Children Quotes

We have collected and put the best Children Quotes from around the world. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others. Children are gifts from God. Let these quotes about children remind you of how precious and special these little ones are in our life.

Biologically, a child (plural children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of child generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. Children generally have fewer rights and less responsibility than adults. They are classed as unable to make serious decisions, and legally must be under the care of their parents or another responsible caregiver.

The child may also describe a relationship with a parent (such as sons and daughters of any age) or, metaphorically, an authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in a child of nature or a child of the Sixties.

Children Quote From M. Fethullah Gulen

Adam, the first man, and Eve, the first woman, were created together at the very beginning of human existence. This indicates that marriage is natural. Reproduction is the most important purpose of this natural state. A marriage made for reasons other than bringing up new generations is no more than temporary entertainment and adventure. The children who come into the world through such a marriage are the unfortunate products of a transient emotion. – M. Fethullah Gulen

A nation’s durability depends on the education of young generations, upon their being awakened to national spirit and consciousness and spiritually perfected. If nations cannot raise perfect generations to whom they can entrust their future, their future is dark indeed. There is no doubt that the main responsibility for raising such generations falls on parents. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Human generations come and go. Those who have attained high levels of spiritual attainment are worthy of being considered human. Those who do not develop their spiritual faculties, due to their low level of education, scarcely merit being called human. They are nothing more than strange creatures, even though they are descended from Adam. And their parents, to whom they are a burden, are unfortunate to have nurtured them. – M. Fethullah Gulen

When trees are pruned properly, they produce fruit and their growth improves. If they are not pruned properly, they shrivel and become stunted. Given this, should not each human being, all of whom possess so many talents and abilities, be given at least as much care as a tree? – M. Fethullah Gulen

Those of you who bring children into this world are responsible for raising them to the realms beyond the heavens. Just as you take care of their bodily health, so take care of their spiritual life. For God’s sake, have pity and save the helpless innocents. Do not let their lives go to waste. – M. Fethullah Gulen

If parents encourage their children to develop their abilities and be useful to themselves and the community, they have given the nation a strong new pillar. If, on the contrary, they do not cultivate their children’s human feelings, they will have released scorpions into the community. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Parents have the right to claim their children as long as they educate and equip them with virtue. They cannot make such a claim, however, if they neglect them. But what shall we call parents who introduce their children to wickedness and indecency, and cause them to break with humanity? – M. Fethullah Gulen

The child has the same meaning for the continuation of the human race as the seed of a tree has for the continued growth and multiplication of that tree. Any people who neglect their children are subject to decay, and those who abandon them to foreign culture risk losing their identity. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Children form the most active and productive part of a community after every thirty or forty years. Those who have little children and pay no attention to them should consider how important an element of a people’s life they are disregarding and shudder. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The reasons for the vices observed in today’s generation and the incompetence of some administrators and other nation-wide troubles, lie in the conditions prevailing, and the ruling elite, of thirty years ago. Likewise, those who are charged with the education of today’s young generations will be responsible for both the vices and virtues that will be apparent thirty years from now. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Any people who would like to secure their future, should apply as much energy to the upbringing of children as they devote to other problems. The energy devoted to many other things may go in vain, but whatever is spent for the upbringing of young generations to elevate them to the rank of humanity will be like an inexhaustible source of income. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Miserable, evil ones in a community the anarchists, the drug or wine addicts, and the dissolute, etc. – were once children whom we neglected to educate properly. I do not know whether we are giving enough consideration to what kind of people will be walking about in our streets tomorrow. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The peoples who attach due importance to the institution of the family and the education of their young generations – not those who are more advanced in sciences and technology than others -will get the upper hand in the world of the future. The peoples who neglect the institution of the family and the education of their young generations, are destined to be crushed by pitiless wheels of time. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Parents should feed the minds of other children with knowledge and science before they are engaged in useless things. For souls that are empty of truth and devoid of knowledge are fields in which all kinds of evil thought are cultivated and grown. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Children Silhouette Cheers Forward Positive View

Children are our future.

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Children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. – Psalms 127:3

Children are a great comfort to us in our old age, and they help us reach it faster too. – Unknown

Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. – Psalms 127:3

Children are born innocent. – Nikki Sixx

Children are born with a sense of wonder and an affinity for nature. Properly cultivated, these values can mature into ecological literacy, and eventually into sustainable patterns of living. – Zenobia Barlow

Children are gifts from the Lord. They are fruits of His labour, through acts of love in the bond of marriage. – Elijah Mcleon

Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate. – Anonymous

Children are happy because they don’t yet have a file in their minds called ‘All the Things That Could Go Wrong.’ – Marianne Williamson

Children are illuminated textbooks. – Amos Bronson Alcott

Children are like wet cement whatever falls on them makes an impression. – Haim Ginott

Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them. – Lady Bird Johnson

Children are living beings—more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves. – Rabindranath Tagore

Children are mirrors, they reflect back to us all we say and do. – Pam Leo

Children are more than we think they are; they can do more than we think they can do. All they need is a vote of confidence from grownups, whom they will ultimately replace anyway. Their dream today will become the realities of tomorrow. – Wess Stafford

Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment. – John Bradshaw

Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps out at us. – John Updike

Children are not casual guests in our home. They have been loaned to us temporarily for the purpose of loving them and instilling a foundation of values on which their future lives will be built. – James Dobson

Children are not only innocent and curious but also optimistic and joyful and essentially happy. They are, in short, everything adults wish they could be. – Carolyn Haywood

Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded. – Jess Lair

Children are one third of our population and all of our future. – Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981

Children are our most valuable resource. – Herbert Hoover

Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. – Walt Disney

Children are quick to learn from others and adapt to their environment, more so than any other age. – Philip Fanara

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardour, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. – Aldous Huxley

Children are the anchors that hold the mother to life. – Sophocles

Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven. – Henry Ward Beecher

Children are the keys of paradise. – Eric Hoffer

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. – John F. Kennedy

Children are the only brave philosophers. – Yevgeny Zamyatin

Children are the sunshine of our lives. – Catherine Pulsifer

Children are the true connoisseurs, what’s precious to them has no price, only value. – Bel Kaufman

Children are unripe and imperfect. – Aristotle

Children are very wise intuitively; they know who loves them most, and who only pretends. – V.C. Andrews

Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors. – Khaled Hosseini

Children ask questions. They are endlessly inquisitive. They lack adult inhibition, and so they learn and grow at an extraordinary rate. – Jonathon Lazear

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. – Oscar Wilde

Children born in poor families can ‘inherit’ learned helplessness and stay poor just like their parents. Or their hunger for success will drive them to improve their situation. – Martin Meadows

Children can feel, but they cannot analyze their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. – Charlotte Brontë

Children can teach us so much about creativity – just watch them when they paint a picture. – Judy Ford

Children cannot bounce off the walls if we take away the walls. – Erin Kenny

Children deserve to be loved and to know they are loved. They deserve to be cherished and to know they are valuable. – Dave Ramsey; Rachel Cruze

Children do learn what they live. Then they grow up to live what they learned. – Dorothy Nolte

Children exist in the world as well as in the family. From the moment they are born, they depend on a host of other ‘grown-ups – grandparents, neighbors, teachers, ministers, employers, political leaders, and untold others who touch their lives directly and indirectly. – Hillary Rodham Clinton

Children grow up hearing how broken the environment is, how broken beyond repair. Plant strawberries together, make wild medicines, paint the sunrise. Show them proof that for every act of destruction, they can sow a seed, however small, of beauty. – Nicolette Sowder

Children have more need of models than of critics. – Joseph Joubert

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. – James Baldwin

Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind. – C.S. Lewis

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. – Ernest Dimnet

Children just cannot be sad too long, it is not in them. – Nancy E. Turner

Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn. – O. Fred Donaldson

Children learn how to behave and regulate their emotions by watching their parents. – Marge Powers

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach. – W.E.B. Du Bois

Children long for warm, generous, respectful, loving relationships with the big people in their world. They crave adult relationships that provide kindness and reassurance. They long for our time, patience, and attention. – Kay Swatkowski

Children love freedom, they thrive on it. As a teacher I know it is important to build others confidence in themselves. – Paul Keller

Children love to have their grandparents notice them and pay attention to them. In some unique way, grandparents provide a much needed bravo! to a child’s life. – Renee Ellison

Children make you want to start life over. – Muhammad Ali

Children make your life important. – Erma Bombeck

Children more than ever, need opportunities to be in their bodies in the world—jumping rope, bicycling, stream hopping and fort building. It’s this engagement between limbs of the body and bones of the earth where true balance and centeredness emerge. – David Sobel

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. – Margaret Mead

Children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful. – Margaret Mead

Children need love especially when they don’t deserve it. – Harold Hulbert

Children need models rather than critics. – Joseph Joubert

Children need room to imagine and dream. – Unknown

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity. – Kay Redfield Jamison

Children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing the world around them. – Teresa Belton

Children of any age flourish with options. Art should be mandatory at all ages. – Donna Jo Massie

Children re-invent your world for you. – Susan Sarandon

Children really brighten up a household. They never turn the lights off. – Ralph Bus

Children remind us to treasure the smallest of gifts, even in the most difficult of times. – Allen Klein

Children represent the future, encourage, support and guide them. – Catherine Pulsifer

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction. – Anne Sullivan

Children see magic because they look for it. – Christopher Moore

Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said. – Unknown

Children still need a childhood with dirt, mud, puddles, trees, sticks, and tadpoles. – Brooke Hampton

Children take a stand for everything that is possible because they are still in touch with that place inside where everything is possible. – Vince Gowmon

Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others’ lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. – Helen Keller

Children will listen to you after they feel listened to. – Jane Nelsen

Children will not respect you just because you are their parents. It takes virtue and good parenting for children to understanding why they should respect you. – Dr. Fred Cremone

Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. – Proverbs 17:6

Children’s games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play. – Michel de Montaigne

Children, no matter how gifted, can’t see far into the future, you know. To them, a year is almost a lifetime. – John Saul

Children, you must remember something. A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive. – Pearl Bailey

Education For Children

Education For Children

A babe is nothing but a bundle of possibilities. – Henry Ward Beecher

A baby is as pure as an angel and as fresh as a blooming flower. – Debasish Mridha

A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on. – Carl Sandburg

A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn’t act that way very often. – Unknown

A child can ask a thousand questions that the wisest man cannot answer. – Jacob Abbott

A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer. – Unknown

A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires. – Paulo Coelho

A child is a beam of sunlight from the Infinite and Eternal, with possibilities of virtue and vice, but as yet unstained. – Lyman Abbott

A child is a curly dimpled lunatic. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A child is a deep mystery. – Amelia E. Barr

A child is an uncut diamond. – Austin O’Malley

A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit. – Francois Rabelais

A child learns to love (or hate) school in kindergarten and first grade. During that time he forms attitudes about his own value as a person and his worth as a learner. Those attitudes will accompany him all the way through school and into adulthood. – Jacquie McTaggart

A child miseducated is a child lost. – John F. Kennedy

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to. – Robert Brault

A child’s appetite for new toys appeals to the desire for ownership and appropriation: the appeal of toys comes to lie not in their use but in their status as possessions. – Christopher Lasch

A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark. – Chinese Proverb

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. – Rachel Carson

A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. – C.S. Lewis Quote

A child’s voice, however honest and true, is meaningless to those who have forgotten how to listen. – Albus Dumbledore

A daughter is a miracle that never ceases to be miraculous… full of beauty and forever beautiful, loving and caring and truly amazing. – Deanna Beisser

A daughter is a rainbow—a curve of light through scattered mist that lifts the spirit with her prismatic presence. – Ellen Hopkins

A daughter is a treasure and a cause of sleeplessness. – Ben Sirach

A first child is your own best foot forward. – Barbara Kingsolver

A grandchild can never have too much prayer or too much love. – Stormie Omartian

A little girl is sugar and spice and everything nice—especially when she’s taking a nap. – Unknown

