, I allowed contracts, contracts that had been signed, legally, in Israel, beforehand. To build new neighborhoods in some big cities in the West Bank, cities with 25,000 or 30,000 people. And very few new homes, in small settlements, where youngsters, who came back from the army service, asked to build their home near the home of their parents. Now, Israel is a law-abiding state, you cannot break contracts, there is Supreme Court. If the government behaves in a way that is not proper, any individual can appeal and change whatever we decide. Realizing that this is a sensitive issue from the Palestinian side, I talked to Arafat, at the beginning of my term as a Prime Minister, and I told him: Mr. Chairman, I know that you are worried about it, it creates some problems, in your own constituency. But let me tell you, we have a great opportunity here to put an end to the whole conflict, in a year and a half. When President Clinton that invested unbelievable amount of energy and political capital in trying to solve it, and he's still in power. Now, I understand your problem with settlement if there is no end, there is no time limit, and you are afraid that maybe the accumulation of new settlements will change the nature of the situation, for the worse, from your position. So I tell you, out of our own considerations, independent of you, we have decided not to set even a single new settlement. We will not allow anyone to establish his own private initiatives on the hills, for our own reasons, not because of you. But at the same time I will respect any contract that has been signed, under law, in Israel. But -- and here is a point -- bearing in mind that we can put an end to the conflict, to reach an agreement within a year and a half, why the hell it will matter? To build a new building in Israel takes more than a year and a half, so you won't see any building that is not already emerging from the ground, having it's roof before we can reach an agreement. Now if such a building happens to be in a settlement that will become, under the agreement, part of the new independent Palestine, why the hell you have to care? Take it, use it, put some refugees in it. And if it will happen to be a part of what will be agreed, as Israel, in a mutual agreement that is signed by you, why the hell do you care, if you agree? I believe that that simple answer would not solve his public -- or internal political -- problems, but it would solve the real issue if the will was there to make peace, and not just to politically maneuver and manipulate.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

Speech at UC Berkeley http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/19324/edition_id/391/format/html/displaystory.html, November 22, 2002

Bernard Cornwell photo

“Can't help our damned parents which is why we have to thrash our damned children”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major General Nairn, p. 21
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

Aron Ra photo

“When I read the gospels, I don’t see a wise and benevolent sage imparting truth. I see a religious extremist and faith-healer, who is just as much of a scam artist as any of the exorcists still practicing today. Remember that Jesus taught his disciples how to do faith healing too, just like tele-evangelists still do. Jesus didn’t believe in washing your hands because he didn’t know about pathogens. He believed in demons instead. And he cursed a fig tree because he didn’t know they were out-of-season. Likewise he didn’t know that the farmers of his day already knew about other seeds that were smaller than mustard seeds. My best evidence was Jesus’ complaint that the people who knew him since childhood wouldn’t buy any of his bullshit. So the only indications I had to believe in a historic Jesus were the very points that implied that he could not be a god nor have any real connection to God. So there are only two possibilities: Jesus was either an ignorant 1st century charlatan and cult leader heavily exaggerated like Robin Hood, or he’s a completely imaginary legendary figure like Hercules. Remember how Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but a sword; that he would divide husbands from their wives and children from their parents all on behalf of beliefs based on faith? Remember also that faith, (an unreasonable assertion of complete conviction which is not based on reason and is defended against all reason) —is the most dishonest position it is possible to have. Any belief which requires faith should be rejected for that reason.”

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

"Jesus never existed" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/03/jesus-never-existed/, Patheos (November 3, 2015)
Patheos

Bill O'Neill photo
Geezer Butler photo
David Frost photo

“Having one child makes you a parent; having two makes you a referee.”

David Frost (1939–2013) English journalist, comedian, writer, media personality and daytime TV game show host

Quoted in The Independent, 16 September 1989

Kent Hovind photo
Bill Nye photo

“Half the humans are women, so I think half the scientists should be women - a legacy of my parents.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, Nye: We must all save the Earth, The Madison Courier, Madison, Indiana, February 21, 2009, Pat Whitney]

Thomas Carlyle photo
Paddy Chayefsky photo
Alison Bechdel photo

“Mo: I wish it were me instead of you.
Sydney: Yeah. I'm getting the sodium pentothal. You have to go sit with my parents.”

#416, "The Basic Anxiety" (2003), collected in Invasion of the DTWOF (2005).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Bono photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Judith Krug photo

“We know that there are children out there whose parents do not take the kind of interest in their upbringing and in their existence that we would wish, but I don't think censorship is ever the solution to any problem, be it societal or be it the kind of information or ideas that you have access to.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

"Easy Access?" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec97/library_8-7.html by Spencer Michels, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (August 7, 1997)

Sandra Fluke photo

“[President Obama] encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the concerns of American women. And what was really personal for me was that he said to tell my parents that they should be proud, and that meant a lot because Rush Limbaugh questioned whether or not my family would be proud of me. So I just appreciated that very much.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

Andrea Mitchell interview with Sandra Fluke. Andrea Mitchell Reports. March 2, 2012. — cited in [Andrea Mitchell interviews Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke moments after speaking with President Obama, MSNBC, http://info.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/02/10563035-andrea-mitchell-interviews-georgetown-law-student-sandra-fluke-moments-after-speaking-with-president-obama, March 2, 2012, March 8, 2012, NBCUniversal, Weesie, Vieira]
Media interviews

John Ralston Saul photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Charles Lamb photo

“I read your letters with my sister, and they give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us two, when you talk in a religious strain,—not but we are offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter—you say, “it is by the press [sic], that God hath given finite spirits both evil and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence!” Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind and it, which makes such language blasphemy? Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle you say, “you are a temporary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature.” What more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,—men, whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak and ignorant being, “servile” from his birth “to all the skiey influences,” with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the pride of speculation, forgetting his nature, and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; I know I cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament (our best guide), is represented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent: and in my poor mind ’tis best for us so to consider of Him, as our heavenly Father, and our best Friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of His nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of “dear children,” “brethren,” and “co-heirs with Christ of the promises,” seeking to know no further… God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race!”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Lamb's letter to Coleridge in Oct. 24th, 1796. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (1905). Letter 11.

Michael Jordan photo