Children Quotes

And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent.

~ Sydney J. Harris

A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention. It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose's. . . . Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive. Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog. Summer, and he watched his children's heart break. Autumn again, and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.

~ Harper Lee

I am convinced that an immense number of people who have children should not have them, and do not particularly want them, except as symbols of family life. What they want are ideal children, not real ones; and as soon as the real ones show no intention of conforming to the ideal in the parent's mind, they are treated as burdens, shipped away to school or otherwise neglected.

~ Sydney J. Harris

It occurred to Raule that all children were monsters in the world and were instinctively aware of it. They were reminded of their anomalous nature by adults, whom they failed to resemble, and with whose habitations and tools their bodies were at odds. This was surely why the little girl played with the sequins so solemnly and with such intense concentration. She was doing nothing less than conjuring, out of pattern and colour, a world that conformed to her desires and obeyed her will. The boy, on the other hand, showed with the whole attitude of his being that he knew there was only the one world and he would kill it if he could.

~ K.j. Bishop

Beating children will not make them wise. They will grow wilder and wilder and the cane will feel like paper on their skins.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Genuine love for a child, it seems to me, must include a desire for his maturity and ultimately his independence. WAtching a personality unfold is perhaps the deepest pleasure of parenthood; wishing, or trying, to retard this growth is one of the deepest sins.

~ Sydney J. Harris

True Courage is when you are afraid of something but go through with it anyway

~ Victor Castelo

A boy, Ranga, is the light in his father’s eye and the love in his mother’s heart.

~ Ian B.g. Burns

Angel of Fire is about an ordinary boy to whom extraordinary things happen

~ Wendy Milton

If a child hasn't been given spiritual values within the family setting, they have no familiarity with the values that are necessary for the just and peaceful functioning in society.

~ Eunice Baumann-Nelson Ph.d Penobscot

Parents don't know their children at all.No one knows anyone, in fact.

~ Jenny Downham

No matter what the delusions are, parents do not really know their children

~ Manu Joseph

If I were flying, I would travel to a perfect place. A place with frosted cakes and beautiful flowers and excellent trees to climb and absolutely no doldrums.

~ Kyo Maclear

I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies, like children’s books hidden in the middle of dull, long adult books, the kind with no pictures or conversations.

~ Neil Gaiman

I wanted to shout down to him, to warn him that he was giving flowers to a monster, but I did not.

~ Neil Gaiman

Some scientists were conducting an experiment, he said, trying to gauge the impact of abuse on children. Ducks, like people, develop bonds between mother and young. They call it imprinting. So the scientists set out to test how that imprint bond would be affected by abuse. The control group was a real mother duck and her ducklings. For the experimental group, the scientist used a mechanical duck they had created - feathers, sound, and all - which would, at timed intervals, peck the ducklings with its mechanical beak. A painful peck, one a real duck would not give. They varied these groups. Each group was pecked with a different level of frequency. And then they watched the ducklings grow and imprint bond with their mother. Over time, he went on, the ducklings in the control group would waddle along behind their mother. But as they grew, there would be more distance between them. They'd wander and explore.The ducklings with the pecking mechanical mother, though, followed much more closely. Even the scientists were stunned to discover that the group that bonded and followed most closely was the one that had been pecked repeatedly with the greatest frequency. The more the ducklings were pecked and abused, the more closely they followed. The scientist repeated the experiment and got the same results.

~ Rachel Reiland

When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women. Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature's evolution. Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren't sure at first that they could do it. It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form.

~ Christine Northrup

Our children cannot be assumed to follow in our footsteps, assuage our losses, or compensate for our inadequacies.

~ Madeline Levine

He was not being courageous as he bore the freezing stream for his wife and children. He simply chose between the lesser of two evils—the pain and suffering he would endure in the river, a physical pain that he could stand to bear, or the pain and suffering he would feel if he had to watch his family wade across and freeze. It was not a decision. The choice had already been made the moment Ole proposed marriage to his wife and welcomed these beautiful daughters into the world.

~ Sage Steadman

Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.

~ Erasmus

When parents neglect their responsibility to correct and discipline their children society suffers. The results are crimes and harm committed against others.

~ Ellen J. Barrier

Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones!The Brothers KaramazovIvan to Alyosha, on the suffering and torture of children, Book V - Pro and Contra, Chapter 4 - Rebellion.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In between every action and reaction, there is a space. Usually the space is extremely small because we react so quickly, but take notice of that space and expand it. Be aware in that space that you have a choice to make. You can choose how to respond, and choose wisely, because the next step you take will teach your child how to handle anger and could either strengthen or damage your relationship.

~ Rebecca Eanes

Fishing is much less about the fishing, and much more about the time alone with your kid, away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday.

~ Dan Pearce

Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.

~ C.m. Stunich

I want to know we're not pushing children toward the traditions of life, but instead cultivating them to grow in their own specific purposes, and make the dreams of their youth become realities as they age.

~ Ashley Ormon

He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also.

~ J.m. Barrie

Ok, I see. When they say Charles Wovenu is passing by, everyone wants to see Charles Wovenu. But when they say to a child that Bibi is passing by, every child is hiding for Bibi. What makes the difference is the impacts.

~ Israelmore Ayivor

When my children complain that I'm forgetful, I remind them that DAD is just ADD spelled sideways.

~ Harvey Stanbrough

Kids are trusting and wise and I cannot think of a less useful combination to be born with. The wisdom lets children know who they are. And then the trust lets everyone else take that knowledge away.

~ Sean Wilsey

I'll bet every great thinker and leader we've gotCould see all kinds of things other people could not!So then why get upset if somebody like meTries to look at the world just a bit differently?

~ Al Yankovic

And children are still the way you were ...as a child, sad and happy in just the same way and if you think of your childhood, you once again live among them, among the solitary children, and the grownups are nothing, and their dignity has no value.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else’s children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.

~ Aberjhani

Women and children make you weak, get rid of them when you are in war.

~ M.f. Moonzajer

I remember the shift that occurred after Abby was born - there'd been the great big before, where dying grandparents and natural disasters on the news were sad but mostly distant concerns. But then I became a mother, and when that happens, you cross a line that makes all loss a crushing, personal matter.

~ Deb Calleti

LOOKINGThe world goes by, and what have I to do with it? I merely observe how the geese stretch their necks towards the orange rim of sky. I watch how light fades and children make their way home, hungry and tired. The bushes outside become ghosts while baths run and kitchen windows steam up with the cooking. This is the smell of our home, where I have a place in the wrinkled hours making beds and hugging boys awake. This is the sound of the house where I feel out lives into words, translate ragged nights and days into something whole, or try to. You may look if you wish..... The world goes by, and what have you or I to do with it, except perhaps for looking... ?

~ Jay Woodman

When children are given spiritual guidance, they grow-up learning to know how to pray and praise God. Even though they might not be a religious person in their later years, those values they were taught are the things they remember in their times of need.

~ Ellen J. Barrier

I remember the sift that occurred after Abby was born - there'd been the great big before, where dying grandparents and natural disasters on the news were sad but mostly distant concerns. But then I became a mother, and when that happens, you cross a line that makes all loss a crushing, personal matter.

~ Deb Calleti

Teach your children that a person is more valuable than any treasure found on this earth, teach them to love, teach them to sing, and dance, teach them to be courageous, and tell them they will be victorious on anything they put their heart and mind to, teach them honesty, and to never give up hope.

~ Martin Suarez

Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.You may house their bodies but not their souls,For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them,but seek not to make them like you.For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

~ Kahlil Gibran