A mother’s love doesn’t make her son more dependent and timid; it actually makes him stronger and more independent. – Cheri Fuller

A person’s a person, no matter how small. – Dr. Seuss

Accept the children the way we accept trees—with gratitude, because they are a blessing—but do not have expectations or desires. You don’t expect trees to change, you love them as they are. – Isabel Allende

Adults are just outdated children. – Dr. Seuss

Adults are obsolete children. – Dr. Seuss

Adults follow paths. Children explore. – Neil Gaiman

All around you are spirits, child. They live in the earth, the water, the sky. If you listen, they will guide you. – Grandmother Willow

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. – Pablo Picasso

All children have creative power. – Brenda Ueland

All good parents are guilty of emotionally failing their children at times. Nobody is perfect. We all get tired, cranky, stressed, distracted, bored, confused, disconnected, overwhelmed or otherwise compromised here and there. This does not qualify us as emotionally neglectful parents. – Jonice Webb

All little girls should be told they are pretty. – Marilyn Monroe

All men know their children mean more than life. – Euripides

All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land. – Deborah Harkness

Always kiss your children goodnight even if they’re already asleep. – Andrew Carnegie

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they’re already asleep. – H. Jackson Brown Jr

Always smile back at little children. To ignore them is to destroy their belief that the world is good. – Pam Brown

An honest man is always a child. – Socrates

And He took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. – Mark 10:16

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

And one of the things that I’ve always loves about children is their vivid, unrestrained, and far-reaching imaginations – the depth and breadth of their creativity. – Kevin Clash

And, most importantly, I know that we need to directly teach our children the most vital lessons, rather than assume that they’ll be understood. – Galit Breen

Any kid will run any errand for you, if you ask at bedtime. – Red Skelton

Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero. – Mr. Rogers

Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me. – Fred Rogers

Anything you teach in an indoor classroom can be taught outdoors, often in ways that are more enjoyable for children. – Cathy James

As a child, we are not limited by preconceptions. Children attempt to do what they want without being burdened by the concept of failure. – Byron Pulsifer

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on his faithful followers. – Psalm 103:13

As a father it is easy to be consumed with careers and other responsibilities, but being involved in the lives of our children is very important. – Derek Polen

As a grandmother, you can provide a secure and loving place from which your grandchild can explore the world. Indeed, children thrive on the love of others, and it’s up to us as grandmothers to exercise this privilege. – Angela Bowen

As the child grows, the relationship becomes complex, with the mother taking on different roles in the child’s life, many times growing into a healthy adult relationship of mutual respect. – Sarah Goldberg

At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses. – Ellen Key

Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children – and no theories. – Unknown

Being a parent wasnt just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life. – Jodi Picoult

But when adults speak up for the vulnerable and the weak, working and demanding that safety and respect prevail, God’s little lambs are protected and nourished. They know they are not abandoned; they are loved. And the world becomes a little more like heaven as a result. – Wess Stafford

But, other than providing support to their children, supporting each other is important for parents because they must make certain that their children learn the best from both of them. – Natalie L S West; Brad White

Cherish your children… for they are the footprints you will leave behind. – Taylor Evan Fulks

Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. – Napoleon Hill

Choose to commit to your children that you will become the living example of what they should strive to live up to in their adult lives. – Keith and Maya Traver

Christmas a special time of year for kids. But as parents and grandparents we must always teach our children the first and foremost reason for the season is Jesus. – Kate Summers

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing. – Phyllis Diller

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you. – Richard Dawkins

Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion, but by play. – Plato

Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. – Rabindranath Tagore

Don’t throw away your friendship with your teenager over behavior that has no great moral significance. There will be plenty of real issues that require you to stand like a rock. Save your big guns for those crucial confrontations. – Dr. James C. Dobson

Don’t wait until your child’s school understands how important green time is for their growing minds. Today, leave the homework untouched, in favour of outdoor play and real-world learning. – Penny Whitehouse

Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. – Robert Fulghum

Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. – Robert A. Heinlein

Don’t just teach your kids to read, teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything. – George Carlin

Don’t just tell children about the world. Show them. – Penny Whitehouse

Don’t try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it. – Russell Baker

Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. – Robert Fulghum

Each child is unique, and the same tools don’t work with every one. Furthermore, parenting ideas that had an impact last year may need some tweaking, because your child continues to develop and change. – Scott Turansky

Each child’s story is worthy of telling. – Anderson Cooper

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. – Charles R. Swindoll

Either have children or become a saint because eventually, you have to find something you love more than you love yourself. – Naval Ravikant

Encourage your child to have muddy, grassy or sandy feet by the end of each day, that’s the childhood they deserve. – Penny Whitehouse

Even if people are still very young, they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think. – Anne Frank

Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. – Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility. – Kate Douglas Wiggin

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man. – Rabindranath Tagore

Every child deserves a champion – an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be. – Rita Pierson

Every child has the capacity to be everything. – Doris Lessing

Every child is an artist. – Pablo Picasso

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. – Pablo Picasso

Every child is born curious until the system beats it out of him. – Dan Go

Every child needs a champion. – Hilary Clinton

Every child needs a parent, grandparent or friend who will say let’s go it’s time for an adventure. – Penny Whitehouse

Every child you encounter is a divine appointment. – Wess Stafford

Every one of us, starting in childhood, had to learn how to deal with the skinned knees, hurt feelings, dashed hopes, and heartbreaking setbacks common to fallen humanity. How well we coped with these difficulties, challenges, and unexpected obstacles determined in large measure what sort of man or woman we’ve become and how we navigate our way through life. – Kay Arthur

Every parent wants the best for their child. Our children are gifts and we would happily give them anything. – Barb Asselin

Every year, when you’re a child, you become a different person. – Alice Munro

Everyone should have kids. They are the greatest joy in the world, but they are also terrorists. You’ll realize this as soon as they’re born, and they start using sleep deprivation to break you. – Ray Romano

Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. – L.R. Knost

Family dinners are the one activity found to foster the greatest child development. – Doborah Norville

For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s love. – Charles Dickens

For these are all our children. We will all profit by, or pay for, whatever they become. – James Baldwin

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. – Ronald Reagan

Generally speaking, you want to let your children work out their own battles. This means that you are the coach and not the referee. – Felicity Bauer

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back. – John Ruskin

Give children toys that are powered by their imagination, not by batteries. – H. Jackson Brown

Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. – Vladimir Lenin

Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterward. – St. Francis Xavier

Grandparents are alive and well in America. They are allies for grandchildren and have the time to really pay attention to little ones’ concerns. – Jack Canfield

Growing up is losing some illusions, to acquire others. – Virginia Woolf

Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Happy are the parents who can let their children go to pursue their dreams. – Camille Alice

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged. – Louisa May Alcott

Having a -year old is like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it. – Jerry Seinfeld

Having children is like living in a frat house—nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up. – Ray Romano

Having one child makes you a parent; having two, you are a referee. – David Frost

Having worked with children and youth for over 10 years, I can tell you firsthand that school is not what it used to be, and neither is childhood. – A. C. Jones

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. – Francis Bacon

Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death. – Erik Erikson

Help a parent and you’ve already helped the child. – Johana Scot

History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children. – Nelson Mandela

How can she expect her children to dream as big as the stars if they can’t lift their heads to gaze upon them? – Josh Malerman

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all of these. – George Washington Carver

Hugs can do great amounts of good, especially for children. – Princess Diana

I always thought my children were the biggest joy in my life, but then I had grandchildren and no words can describe a bigger joy. – Catherine Pulsifer

I am like a child who blows up a bubble of soap. At first the bubble is very small, but it is already spherical. Then the child blows the bubble up very softly until he is afraid that it will burst. – Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

I am very sad that my chicken has sadly just died. We will be attending her funeral on Friday. – Unknown

I believe that it is our behaviors and activities that we are passing on to children – not our preachings or teachings. – Hyacinth Mottley

I continue to believe that if children are given the necessary tools to succeed, they will succeed beyond their wildest dreams! – David Vitter

I don’t believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models. – Charles Barkley

I don’t want my kids growing up believing that there is nothing destructive in the world. – Chuck Connors

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. – Harry S. Truman

I have long felt that the way to keep children out of trouble is to keep them interested in things. – Walt Disney

I hope our daughters are born with so much fire in their souls, they could put volcanoes and stars to shame. – Nikita Gill

I hope, if you should live to grow up, you will endeavour to be very useful and not spend all your time in pleasing yourself. – Elizabeth Fry

I know that God is answering my prayers when I see my child smile up at me. – Toby Peterson

I look at my books the way parents look at their children. The fact that one becomes more successful than the others doesn’t make me love the less successful one any less. – Alex Haley

I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace. – Thomas Paine

I remind myself that all intelligent children suffer bad dreams. – Grant Morrison

I sometimes equate it to what it must be like running a prison. What happens with three boys is you end up barking out orders like, ‘Upstairs now!’ ‘Brush teeth!’ ‘Lights out!’ There is so much chaos you can’t really take the time to articulate. – Will Ferrell

I understood once I held a baby in my arms, why some people… keep having them. – Spalding Gray

I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them. – Phyllis Diller

I’ve found what makes children happy doesn’t always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults. – Brené Brown

If a child does well at something, even if it just a game, tell them how clever they are for being able to do it and praise all the little things, this will encourage them to want to do it again. – Sara Deedley

If a child is given love, he becomes loving. – Dr. Joyce Brothers

If a man leaves little children behind him, it is as if he did not die. – Moroccan Proverb

If children developed high self-esteem, they would get the success they wanted, they would be happy, they would have positive relationships with other people, and be able to reach their full potential in all aspects of their life. – Martin Kaye

If God places a child before you, and you are too busy to wield either a positive or negative influence…you just did the latter! You communicated that the child doesn’t matter and isn’t important. – Wess Stafford

If I could relive my life, I would devote my entire ministry to reaching children for God! – Dwight L. Moody

If I had one wish for my children, it would be that each of them would reach for goals that have meaning for them as individuals. – Lillian Carter

If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then, I believe, we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what ‘good’ parenting means. – Fred Rogers

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. – Thomas Paine

If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children. – Mahatma Gandhi

If we don’t stand up for children, then we don’t stand for much. – Marian Wright Edelman

If we nurture the dreams of children, the world will be blessed. If we destroy them, the world is doomed! – Wess Stafford

If we provide enough space and possibilities for moving freely, then the children will move as well as animals: skillfully, simply, securely, naturally. – Dr. Emmi Pikler

If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings. – David Sobel

If we want our children to move mountains, we first have to let them get out of their chairs. – Nicolette Sowder

If we wish to create lasting peace we must begin with the children. – Mahatma Gandhi

If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don’t make him afraid of the unknown. – Rajneesh

If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. – Marian Wright Edelman

If you ask me, marriage is great, and children are cute and (even though they are a handful) they can add joy to the family. – Christian Olsen

If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm. – Bruce Barton

If you can’t hold children in your arms, please hold them in your heart. – Mother Clara Hale

If you expect your kids to get better then you should apply the same thought process to yourself. Children will improve if you as a parent model that growth for them. – Milton Stewart

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. – Roald Dahl

If you make children happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it. – Unknown

If you want children to continue dreaming to the moon and beyond, then dream with them, both by sharing your fervent dreams, and by diving heart first into their own. – Vince Gowmon

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. – Abigail Van Buren

If you want to be a good parent, become the person you want your child to be. Cultivate in yourself the characteristics you want them to end up having. – Russell Kolts

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. – Albert Einstein

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them and half as much money. – Abigail Van Buren

If you’ve never been hated by your child, you’ve never been a parent. – Bette Davis

If your child sees you giving up on your goals after minimal effort is applied, simply because it’s just too hard, you can’t be bothered or you’ve changed your mind, then what sort of example are you setting? If you want your child to be a success, show them what’s possible. – Katrina Kahler

Imagine what we could accomplish if we had the attitude of children. They are not limited by the thoughts I can’t do that. – Byron Pulsifer

In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. – N.K. Jemisin

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. – Theodore Roosevelt

In childhood, time is kind. A moment is swallowed whole, by senses open and able. – Nicoletta Baumeister

In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced in television. – Erma Bombeck

In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own. – Margaret Wise Brown

In the best of all possible worlds, parents and guardians love their children, unconditionally. They accept their children with all their imperfections, flaws, quirks and challenges, because real love never has to be earned; it’s given freely by those who are able to love. – Marcia Sirota

In your later years, you want to look back and feel a sense of accomplishment about how you raised your children and the fulfillment you brought into their lives. – Nicoline Ambe

Indeed, the world children are being born into now is in many ways enormously different from the era in which we were raising our children. – Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

It is a wise father that knows his own child. – William Shakespeare

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglas

It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children. – J.M. Barrie

It is important to me that everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential, especially as children. – Kylie Dunn

It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation. – John Gray

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. – Ann Landers

It is time for a return to childhood, to simplicity, to running and climbing and laughing in the sunshine, to experiencing happiness instead of being trained for a lifetime of pursuing happiness. – L. R. Knost

It is time to let children be children again. – L. R. Knost

It is vital that when educating our children’s brains we do not neglect to educate their hearts by nurturing their compassionate nature. – Dalai Lama

It seems to me that since I’ve had children, I’ve grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from. – Anne Tyler

It takes a village to raise a child. – African Proverb

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. – Pablo Picasso

It’s a wondrous thing how the wild calm a child. – Unknown

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. – Berkeley Breathed

It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless. – L.R. Knost

It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. – Mother Teresa

It’s time to return to childhood, to simplicity, to running and climbing and laughing in the sunshine, to experiencing happiness instead of being trained for a lifetime of happiness. It’s time to let children be children again. – L.R. Knost

It’s a wondrous thing how the wild calms the child. – Unknown

It’s not about what you tell your children, but how you show them how to live life. – Jada Pinkett Smith

I’ve been to war. I’ve raised twins. If I had a choice, I’d rather go to war. – George W. Bush

Just remember that staying calm and being patient with your children will always be a great way to get things done with them. – Amanda Walton

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. – Clarence Darrow

Keep your children wild—don’t make them grow up too fast. – Brooke Hampton

Kids bring meaning back into your life. – Naval Ravikant

Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world. – Lois Lowry

Kids don’t measure love in DOLLARS. They measure it in TIME. – Larry Hagner

Kids go where there is excitement, they stay where there is love. – Zig Ziglar

Kids learn to navigate the adult world through constant observation and application of what they learn. – Michal Stawicki

Kids sometimes have a problem listening but never a problem copying. – David DeNotaris

Kids spell love T-I-M-E. – John Crudele

Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn. – Alice Miller

Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity. – John Muir

Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise. My children! You do what you want with your own! – Charles Mingus

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence. – Plato

Let us reach out to the children. Let us do whatever we can to support their fight to rise above their pain and suffering. – Nelson Mandela

Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world. – Malala Yousafzai

Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow. – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Let your boys test their wings. They may not be eagles, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t soar free. – C.J. Milbrandt

Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child. – Mary MacCracken

Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation. – C. Everett Koop

Like me, most parents desperately want to impart the wisdom of our age to the children in our lives, thus sparing them the painful and time-consuming task of making all of life’s possible mistakes. – Paul Smith

Like stars are to the sky, so are the children to our world. They deserve to shine! – Chinonye J. Chidolue

Listen to the desires of your children. Encourage them and then give them the autonomy to make their own decision. – Denis Waitley

Little boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older. – Peter Pan

Little moments, over and over, mold our children’s foundation, a cache of learning that they will pass on to their children. – June Cotner

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult. – Nadia Boulanger

Make a list of the people or groups of people you want to continue experiencing life with. These may include your spouse or significant other, children, brother or sister, parents, grandparents, group of friends, and more. It is easy to lose sight of these people when you are focusing on your dreams. – David Stone; SheilaStone

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. – George Bernard Shaw

Manners are the one thing that will help a child to avoid conflicts later on and it is never too early to teach them to children. – Rhonda Hart

Many people try to threaten their children into doing right. However, the power is not in a threat. – Shannon Scott

More often than not, when we launch into lecture mode, our kids tune out. Or, worse, our pontificate-y good intentions backfire and push our children to do the opposite of what we’re trying to get them to do. Instead, use stories to illustrate a point. – Beth Kobliner

Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going. – Phyllis Diller

Mother is a verb. Its something you do. Not just who you are. – Cheryl Lacey Donovan

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. – William Makepeace Thackeray

Motherhood: the days are long, but the years are short. – Gretchen Rubin

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. – Aristotle

My children have always been great inspiration for me, and great teachers, and keep me very close to the ground and very humble. – Wayne Dyer

My greatest accomplishment, and my greatest pride and joy are my children. They truly are my greatest success. They have inspired me in all aspects of my life. – Catherine Pulsifer

Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves. – Stephen Moss

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts. – Albert Einstein

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be. – Clementine Paddleford

Never have more children than you have car windows. – Erma Bombeck

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. – Maria Montessori

No light shines brighter than the smile of a child. – Ian Semple

No matter how diligent you are about teaching your children right from wrong, the truth is that the majority of the lessons they learn from you will be the ones you teach without meaning to. – Brittany Ann

No one is ever satisfied where he is… Only the children know what they’re looking for…. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Noble fathers have noble children. – Euripides

Nothing is particularly hard if you break it down into small jobs. – Henry Ford

Nothing matters more to a child than a place to call home. – Brenda Donald

Nothing you do for a child is ever wasted. – Garrison Keillor

Observe your children closely: they have often fundamental approaches and answers to the mysteries of life which we have lost as adults. – Robert Muller

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words. – Betty Smith

Old men can make war, but it is children who will make history. – Ray Merritt

On a deeper note, being a grandmother provides you with an opportunity to help your grandchild gain a sense of who he or she really is. Children love to hear stories about what their Mommies and Daddies were like growing up. – Deborah Williams

On the practical side, children have souls, bodies, and minds that can be shaped to function in the world. You can help them learn courtesy and good manners and how to appreciate and use the special talents and gifts God has given them. – Dr. Judith Rolfs

Once the child enters the free fall of the teenage atmosphere, parents have to sit back and hope that all the work they’ve done and all the tools they’ve equipped their little lander with will be sufficient to see him through. – Gary Ezzo; Robert Bucknam

One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. – Malala Yousafzai

One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. – Chinese Proverb

One of the best things to do if you are in a bad mood, or if you are feeling down, is to laugh. It makes you feel better. As children, we laughed much more than we do as adults. – Catherine Pulsifer

One of the realities of family life is that children have minds and wills of their own. Children aren’t robots run by remote control. – Scott Turansky

Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn’t developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don’t expect to see. – Douglas Adams

Only children believe they are capable of everything. – Paulo Coelho

Only where children gather is there any real chance of fun. – Mignon McLaughlin

Our challenge isn’t so much to teach children about the natural world, but to find ways to sustain the instinctive connections they already carry. – Terry Krautwurst

Our children are not going to be just ‘our children’ they are going to be other people’s husbands and wives and the parents of our grandchildren. – Mary Steichen Calderone

Our children are only as brilliant as we allow them to be. – Eric Micha’el Leventhal

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings. – Walt Disney

Our job is not to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. Our job is to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless. – L.R. Knost

Our most important task as a nation is to make sure all our young people can achieve their dreams. – Barack Obama

Our revenge will be the laughter of our children. – Bobby Sands

Painting like a child does not mean painting with child-like strokes and random scribbles of paint. But rather it’s painting fearless… approaching painting with a new light and courage… learning endlessly without ceasing… painting boldly. – Elisa Choi

Parenting is a privilege and Children are a sacred trust from God. – Michael Cannon Loehrer

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right path, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands. – Anne Frank

Parents make no mistake. The impact you have on your child’s life should never be underestimated. – Mark J Musser

Parents of newborn babies are basically hostages in their own houses with a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome. -Nate Smith

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. – Mitch Albom

Parents should model a lifestyle that doesn’t foster an angry environment in the home because this helps the kids understand how to best control themselves in various situations. – Dianne Kane

Parents usually have a wider perspective on life than their children, giving them the ability to make wiser decisions. – Joann Richardson

Parents with their words, attitudes, and actions possess the ability to bless or curse the identities of their children. – Craig Hill

People don’t want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. – Nick Harkaway

Perfection is not what our kids want or need. It’s expected that you won’t have all the answers, won’t always make the right decision, but you have to be there and show that you care. – Tony Dungy

Perhaps it takes courage to raise children. – John Steinbeck

Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning. – Mr. Rogers

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. – Fred Rogers

Play is the work of childhood. – Jean Piaget

Playing together in nature is as much about us as it is about the child. Children get to celebrate and be themselves, while we are reminded of our inner child – the essence of who we are. – Nicolette Sowder

Please pray for my brother so he will be an intelligent boy. – Unknown

Please pray for my mother to have more strength and energy so she can sell her stinking fish. – Unknown

Poverty is a very complicated issue, but feeding a child isn’t. – Jeff Bridges

Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Raising a daughter is like growing a flower. You give it your best. If you’ve done your job well, she blooms. And after that, she leaves. – Unknown

Raising children is one of the most important jobs you will ever have. – Catherine Pulsifer

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift. – Kate DiCamillo

Relationships mold us into who we are as children, teenagers, and adults. Each phase of life bring changes in the relationships of those around us. – Cindy Hyde

Remember kids are living life, not simply preparing for it. – Chrisman Franck

Safety and security don’t just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear. – Nelson Mandela

Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child. – Ron Wild

Sensible children bring joy to their father; foolish children despise their mother. – Proverbs 15:20

Seven things every child needs to hear: I love you, I’m proud of you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, I’m listening, This is your responsibility, You have what it takes. – Josh Shipp

Sometimes the littlest things take up the most room in your heart. – Winnie the Pooh

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. – Dr. Seuss

Sons are the anchors of a mother’s life. – Sophocles

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. – Proverbs 22:6

Stories are like children. They grow in their own way. – Madeleine L’Engle

Studies of young children show clearly that parents’ style of child-rearing during the first three or four years determines the amount of self-esteem a child starts with. – Matthew McKay; Patrick Fanning

Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting. – Richard Paul Evans

Take children seriously… they can teach you so much. – Melissa Jean

Teach children to be kind to everything that lives. – Unknown

Teach values through action and compassion through love. – Unknown

Teach your children they’re unique. That way, they won’t feel pressured to be like everybody else. – Cindy Cashman

Teach your children to accept their weaknesses along with their strengths. – Sal Severe, Ph.D.

Teach your children to always look for the little miracles of life in their everyday experiences. – Marianne Clyde

Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives. – Thomas Berry

Teaching is not about answering questions but about raising questions – opening doors for them in places they could not imagine. – Yawar Baig

That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored. – Ivan Turgenev

The amazing thing about kids is that they just don’t give a fuck. – Scott Melker

The bedtime routine for my kids is like this Royal Coronation Jubilee Centennial of rinsing and plaque and dental appliances and the stuffed animal semi-circle of emotional support. And I’ve gotta read eight different moron books. You know what my bedtime story was when I was a kid? Darkness! – Jerry Seinfeld

The best education does not happen at a desk, but rather engaged in everyday living — hands on, exploring, in active relationship with life. – Vince Gowman

The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day. – Orlando Aloysius Battista

The best thing to spend on your children is your time. – Louise Hart

The best way to make children good is to make them happy. – Oscar Wilde

The challenge with learning to parent on the job is that your child is the always the teacher. – Pedro Carvalho

The child is the beauty of God present in the world, that greatest gift to a family. – Mother Theresa

The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasnt been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him. – Pablo Casals

The children bring us laughter, and the children bring us tears; they string our joys, like jewels bright, upon the thread of years; they bring the bitterest cares we know, their mothers’ sharpest pain, then smile our world to loveliness, like sunshine after rain. – Edgar A Guest

The creator in you is the child set free. – Vince Gowmon

The Earth needs more of her children to take their rightful position as her keepers. – Brian M. Heater

The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different – to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses. – John Fischer

The final stage of wisdom is becoming a kid again. – Maxime Lagacé

The first half of our lives is spoiled by our parents, and the last half by our children. – Jennifer James

The first happiness of a child is to know that he is loved. – Don Bosco

The first years of life are not just important; they are more crucial to shaping children than any other time. Even before they speak, children are extremely sensitive to the messages adults send them. – Hillary Rodham Clinton

The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving. – Polly Berrien Berends

The greatest gift that parents can give to their children is to let them see how much their parents love each other. – Marko Petkovic

The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence. – Denis Waitley

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith. – Billy Graham

The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’ – Maria Montessori

The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil. – Walt Disney

The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. – Francis Bacon

The magic, the wonder, the mystery and the innocence of a child’s heart are the seeds of creativity that will heal the world. – Michael Jackson

The more in touch with feelings and the better able a child is to understand and get along with others, the sunnier that child’s future, whatever his or her academic IQ. – John Gottman

The most effective form of birth control I know is spending the day with my kids. – Jill Bensley

The most important seed I can sow in this life is my children, and the love and knowledge that I can bestow upon them and the help I can give them. – Steven Seagal

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. – Theodore Hesburgh

The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them. – Frank A. Clark

The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom. – Henry Ward Beecher

The one lost child matters to the Lord. – Danielle Strickland

The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children. – Karl Lagerfeld

The optimum number of children in a family, the number that’s most likely to ensure that your family is a happy one, is the number of children you have right now. That’s because what matters most in terms of family harmony and happiness – so much so that it swamps all other factors – is your attitude to the family you have. – Linda Blair

The potential possibilities of any child are the most intriguing and stimulating in all creation. – Ray L. Wilbur

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain, children, all our lives. – Albert Einstein

The race of children possesses magically sagacious powers. – Gail Godwin

The real magic wand is the child’s own mind. – Jose Ortega y Gasset

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age. – Aldous Huxley

The sky lovingly smiles on the earth and her children. – Henry Morton Stanley

The soul is healed by being with children. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

The urge to draw must be quite deep within us, because children love to do it. – David Hockney

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults. – Peter De Vries

The visions we offer our children shape the future. – Carl Sagan

The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice. – Peggy O’Mara

The world is a wide place where we stumble like children learning to walk. The world is a bright mosaic where we learn like children to see, where our little blurry eyes strive greedily to take in as much light and love and color and detail as they can. – Jay Woodman

There are a host of children who can use the mature guidance of an adult who really cares about their mental and physical development. In many cases, these children may not have suitable role models and simply by showing, or behaving in appropriate ways over time, they will learn what it means to act the same way. – Catherine Pulsifer

There are certain things that my mother would do for my children that I know for a fact she did not do for me when I was younger, but a lot of times, those grandparents will identify areas in their life where they may have missed the mark. – Marita Kinney

There are many ways that you can incorporate child time and chores together so to get the work done and spend meaningful time with your children simultaneously. – Manidipa Bhattacharyya

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. – Walt Streightiff

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other, wings. – Hodding Carter

There are three things that a child can teach an adult: To be happy for no reason; to be always busy doing something; And to know how to demand – with all one’s might – what one wants. – Paulo Coelho

There are two great injustices that can befall a child. One is to punish him for something he didn’t do. The other is to let him get away with doing something he knows is wrong. – Robert Gardner

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. – Nelson Mandela

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student. – Marva Collins

There is a fine line between spoiling your children by giving them too much attention, neglecting your children’s behavior, and raising a child who has a well-adjusted childhood. – J.J. Hartley

There is a wisdom in children, a kind of knowing, a kind of believing, that we, as adults, do not have. There is a time when a kingdom needs its children. – Adam Gidwitz

There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child. – Henry Ward Beecher

There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone. – Mark Lawrence

There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one. – Sue Atkins

There is nothing that moves a loving father’s soul quite like his child’s cry. – Joni Eareckson Tada

There will always be some curve balls in your life. Teach your children to thrive in that adversity. – Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe

There’s also the problem of children having a lot of possessions, even if they did not work hard to get most of them. This habit prevents them from experiencing the joy of achieving their goals. – Lewis Shafer

There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes. – Dr. Who

There’s nothing more contagious than the laughter of young children; it doesn’t even have to matter what they’re laughing about. – Criss Jami

Things can get overwhelming with children, and sometimes one of the best ways you can be a great grandmother is to help out. – Deborah Williams, Linda A. Johnson

Those little feet won’t be little forever. – Ashlee Edens

Time is the most important thing with kids. But it has to be good time. – Howard Dean

To be able to watch your children’s children grow up is truly a blessing from above. – Byron Pulsifer

To every child—I dream of a world where you can laugh, dance, sing, learn, live in peace and be happy. – Malala Yousafzai

To me, there is no picture so beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and ringing laughter. – PT Barnum

To my children, I will say, ‘Fill your skin with kindness and find solace in your solitude. It takes bravery to be kind. But to be brave you will need to know how to stand for something even if you are completely alone. – Nikita Gill

To raise a nature-bonded child is to raise a rebel, a dreamer, an innovator… someone who will walk their own verdant, winding path. – Nicolette Sowder

Today our children are our reflection. Tomorrow they will be our shadows. – Maralee McKee

Today’s children are growing up in a new reality, one where they are attuning more to machines and less to people than has ever been true in human history. – Daniel Goleman

Toddler judgment is horrible. They don’t have any. Put a -month-old on a bed, and they will immediately try and crawl off headfirst like a lemming on a mindless migration mission. But the toddler mission is never mindless. They have two goals: find poison and find something to destroy. – Jim Gaffigan

Too much love never spoils children. Children become spoiled when we substitute presents for presence. – Anthony Witham

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. – Roger Lewin

Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is. – Yoda

Two kids are easier than one because they play together. When you have one, you have to be the show. When you’ve got two, you’re just an usher. ‘Right this way ladies!’ They can play in the park while you’re reading the paper. ‘Hey, hey, hey! Get off her hair!’ Then you go back to reading … One kid is horrible. Have a bunch of kids or have none at all. – Chris Rock

Two kids is more than two. You have to think about it algebraically. If you have one and he’s napping, you’re fine. But when one’s napping and the other one needs constant stimulation, that’s rough. – Dana Carvey

Two people make a child together and the love of both toward that child will be almost always unconditional. – S. Levine

Unless we can be like children, we can’t be happy. – Marianne Williamson

Watch what you say and do because little eyes are watching you. – Reba McEntire

We aren’t alone, and even in our quest on this earth, we have others who are on their way, that have to inherit whatever we have made of our world. Our children suffer the consequences of our actions, not us. – Adedamola Akanbi

We aren’t perfect people, but with the grace God supplies, we’re doing our best to raise our children in an atmosphere that is heavily seasoned with grace, mercy, compassion, structure, wisdom and love that we believe find their source in Christ. – John Stange

We can measure many things, but the time that families and communities invest in children is invaluable. Giving kids a sense of fitting in, of feeling good about themselves, and giving them the opportunities to succeed and fail will really prepare kids of life ahead. – David DeNotaris

We can’t control everything our kids do. – Roseanne Barr

We carry our childhood with us. – Gary D. Schmidt

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our children. – American Proverb

We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. – Lester Brown

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We gotta start teaching our daughters to be somebodies instead of somebody’s. – Kifah Shah

We love our children more than anything, and from the moment they are born, it is our instinct – and our privilege – to protect and teach them. – Alan D. Wolfelt

We must all work to make this world worthy of its children. – Pablo Casals

We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open. – Harry Edwards

We must teach our children to smell the earth, to taste the rain, to touch the wind, to see things grow, to hear the sun rise and night fall—to care. – John Cleal

We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves. – Henry Ward Beecher

We should all be inspired by children: they don’t care about fear and mistakes. – Maxime Lagacé

We should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. – Brigham Young

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. – Stacia Tauscher

Wealth and children are the adornments of life. – The Holy Quran

We’re all five-year-olds. We don’t know how to do this thing called life. Are you faking it? – Byron Katie

What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give. – P.D. James

What do parents owe their young that is more important than a warm and trusting connection to the Earth…? – Theodore Roszak

What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter? – Rose Kennedy

What is a home without children? Quiet. – Henny Youngman

What it’s like to be a parent: It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do but in exchange, it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love. – Nicholas Sparks

What we instill in our children will be the foundation upon which they build their future. – Steve Maracoli

When a child gives you a gift, even if it’s a rock they just picked up, exude gratitude. It may be the only thing they have to give, and they have chosen to give it to you. – Dean Jackson

When children play in natural spaces, they’re far more likely to invent their own games than in more structured settings — a key factor in becoming self-directed and inventive adults later in life. – Richard Louv

When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero. – Mr. Rogers

When I am out in public with my kids and I pass another father pushing a stroller, we will automatically exchange a look, a nod, a recognition of the fatherhood bond. – Etan Thomas

When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments – tenderness for what he is and respect for what he may become. – Louis Pasteur

When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter. – Seth Godin

When kids hit 1 year old, it’s like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit. – Johnny Depp

When little people are scared of something in nature, its our job to hold their hand and show them its beauty and purpose. – Penny Whitehouse

When my children were newborns, my life was virtually consumed with caring for each beautiful treasure – I was living for another. My waking, my sleeping, my eating, my energies, and my tasks were almost completely devoted to the life of this new bundle of awesome life. – Sarah Bowling

When teaching your kids about the concept of respect, teach them of their worth as a person. – Claire Stranberg

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. – Sophia Loren

When you have brought up kids, there are memories you store directly in your tear ducts. – Robert Brault

When you sponsor a child, you really are changing somebody else’s life for the better. – Bastiaan Blikman; Chantalle Blikman

While all the other kids were out playing in the summer evenings, I had to be in bed at six-thirty. They did that to discipline me, but for me it was the wrong way to bring up a child. It gave me a feeling of frustration and of reaching-out-and-trying-to-please. I found the quickest and easiest way to do that was to make people laugh. I suppose you could say it led to my wanting to be an actress. – Lucille Ball

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. – Angela Schwindt

Why try to explain miracle to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden. – Robery Brault

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. – Lewis Carroll

Women make us poets, children make us philosophers. – Malcolm de Chazal

Words are not enough to express the unconditional love that exists between a mother and a daughter. – Caitlin Houston

Yes, Christmas is for children – except that children grow up to be adults who just might love Christmas as much as they did in their younger years. – Cherie Lowe

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. – 1 John 4:4

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. – Kahlil Gibran

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. – Franklin P. Jones

You can’t make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn’t made them wish they had. – Marshall B. Rosenberg

You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have. – Jim Rohn

You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes. – Wally Schirra

You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the only way. – Barbara Bush

You know who’s going to build that better world? It’s the youth. Children will do things that are now considered impossible. – Kacey McCallister

You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going. – P. J. O’Rourke

You may speak but a word to a child, and in that child there may be slumbering a noble heart which shall stir the Christian Church in years to come. – Charles Spurgeon

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. – George W. Bush

You want to know what it’s like having a fourth kid? Imagine you’re drowning, then someone hands you a baby. – Jim Gaffigan

You will always be your child’s favorite toy. – Unknown

You’re only as happy as your least happy child. – Joe Paterno

Your children are here to take you away from your own self. – Naval Ravikant

Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. – Lisa Wingate

Your children are with you for such a short time. Take every opportunity to be happy so that you can savor the moments. – Judy Ford

Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They’re its finest fruits. – Anna Quindlen

Your children need your presence more than your presents. – Jesse Jackson

Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say. – Wayne Dyer

Your kids must learn early on the importance of cleaning up after themselves and caring for the environment. – Melissa Arabia-Dimaiwat

Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them. – Bill Ayers

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. – George Bernard Shaw

You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. – A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin

‎When you are really mature, you will again become childlike. Then your life will again become fun. You will enjoy it, every bit of it you will not be serious. A deep laughter will spread all over your life. It will be more like a dance and less like business. – Osho

Children Happy Group Friends Brothers Smile

Happy children

Children Quote From Wikiquotes

  • The perpetuation of the human family is one of God’s purposes for human sexuality (Gen 1:28). Though it may be inferred that marriages are generally intended to yield offspring, Scripture never presents procreation as an obligation of every couple in order to please God. However, divine revelation places a high value on children and expresses the joy to be found in parenting (Matt 19:14; Ps 127:3). Bearing and rearing children help parents to understand God and to develop compassion, caring, humility, and unselfishness (Ps 103:13; Luke 11:13).
    • ”Is It All Right for Christians to Use Contraceptives?”, ‘’Adventist.org’’, (July 26, 1994)
  • Shield children from everything false; guard them against worthless music; protect them from obscenity; protect them from false competitions; protect them from affirmation of selfhood. The more so, since it is necessary to inculcate a love for incessant learning. The muscles must not gain the upper hand over mind and heart.
    • Agni Yoga, New Era Community, 116. (1926)
  • All children, except one, grow up.
    • J.M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy (1911), Ch. 1.
  • Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
    • L. Frank Baum, Introduction to The Lost Princess of Oz (1917).
  • Not a day passes, but I get a letter from a child. They come sometimes singly, sometimes in batches of 50 or 100. Entire classes, where school teachers have read my stories, have written to me. I answer every one personally. When I was a child I know how, if I had received a real letter from an author whose book I’d read, I would have been the happiest boy alive. And if I am to do any good in this world my highest ambition will be to make children happy.
    • L. Frank Baum [1]
  • The children also will frequently tell me ─ for instance, on television, I have to listen to it with my own children occasionally and I am aghast, / “My God, how can you stand such things, children?” / They say, “Mom, don’t you know it is only television, it is not real.” / In my opinion it is the same thing about these comics.
  • I would expose children to these comics an [sic.] see what the result was. / Now, if you want to ask me what I think the result would be I think it would be minimal. I think that many of the children would be bored with them, I think that many of the children would refuse to read them and the more sophisticated would say, “So what, I have seen stuff like that before.” / Mr. BEASER. But you do not actually know, Doctor? / The CHAIRMAN. You are talking about normal children, though? / Dr. BENDER. There is no such thing as a normal child. / The CHAIRMAN. There is not? / Dr. BENDER. No. / The CHAIRMAN. That is your medical opinion? / Dr. BENDER. That is my medical opinion.
  • Lauretta Bender, Date unknown.
  • Every age and degree of understanding should have its proper measure of discipline. With regard to boys and adolescents, therefore, or those who cannot understand the seriousness of the penalty of excommunication, whenever such as these are delinquent let them be subjected to severe fasts or brought to terms by harsh beatings, that they may be cured.
    • Benedict of Nursia Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 30: How Boys Are to Be Corrected
  • Love for children is perhaps the most intense love; for it knows that it has nothing to hope for.
    • Werner Bergengruen, Dichtergehäuse (Zurich-Munich, 1966), p. 40.
  • Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves… Aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all things, unselfish.”
    • H. P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy p. 251/52 (1889)
  • Monday’s child is fair in face,
    Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
    Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
    Thursday’s child has far to go,
    Friday’s child is loving and giving,
    Saturday’s child works hard for its living;
    And a child that’s born on a Christmas day,
    Is fair and wise, good and gay.

    • Anonymous; reported in Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire (1838), by Anna E. K. S. Bray, vol. 2, pp. 287–88. In some versions, “the Sabbath day” is substituted for “a Christmas day”. For further information and other alternative wordings, see Monday’s Child.
  • The first duty towards children is to make them happy. If you have not made them so, you have wronged them. No other good they may get can make up for that.
    • Charles Buxton, Notes of Thought (1883). London: John Murray, p. 147.
  • Scripture points out this difference between believers and unbelievers; the latter, as old slaves of their incurable perversity, cannot endure the rod; but the former, like children of noble birth, profit by repentance and correction.
    • John Calvin Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life, pg. 57
  • That they may not become too complacent or delighted in married life, he makes them distressed by the shortcomings of their partners, or humbles them through willful offspring, or afflicts them with the want or loss of children. But, if in all these matters he is more merciful to them, he shows them by diseases and dangers how unstable and passing all mortal blessings are, that they may not be puffed up with vain glory.
    • John Calvin Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life, pg. 69
  • A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The “supreme gift of marriage” is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.”
    • “Catechism of the Catholic Church 2nd Edition, Paragraph 2378, Vatican. Archived from the original on March 4, 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
  • [T]o produce children without regard to consequences is to use procreative power irresponsibly, the more so when there is involved the imposition of one partner’s will upon the other.
    • Church of England, “The Family in Contemporary Society”, London 1958, p. 15
  • Look! Sons are an inheritance from Jehovah; the fruitage of the belly is a reward.
    • David, Psalms 127:3, NWT
  • Over at our place, we’re sure of just one thing: everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don’t think of grown-ups, and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall.
    • Walt Disney Recorded statement (1938) used in The Pixar Story (2008)
  • Nothing matters more to a child than a place to call home.
    • Brenda Donald, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Human Resources, “Brenda Donald: Mission possible for Maryland: 1,000 new foster parents by 2010”, Examiner.com (5 February 2008).
  • The Bible sees children as a great blessing. Thus, when God blesses Abraham, the blessing is for the land of Israel and children, and that blessing is repeated to Isaac and Jacob. Infertility, on the other hand, is portrayed as a curse that affects all of the patriarchs and matriarchs, at least for a time. It is the source of both anxiety and tension for a couple, as articulated perhaps most graphically in the testy exchange between Jacob and Rachel, when Jacob has had children with Leah but not with Rachel: “Rachel said to Jacob, ‘Give me children or I shall die.’ Jacob was incensed at Rachel and said, ‘Can I take the place of God, who has denied you fruit of the womb?”
    Having children not only obeys the Torah’s first command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” but also increased adults’ maturity. The Rabbis recognized this in a very interesting ruling, according to which only people with children of their own were eligible to serve as judges in capital cases. Only such people, the Rabbis seem to be saying, can know the true value of life – both the life of the alleged perpetrator and the life of the victim.

    • Elliot N Dorff, “Moses, the prophets, and the Rabbis”, and Family Law: An Introduction”, edited by John Witte, Jr, Gary S. Hauk, (2017), Cambridge University, “Children”, p.30
  • Even though fathers had considerable duties with regard to their children, and children has significant duties with regard to their parents as well, there were limits to what parents could expect of their children. Parents were not allowed to have sexual relations with their children or grandchildren. Some biblical sources allow and even encourage parents to strike their children when they misbehave, as part of the parent’s duties to educate their children while other urge parents to “Educate the child according to his ways.” The debate in Jewish sources about parents hitting children has continued through the Middle Ages to our own time. The Talmud, though, says this: “If you must strike a child, hit him/her with the sting of a shoe,” and the bulk of the Jewish tradition has against hitting children to discipline them.
    • Elliot N Dorff, “Moses, the prophets, and the Rabbis”, and Family Law: An Introduction”, edited by John Witte, Jr, Gary S. Hauk, (2017), Cambridge University, “Children”, p.33
  • Sometimes, you have to take a risk to give your kids what you want to give them.
    • Noel Edmonds, from the gameshow, Deal or no Deal, (5 November 2008).
  • In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child’s.
    • George Eliot, Silas Marner (Chapter 14, 1861).
  • If a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant … If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed … If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
    • Exodus 21:7-10
  • Our American children are for the most part normal children. They are bright children, but those who want to prohibit comic magazines seem to see dirty, sneaky, perverted monsters who use the comics as a blueprint for action. Perverted little monsters are few and far between. They don’t read comics. The chances are most of them are in schools for retarded children.
    What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of our own children? Do we forget that they are citizens, too, and entitled to select what to read or do? Do we think our children are so evil, so simple minded, that it takes a story of murder to set them to murder, a story of robbery to set them to robbery? Jimmy Walker once remarked that he never knew a girl to be ruined by a book. Nobody has ever been ruined by a comic.”
    As has already been pointed out by previous testimony, a little healthy, normal child has never been made worse for reading comic magazines. The basic personality of a child is established before he reaches the age of comic-book reading. I don’t believe anything that has ever been written can make a child overaggressive or delinquent. The roots of such characteristics are much deeper. The truth is that delinquency is the product of real environment, in which the child lives and not of the fiction he reads.
    There are many problems that reach our children today. They are tied up with insecurity. No pill can cure them. No law will legislate them out of being. The problems are economic and social and they are complex. Our people need understanding; they need to have affection, decent homes, decent food.

    • William Gaines, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, (April 22, 1954)
  • In ancient Roman law, children were considered the property of the father. After seeing his newborn children, a father could choose not to accept them, in which case they were “exposed”–literally left outside, to die or to be taken in by a compassionate stranger. If a stranger chose to, he or she could rescue and take in a child abandoned this way (the stoic philosopher Epictetus did this); but the choice of life or death lay with the father of the house. Female infants were the most frequent victims of this practice.
    In contrast to this, children were usually important in the New Testament: they are brought forward to Jesus, for his blessing; and John the Forerunner “leaps” in Elizabeth’s womb at Mary’s greeting.

    • Fr. John Garvey, “Orthodox Christians and Abortion”
  • As I traveled, talking about these issues, I met so many young people who had lost hope. Some were depressed; some were apathetic; some were angry and violent. And when I talked to them, they all more or less felt this way because we had compromised their future and the world of tomorrow was not going to sustain their great-grandchildren.
    • Jane Goodall “Then & Now: Jane Goodall”, CNN (June 19, 2005)
  • An unrestrained production of children without realistic regard to God-given responsibilities involved in bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord may be as sinful and as selfish an indulgence of the lusts of the flesh as is the complete avoidance of parenthood.
    • Dr Gustafson, President of the New York Conference of the Augustana Lutheran Church, The New York Times, Friday, July 25, 1958; as quoted in “Christian Opinion-Other Than Roman Catholic”, pp.71-72
  • I examined what Scripture had to say about children. The witness of the Word was overwhelming! Every verse that spoke about children spoke of them as only and always a blessing (Ps 127; 128). There was no proverb that cautioned about the expenses of a child outweighing his worth. There was no blessing pronounced over the man or woman who had perfect spacing between children, or the couple who had the right number of childless years before shouldering the burden of children, or the husband and wife who had planned each conception. These were thoughts I had learned from the media, my public school and my neighborhood, but they bad no foundation in the Word of God.
    Fertility, in Scripture, was presented as something to be prized and celebrated rather than as a disease to be avoided at all costs. And though I could find no verse speaking negatively about people with small families, there was no question that larger families showed an outpouring of greater favor from God, according to a variety of passages. God was the One who opened and closed the womb, and, when he gave life, it was seen only as a blessing. After all, God’s desire from faithful marriages was “godly offspring” (Mal 2:15). Children were described as “arrows in the hand of a warrior . . . blessed is the man whose quiver is full..” Who would go into battle with only two or three arrows when he could go with a whole quiver-full?!

    • Scott Hahn, Kimberly Hahn.
  • Christians are trained to received and welcome children into the world. They represent a continuing commitment to live as a historic people. The vocation of marriage derives its intelligibility from a couple’s willingness to be open to new life. It is a test of the validity of a marriage union and love, that the union is open to creation of another. The Christian prohibition of abortion is the negative side of the positive commitment to welcome new life into their community. For Christians there can be no question of the fetus being a human being. The fetus is nothing less than God’s continuing creation that is destined in hope to be another citizen of his kingdom. The Christian hope is that life will and does continue to begin time after time. The role of being a parent, even for the childless, is a responsibility shared by everyone in the Christian community. From the world’s perspective, children are a drain on our material and psychological resources. From the Christian perspective, there is no more profound political act than taking the time for children. It is an indication that God, not man, rules this existence. Christians should be concerned about developing forms of care and support for children, the absence of which makes abortion such a necessity. The woman pregnant and carrying the child need not be the one to raise it. Christians must be ready to receive and care for any child.
    • S Hauerwas, “Abortion: why the arguments fail”. Hosp Prog. 1980 Jan;61(1):38-49.
  • Losing a parent or caregiver in childhood is a significant trauma. The study notes that this type of adverse childhood experience “may result in profound long-term impact on health and well-being for children.”
    “Adverse childhood experiences are associated with increased risks of every major cause of death in adulthood,” says Hillis.

    • Susan Hillis as quoted in “COVID deaths leave thou-sands of U.S. kids grieving parents or primary caregivers”, by Rhitu Chatterjee, Carmel Wroth; “Morning Edition”, NPR, (October 7, 2021)
  • It is terrible, absolutely mindless, … Hundreds of children die every minute. But instead of giving them the basics of life we spend more than a million dollars a minute on arms. And all we buy is more and more insecurity, more and more instability.
    • George Ignatieff, former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and NATO. Cited in Awake! magazine, 9/22, 1984.
  • It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for in real life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with the prints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written for grown-up people are kept almost clear of them.
    • Jean Ingelow, in her Preface to the American edition of Fated to be Free.
  • And all your sons will be persons taught by Jehovah, and the peace of your sons will be abundant.
    • Isaiah, Isaiah 54:13, NWT
  • People now began bringing him young children for him to touch them, but the disciples reprimanded them. At seeing this, Jesus was indignant and said to them: “Let the young children come to me; do not try to stop them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such ones. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a young child will by no means enter into it.” And he took the children into his arms and began blessing them, laying his hands on them.
    • Mark 10: 13-16 (NWT).
  • The old law had a different ideal of blessedness, for therein it is said: Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and a family in Jerusalem: and Cursed is the barren who bears not: and Your children shall be like olive-plants round about your table. Riches too are promised to the faithful and we are told that there was not one feeble person among their tribes. But now even to eunuchs it is said, Say not, behold I am a dry tree, Isaiah 56:3 for instead of sons and daughters you have a place forever in heaven. Now the poor are blessed, now Lazarus is set before Dives in his purple. Now he who is weak is counted strong. But in those days the world was still unpeopled: accordingly, to pass over instances of childlessness meant only to serve as types, those only were considered happy who could boast of children. It was for this reason that Abraham in his old age married Keturah; Genesis 25:1 that Leah hired Jacob with her son’s mandrakes, Genesis 30:14-16 and that fair Rachel— a type of the church — complained of the closing of her womb. Genesis 30:1-2 But gradually the crop grew up and then the reaper was sent forth with his sickle.
    • Jerome, Letter 22, p.21; as qtd. in “CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 22 (Jerome)”, ‘’New Advent’’, translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
  • Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea…Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
    • Jesus, Matthew 18:3-20 (KJV).
  • If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
    • Carl Jung, The Integration of the Personality (1939)
  • If you could meet your grandkids as elderly citizens in the year 2100 … you would view them as being, basically, Greek gods… that’s where we’re headed.
    • Michio Kaku “Captain Michio and the World of Tomorrow” in The Wall Street Journal (9 March 2012)
  • The children wear military uniforms and become used to handling the anti-aircraft artillery flak guns. Fifteen and sixteen-year-old children as warriors! If the war still continues to last for a long time, perhaps the babies will also be employed. Total war!!
    • Friedrich Kellner, My Opposition, 1943.
  • Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.
    • John F. Kennedy, Re: United States Committee for UNICEF July 25, 1963,” Box 11, President’s Outgoing Executive Correspondence Series, White House Central Chronological File, Presidential Papers, Papers of John F. Kennedy.
  • Put a child in a den of thieves (but the child must not remain there so long that it is corrupted itself); that is, let it remain there only for a brief time. Then let it come home and tell everything it has experienced. You will note that the child, who is a good observer and has an excellent memory (as does every child), will tell everything in the greatest detail, yet in such a way that in a certain sense the important is omitted. Therefore someone who does not know that the child has been among thieves would least suspect it on the basis of the child’s story. What is it, then, that the child leaves out, what is it that the child has not discovered? It is the evil. Yet the child’s story about what it has seen and heard is entirely accurate. What then does the child lack? What is it that so often makes a child’s story the most profound mockery of the adults? It is knowledge of evil, that the child lacks knowledge of evil, that the child does not even feel inclined to want to be knowledgeable about evil.
    • Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love 1847 Hong 1995 p. 285-286
  • The Negro constitutes half the poor of the nation. Like all poor, Negro and white, they have many unwanted children. This is a cruel evil they urgently need to control. There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child. There is nothing inherent in the Negro mentality which creates this condition. Their poverty causes it. When Negroes have been able to ascend economically, statistics reveal they plan their families with even greater care than whites. Negroes of higher economic and educational status actually have fewer children than white families in the same circumstances.
    • Martin Luther King Jr., Family Planning – A Special and Urgent Concern
  • All I know is Nanhoï’s love. My son is my life. I believe in the magic of this love. He is the embodiment of life to me. The embodiment of beauty. Through him I’ll find redemption and salvation. Then the wound in my soul – the wound I thought would never scar over – will stop bleeding.
    • Klaus Kinski, Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 316.
  • Every child, at birth, is the Universal Man. But, as it grows, we turn it into “a petty man.” It should be the function of education to turn it again into the original “Universal Man.”
    The child which by birth was the universal man is fettered by us with such constraints as country, language, religion, caste, race and colour. To free it from all these limitations and transform it into “the enlightened soul”, that is to say, the universal man, — this should become the first and foremost function of our education, culture, civilization, and what not.

    • Kuvempu, Vishwa-Manava [translated as “Universal Man”, “Universal Humanity”, or “The Universal Man”], as quoted in Epic in Indian Literature (1985) by Harōgadde Mānappa Nāyaka, p. xix; also in Interdisciplinary Alter-natives in Comparative Literature (2013), edited by E. V. Ramakrishnan, Harish Trivedi, and Chandra Mohan, p. 71
    • Variant translations:
    • Every child is a Universal Man at birth. We reduce him into a “Little Man” as he grows up. The duty of education should be to make him “The Universal Man” once again.
      • As quoted in Life and Literature of Sri Kuvempu 26:42
    • Every child, at birth, is the universal man. But, as it grows, we turn it into a “petty man” (through caste, creed, religion and race). It should be the function of education to turn it into the original “universal man”.
      • As quoted in “‘Vishwamanava Express’, and story behind the name”, Deccan Herald (27 May 2017)
  • C’est l’honneur de l’homme de retrouver dans ses enfants l’ingratitude qu’il eut pour ses pères, et de finir ainsi, comme Dieu, par un sentiment désintéressé.
    • Translation: It is the honor of man to find again in his children the ingratitude which he showed towards his own parents, and thus to conclude, like God, by a disinterested sentiment.
      • Henri Lacordaire, “Trente-neuvième Conférence: De l’établissement du regne de Jésus-Christ” (1846), Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris, Tome III (Paris: Libraire Ch. Poussielgue, 1893), p. 73.
        • Paraphrased variant: “It is an honor for you to find again in your children the same ingratitude you showed toward your own fathers and thus attain to the perfection of loving, like God, without self-interest.” In Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), p. 255.
  • A child born today in the United Kingdom stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than to a university … This can be taken as an indication that we are driving our children mad more effectively than we are genuinely educating them. Perhaps it is our way of educating them that is driving them mad.
    • R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (1967).
  • “God gave this blessing to the human race as a whole. He does not give it to everyone. Some couples are barren, and their earnest prayers for children are not fulfilled. Others, like the apostle Paul, are called to life without marriage.
    • Raymond C. Van Leeuwen
  • If Genesis 1:28 were a ‘command’ that applied to every individual, then Paul would have been disobedient in his apostolic singleness. Paul and everyone else would be obligated to pursue marriage and to order their marriages to produce many descendants.
    • Raymond C. Van Leeuwen
  • I am certain that children always know more than they are able to tell, and that makes the big difference between them and adults, who, at best, know only a fraction of what they say. The reason is simply that children know everything with their whole beings, while we know it only with our heads.
    • Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II (1998) p. 7
  • We were all created to do as our parents have done, to beget and rear children. This is a duty which God has laid upon us, commanded, and implanted in us, as is proved by our bodily members, our daily emotions, and the example of all mankind.
    • Martin Luther, ‘’Exhortation to the Knights of the Teutonic Order’’
  • Sexual play was a regular practice among the children [of the Marquesas Islands] from the earliest period. The adult attitude toward it, if not one of active encouragement, was at least that of mild amusement. […] Regular intercourse began before puberty with patterns of group sexual play, two or three girls in the gang serving a number of boys in rapid succession with the other boys looking on. Occasionally there were individual affairs. Sexual techniques were learned through imitation of the adults. […] Homosexuality was present in the form of mutual masturbation, but I have no data as to its frequency. […] The gap between adults and children was such that it was impossible for an adult to win the child’s confidence. Relations between them were amiable but entirely dissociated.
    • Ralph Linton, 1925
  • The next day [in the Bay of Taiohaia, in one of the Sandwich Islands], as soon as it was light, we were surrounded by a still greater multitude of these people. There were now a hundred females at least; and they practised all the arts of lewd expression and gesture, to gain admission on board. It was with difficulty I could get my crew to obey the orders I had given on this subject. Amongst these females were some not more than ten years of age. But youth, it seems, is here no test of innocence; these infants, as I may call them, rivalled their mothers in the wantonness of their motions and the arts of allurement.
    • Yuri Lisyansky, 1804
  • The diligent rearing of children is the greatest service to the world, both in spiritual and temporal affairs, both for the present life and for posterity. Just as one turns young calves into strong cows and oxen, rears young colts to be brave stallions, and nurtures small tender shoots into great fruit breeding trees, so must we bring up our children to be knowing and courageous adults, who serve both land and people and both to prosper.
    • Justus Menius,
  • Children hallow small things. A child is a priest of the ordinary, fulfilling a sacred office that absolutely no one else can fill. The simplest gesture, the ephemeral movement, the commonest object all become precious beyond words when touched, noticed, lived by one’s own dear child.
    • Mike Mason
  • Children have rights that adults do not have, and these rights come before the rights of adults.
    • Janne Haaland Matlary, quoted in “Professor Puts Kids’ Rights First”, Zenit (23 March 2007). Archived at TrueGate
  • With the birth of each child you lose two novels.
    • Candia McWilliam, as quoted in The Guardian (5 May 1993).
  • The welfare of a child is not to be measured by money only, nor by physical comfort only.
    • Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley, L.J., In re McGrath (Infants), L. R. 1 C. D. (1893), p. 148; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 188.
  • There is something very cheerful and courageous in the setting out of a child on a journey of speech with so small baggage and with so much confidence.
    • Alice Meynell, The Children (London: John Lane, 1897), “Fellow Travellers with a Bird. II”, p. 17.
  • Play is not for every hour of the day, or for any hour taken at random. There is a tide in the affairs of children. Civilization is cruel in sending them to bed at the most stimulating time of dusk.
    • Alice Meynell, The Children (London: John Lane, 1897), “Under the Early Stars”, p. 44.
  • Children appeal to us by a variant of the quality of pathos.
    • Alice Meynell, Children of the Old Masters (Italian School) (London: Duckworth and Co., 1903), “Introductory Note”, p. 5
  • Children have a fastidiousness that time is slow to cure. It is to be wondered, for example, whether if the elderly were half as hungry as children are they would yet find so many things at table to be detestable.
    • Alice Meynell, Childhood (London: J. T. Batsford, 1913), “IX. Injustice”, p. 48.
  • Look around you. Everywhere. They are there. In every home — lurking in dark corners … small, bi-pedal entities with almost human brains play their games in which adults are the pawns. They play and wait for the time when they will take over the world!
    • John Blair Moore, Invaders from Home, Piranha Press, 1990, Book 1 of 6.
  • Many of my children have worked out well. And I’ve had very little to do with it. I think they come into the world, to a certain extent, pre-made, and you just sit there and watch. … It’s been simply amazing to me as a parent to see how much is preordained. The shy baby is the shy adult. The booming, obnoxious, domineering baby is the booming, obnoxious, domineering adult. I’ve never found a way to fix that. … I can be cheerful about it, but I can’t fix it.
    • Charlie Munger, (February 15, 2019)”Berkshire Hathaway VP Charlie Munger on investing”. CNBC Television, YouTube. (quote at 30:08 of 31:45)
  • A child is innately wise and realistic. If left to himself without adult suggestion of any kind, he will develop as far as he is capable of developing.
    • A. S. Neill, Summerhill (1960), Ch. 1.
  • A minority current of medieval theology put a value on multiplying the number of human souls. Its most prominent exponent was Duns Scotus. Putting forward the thesis that “to want to procreate children” is good or bad depending on the circumstances, Scotus constructs an argument that would seem to favor limitless procreation: “through the procreation of offspring the city of supernatural citizens is restored in human nature; and to this end, human nature, as multiplied, is per se ordained; for to this end the All Highest has disposed it according to faith, in order to repair the fall of the angels” (‘’On the Sentences [Paris Report] 4.28’’). Taken literally, this proposition would seem to be, the more offspring, the bigger the population of heaven. The theme appears in some preaching: procreation is “to repair the fall of Lucifer in heaven.” St. Bernardine speaks of marriage as divinely ordained “to fill paradise” (The Christian Religion 48.1.1).
    This view of the purpose of marriage received its strongest official approval in a papal bull promulgated by Eugene IV at the Council of Florence, November 22, 1439, celebrating the reunion with the schismatic Armenians. The bull, Exultate Deo, enumerated and briefly described the sacraments. It said, “Through order the Church is indeed governed and multiplied spiritually; through matrimony it is corporally increased” (Mansi 31:1054). The contrast with holy orders was obviously of a neat, schematic kind. The bull is the medieval high-water mark of the theory of population increase as a value.
    The majority of theologians did not accept this view. Typical is St. Thomas, who spoke of “the multiplication of offspring to be educated to the service of God” as a purpose for marriage only for the polygamous patriarchs of the Old Testament ( On the Sentences 4.33.1.2). Even among the minority, the emphasis on population was not made a direct objection to contraception. Nor did they press their view to the logical extreme of maintaining that the optimal endeavor would be to conceive as many children as possible provided that their baptism was assured. Against this logical extension stood the valuations put on virginity and on the welfare of the child. These factors, which checked even those theologians in favor of increasing the population of heaven, operated with still greater impact on the majority who remained unimpressed with this reason for procreation. Indeed, the stress laid on virginity and on the welfare of the child made is impossible for most thoughtful authors to urge that population as such was a value. An examination of the commitment to these counter value will show the strength of the forces working against the appeal to numbers for their own or heaven’s sake.

    • John T. Noonan, Jr., John Thomas Noonan, “Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists”, (1986), “Chapter X Counter Approaches”
  • Afghanistan is becoming the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The Food and Agricultural Organization said that 18.8 million Afghans are unable to feed themselves every day. This number is set to rise to nearly 23 million by the end of the year. Nearly nine million people are close to starvation. At least one million children under five with severe acute malnutrition and 2.2 million children under five with moderate acute malnutrition need malnutrition treatment services. However, starvation is not the only issue faced by children. As UNICEF warns “Afghanistan was already one of the toughest places on earth to be a child. Right now, the situation is desperate.” The situation deteriorates quickly as the country is on a brink of famine.
    Recent weeks have seen yet another trend: families selling their children, and mostly girls, so that families could buy food. In one of reported cases, a six-year-old girl and 18-month-old toddler were sold for $3,350 and $2,800 respectively. In another reporting, a 9-year-old girl was sold for about $2,200 in the form of sheep, land and cash. There are many more such stories.

    • Afghan Girls Being Exchanged For Food As Famine Nears, Ewelina U. Ochab, Forbes November 25, 2021
  • Today I would like to draw your attention to another basic aspect of conjugal love: its intrinsic openness to life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church stresses this when it points out that the spouses’ love “naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment (CCC, n.2366).
    • John Paul II (July 17, 1994). “Additional Meditation”. July 17, 1994, Meditation. Archived from the original on May 11, 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
  • But she didn’t laugh. “When you have children,” she said, staring at her glass, “you accept life. Do you accept life?”
    • Cesare Pavese, Among women only.
  • Late planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator Carl Sagan… once wrote that “there are three claims in the (parapsychology) field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study with the third being that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.” He wrote this in 1996. It’s now more than two decades later and the number of examples and evidence accumulated suggesting that reincarnation, or at least some form it, is real is quite eye-opening….Serious scientific study of reincarnation has spanned the last several decades. There are many interesting cases of children remembering details they could not have obtained from anywhere else. For example, a report published in 2016 in the journal Explore titled “The Case of James Leininger: An American Case of the Reincarnation Type” published by Jim B. Tucker, MD from the University of Virginia, explains, Numerous cases of young children who report memories of previous lives have been studied over the last 50 years. Though such cases are more easily found in cultures that have a general belief in reincarnation, they occur in the West as well.
    • Why Carl Sagan Believed “Reincarnation Deserves Serious Study”, Planet Today, December 15, 2021
  • Serious scientific study of reincarnation has spanned the last several decades. There are many interesting cases of children remembering details they could not have obtained from anywhere else. For example, a report published in 2016 in the journal Explore titled “The Case of James Leininger: An American Case of the Reincarnation Type” published by Jim B. Tucker, MD from the University of Virginia, explains, Numerous cases of young children who report memories of previous lives have been studied over the last 50 years. Though such cases are more easily found in cultures that have a general belief in reincarnation, they occur in the West as well.
    • Why Carl Sagan Believed “Reincarnation Deserves Serious Study”, Planet Today, December 15, 2021
  • Even if they (Children) try to pluck it,
    the flower submits itself onto their hands.
    If it happens to prick their heels,
    the thorn scorns itself all its life.

    • Suman Pokhrel, Children
  • The dream too thinks twice,
    gets filtered to go soft
    to be seated on children’s eyes.

    • Suman Pokhrel, Children
  • Once positioned on their(children’s) lips,
    even the scariest of words
    come out as a melodious lisp.

    • Suman Pokhrel, Children
  • I like desires like children
    and their plays
    that tease me now and then into
    knowing life.

    • Suman Pokhrel, Desire
  • “I thought you said people see what they expect to see.”
    Children don’t. Too often they see what’s there.

    • Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (1996), p. 59 (ISBN 978-0-06-105905-6)
  • Neither of you have a need for children in your present personalities. You are almost finished with incarnations on the earth, so much so that the physical bodies will return completely and unfragmented upon your physical death. This is always the case in the final earth life. The physical property is left behind, no portion of it being carried on that plane through children.
    • Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions: Book 1, Session 9, Page 46.
  • A close watch must be kept on the children, and they must never be left alone anywhere, whether they are in ill or good health. This constant supervision should be exercised gently and with a certain trustfulness calculated to make them think that one loves them, and that it is only to enjoy their company that one is with them. This will make them love their supervision rather than fear it.
    • Advice to Jesuit school ushers at Port Royal 1615; as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics, 1941-1948 pp. 99-100
  • A person’s lifeworm is a tangle of atomic worldlines. A braid. The dotty little atoms trace out smooth lines in spacetime: you are the pattern that these lines make up. There is no one single atom that is exclusively yours. I breathe an atom out, you breathe it in. Your garbage helps my tomatoes grow. And so the little spacetime threads weave us all together. The human race is a single vast tapestry, linked by our shared food and air. There are larger links as well: sperm, egg and umblilicus. Each family tree is an organic whole. Your spacetime body tapers back to the threads of mother’s egg and father’s sperm. And children, if you have them, are forever rooted in your flesh.
    • Rudy Rucker in The Sex Sphere, p. 108.
  • Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make poor choices just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess; this is part of life. When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.
    • Mary Ruwart. Short answers to the tough questions, ISBN 978-0963233653, 1998. As quoted at Can the Libertarians Go Mainstream?
  • My daughter, before she was sixteen, and especially before she was six, absolutely stunned me every day by the simple beauty and sweetness of her truth.
    • William Saroyan, Chance Meetings (1978)
  • And though she be but little, she is fierce.
    • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595 or 1596), spoken by Helena in act 3, scene 2, referring to her friend Hermia.
  • I believe the children are the future… Unless we stop them now!
    • Homer Simpson, in “The Wandering Juvie”, episode 16 of The Simpsons’ fifteenth season (aired March 28, 2004), written by John Frink & Don Payne.
  • Children are a battle of a different sort … A battle without banners or warhorns, but no less fierce … As hard as birth can be, what comes after is even harder.
    • Catelyn Stark, in A Clash of Kings (1999) by George R. R. Martin, Ch. Catelyn (VI)
  • Children are the keys of Paradise … They alone are good and wise, Because their thoughts, their very lives, are prayer.
    • Richard Henry Stoddard, Songs of Summer (1856), p. 113.
  • The fear that seeing naked people in some way harms children is not supported, however, by academic research. The small handful of studies on this topic in psychology and sociology have shown, instead, that children reared in an atmosphere containing family social nudity may benefit from the practice. If this is true, then proposed laws outlawing either social nudity in the home or children’s participation at naturist (or nudist) settings are unjustified.
    • Mark Storey in Children, Social Nudity and Scholarly Study.
  • Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.
    • Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (1973) Emotions.
  • Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
    • Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds (1916).
    • Paraphrased variants:
      • Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of humanity
      • The birth of a child, is God’s way of saying, life must go on.
  • I honestly don’t understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It’s silly. On TV, the children can watch people murdering each other, which is a very unnatural thing, but they can’t watch two people in the very natural process of making love. Now, really, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?
    • Sharon Tate as quoted in Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders (2000) by Greg King
  • Many children harbor hidden anger and resentment toward their parents and often the cause is inauthenticity in the relationship. The child has a deep longing for the parent to be there as a human being, not as a role, no matter how conscientiously that role is being played. you may be doing all the right things and the best you can for your child, but even doing the best you can is not enough.
    • Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
  • Children in particular find strong negative emotions too overwhelming to cope with and tend to try not to feel them. In the absence of a fully conscious adult who guides them with love and compassionate understanding into facing the emotion directly, choosing not to feel it is indeed the only option for the child at that time. Unfortunately, that early defense mechanism usually remains in place when the child becomes an adult.
    • Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
  • Children’s painbodies sometimes manifest as moodiness or withdrawal. The child becomes sullen, refuses to interact, and may sit in a corner, hugging a doll or sucking a thumb. They can also manifest as weeping fits or temper tantrums. The child screams, may throw him or herself on the floor, or become destructive. Thwarted wanting can easily trigger the painbody, and in a developing ego, the force of wanting can be intense. Parents may watch helplessly in incomprehension and disbelief as their little angel becomes transformed within a few seconds into a little monster.
    • Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
  • Highly sensitive children are particularly affected by their parents’ painbodies. Having to witness their parents’ insane drama causes almost unbearable emotional pain, and so it is often these sensitive children who grow into adults with heavy painbodies. Children are not fooled by parents who try to hide their painbody from them, who say to each other, “We mustn’t fight in front of the children.” This usually means while the parents make polite conversation, the home is pervaded with negative energy.
    • Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
  • While the child is having a painbody attack, there isn’t much you can do except to stay present so that you are not drawn into an emotional reaction. The child’s painbody would only feed on it. Painbodies can be extremely dramatic. Don’t buy into the drama. Don’t take it too seriously. If the painbody was triggered by thwarted wanting, don’t give in now to its demands. Otherwise, the child will learn: “The more unhappy I become, the more likely I am to get what I want.” This is a recipe for dysfunction in later life. The painbody will be frustrated by your nonreaction and may briefly act up even more before it subsides. Fortunately, painbody episodes in children are usually more shortlived than in adults.
    • Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
  • You’ll never know how I watched you
    From the shadows as a child
    You’ll never know how it feels to be the one
    Who’s left behind

    • Tina Turner GoldenEye theme
  • You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one.
    • P. L. Travers, as quoted in Sticks and Stones : The Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2002) by Jack Zipes.
  • So what if a kid dies? God will take care of him.
    • Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in April 2013, as quoted in “Boston Bombing Day 1: The Stunning Stop the Killers Made After the Attack” (18 April 2016), by Brian Ross, ABC News
  • If you really look at it, there’s no way your life could be more messed up than by having a child who can’t take care of themselves.
    • James D. Watson as quoted by Alan Boyle in: DNA pioneer James Watson’s genetic prescription: Have kids early. Science News, NBC News (27 September 2013).
  • I think there’s a lot of people out there who say we must not have horror in any form, we must not say scary things to children because it will make them evil and disturbed… That offends me deeply, because the world is a scary and horrifying place, and everyone’s going to get old and die, if they’re that lucky. To set children up to think that everything is sunshine and roses is doing them a great disservice. Children need horror because there are things they don’t understand. It helps them to codify it if it is mythologized, if it’s put into the context of a story, whether the story has a happy ending or not. If it scares them and shows them a little bit of the dark side of the world that is there and always will be, it’s helping them out when they have to face it as adults.
    • Joss Whedon to Michael Silverberg of NPR; quote featured in the Buffy Monster Book (2000)
  • These experiences are not ‘religious’ in the ordinary sense. They are natural, and can be studied naturally. They are not ‘ineffable’ in the sense the sense of incommunicable by language. Maslow also came to believe that they are far commoner than one might expect, that many people tend to suppress them, to ignore them, and certain people seem actually afraid of them, as if they were somehow feminine, illogical, dangerous. ‘One sees such attitudes more often in engineers, in mathematicians, in analytic philosophers, in book keepers and accountants, and generally in obsessional people’. The peak experience tends to be a kind of bubbling-over of delight, a moment of pure happiness. ‘For instance, a young mother scurrying around her kitchen and getting breakfast for her husband and young children. The sun was streaming in, the children clean and nicely dressed, were chattering as they ate. The husband was casually playing with the children: but as she looked at them she was suddenly so overwhelmed with their beauty and her great love for them, and her feeling of good fortune, that she went into a peak experience . . .
    • Colin Wilson in New Pathways In Psychology, p. 17 (1972)
  • Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
    • Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance (1893), Act 2.
  • A child, not knowing what is extraordinary and what is commonplace, usually lights midway between the two, finds interest in incidents adults consider beneath notice, and calmly accepts the most improbable occurrences.
    • Gene Wolfe, “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”, Orbit 10 (1972), ed. Damon Knight. Reprinted in a set of three novellas, The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972).
  • Give me a child till he is seven years old, and I will make him what no one will unmake. Or, Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.
    • Saint Francis Xavier, from an earlier expression of Aristotle.
  • I’m feeling honored that I am being chosen as a Nobel laureate and I have been honored with this – this precious award, the Nobel Peace Prize. And I’m proud that I’m the first Pakistani and the first young woman or the first young person who is getting this award. It’s a great honor for me. And I’m also really happy that I’m sharing this award with a person – with a person from India whose name is Kailash Satyarthi and his great work for child’s right, his great work against – against child slavery.
    • Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Speech (October 10, 2014)
  • Children are the most sweet burden of life.
    • Đuro Zrakić in novel Svi me vole, samo tata ne (1971)

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

  • Train them to virtue; habituate them to industry, activity, and spirit. Make them consider every vice as shameful and unmanly. Fire them with ambition to be useful. Make them disdain to be destitute of any useful knowledge. Fix their ambition upon great and solid objects, and their contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones.
    • John Adams, p. 50.
  • Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys.
    • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 50.
  • Precious Saviour! come in spirit, and lay Thy strong, gentle grasp of love on our dear boys and girls, and keep these our lambs from the fangs of the wolf.
    • Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 50.
  • Jesus was the first great teacher of men who showed a genuine sympathy for childhood. When He said “Of such is the kingdom of heaven,” it was a revelation.
    • Edward Eggleston, p. 49.
  • As in the Master’s spirit you take into your arms the little ones, His own everlasting arms will encircle them and you. He will pity both their and your simplicity; and as in unseen presence He comes again, His blessing will breathe upon you.
    • James Hamilton, p. 50.
  • Bring your little children to the Saviour. Place them in His arms. Devote them to His service. Born in His camp, let them wear from the first His colors. Taking advantage of timely opportunities, and with all tenderness of spirit, seek to endear them to the Friend of Sinners, the Good Shepherd of the lambs, the loving Guardian of the little children. And not only teach them, but govern them. And in order to govern them, govern yourselves.
    • James Hamilton, p. 50.
  • Children have more need of models than of critics.
    • Joseph Joubert, p. 49.
  • Let us be men with men, and always children before God; for in His eyes we are but children. Old age itself, in presence of eternity, is but the first moment of a morning.
    • Joseph Joubert, p. 51.
  • Johnny is but gone an hour or two sooner to bed as children are wont to do, and we are undressing to follow. And the more we put off the love of this present world, and all things superfluous beforehand, we shall have the less to do when we lie down.
    • Robert Leighton, p. 51.
  • God has given you your child, that the sight of him, from time to time, might remind you of His goodness, and induce you to praise Him with filial reverence.
    • Christian Scriver, p. 50.
  • We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us?
    • Lydia Sigourney, p. 51.
  • The glorified spirit of the infant is as a star to guide the mother to its own blissful clime.
    • Lydia Sigourney, p. 53.
  • We are but children, the things that we do
    Are as sports of a babe to the Infinite view,
    That sees all our weakness, and pities it too.
    And oh! when aweary, may we be so blest
    As to sink, like an innocent child, to our rest,
    And feel ourselves clasped to the Infinite breast.

    • F. Burge Smith, p. 51.

“When Children Became People: the birth of childhood in early Christianity” (2005)

Odd Magne Bakke, “When Children Became People: the birth of childhood in early Christianity”, translated from Norwegian by Brian McNeil, Augsburg Fortress Minneapolis, MN, (2005)

  • In the field of history, the publication of Philippe Aries’s study in 1960 was fundamental. His thesis, that it was not until after the Renaissance that one started to consider or realized that childhood constituted a particular stage in the development of a human being, has rightly been disputed. In spite of this, a lasting value of Aries’s study is its contribution to shaping awareness of the fact that historical periods of the past could have had totally different presuppositions about childhood than our own, and that it is of vital importance to uncover these in order to give an adequate interpretation of the conception of children.
    • pp.2-3
  • In the field of systematic theology, Dawn DeVries has remarked, in an article published in 2001, that “until very recently” this theological discipline “in the twentieth century has been largely silent on the question of children.”
    • p.3
  • A number of books and articles deal with issues related to the question of children and childhood in the early church, for examples on expositio (exposure of children), orphans, infant baptism and upbringing . However, only a few publications focus on the way in which children were understood and how they were treated in general. The fact that nearly all these studies were published in the last decade is a clear indicator, as suggested above, of growing scholarly interest in this subject.
    • p.4
  • As the history of research shows, studies on children and childhood in early Christianity are beginning to see the light of day. However, though the studies published up to now provide illuminating discussions of various aspects of this topic, only the work by William A. Strange, and partly the essay by Gillian Clark combine several perspectives, and thus seek to give a general account of how Christians in the early church thought about children and how children were treated. I have already expressed my substantial agreement with these finding, but I have pointed out that many important aspects related to children and childhood receive only a superficial treatment, while some go virtually unmentioned in these work; besides this, only a relatively brief section of Strange’s book deals explicitly with the post-New Testament period. This means that we still need a book offering a comprehensive examination of children and childhood in early Christianity.
    • p.9
  • The child symbolized the absence of logos, something reflected in the etymology of the word that designated children: nepioi in Greek and infantes in Latin, that is, “not speaking.” Children’s lack of the ability to communicate in an adult manner meant that they were defined as standing outside the rational world of adults.
    • pp.15-16
  • The idea that children lack reason occurs in many sources from the time of Homer to that of Cicero. In view of the great importance Plato ascribes to true knowledge as a presupposition for correct ethical development, it is not surprising that it is precisely this philosopher who has most to say about the various ways in which children’s lack of reason finds expression. He claims that children have little knowledge; they are “gullible” and easily persuaded, they are able to understand only the simplest things and they talk nonsense and make unrealiable judgments. When children yield to their wishes and desires they give yet another proof of their limited possession of logos. Along with slaves, women and members of the lower classes, children form that group of human beings in whose lives desires, pleasures, and pains have the greatest place. Plato writes about “the mob of motley appetites and pleasures and pains (epithumai kai hedonai te kai lupai) one would find chiefly in children and women and slaves and in the rabble of those who are freemen in name.” These “pleasures” include music and sweet things-he notes that you can get a baby to stop crying by putting a piece of honeycomb in its mouth. All young creatures are by nature “fiery, they are unable to keep still either body or voice, but are always crying an leaping in disorderly fashion”. Similarly, Aristotle claims that children are more quick-tempered, greedy, and wrathful than adults. Childhood is that stage in life where the appetite for “pleasure” is strongest. These manifestations of children’s lack of logos led the classical philosophers to find a comparison with animals appropriate; indeed, Plato asserts that of all animal, it is the child who is “the most intractable; for in so far as it, above all others, possess a fount of reason that is as yet uncurbed, it is a treacherous, sly and most insolent creature.”
    • p.16
  • Plato frequently groups children together with other marginal actors in classical society: women, slaves, and animals. Aristotle does the same, emphasizing that there is a physical similarity between women and children in that neither of them has semen; that animal have the same relationship to human beings as children do to adults; and that both animals and children are inferior to adults, in the same way that stupid and foolish men are inferior to goo and wise men. One consequence on such ideas is that the opinions of children were seen as of no more consequence than those of animals. No human being in possession of his rational faculties would choose to live with the limited capacity for rational thought that one finds in a child, or to return to childhood once one had left it behind.
    • pp.16-17
  • One of the most popular Greek adages says: “Old men are like children once more.” This reference to old persons’ mental incapacities reflects the very common association of children with the lack of reason. Similarly, children and childish conduct-as in the phrase, “Not even a child would deny that!”-were used as symbols of foolish and irrational opinions and conduct: other people’s behavior and attitudes were criticized by being called childish. In rhetoric, calling someone a “boy” was perceived as a grave insult. Antony called Octavian a boy when he fought on the side of the senate in the civil war in 43 B.C.E., and this wounded Octavian so profoundly that he issued a decree forbidding anyone to speak of him in this way. When Cicero defended Octavian against this and other charges, he said: “That is certainly a word which we apply to a particular age-group, but hardly to be used by someone who makes a boy a present of his own stupidity as a source of glory.” Children were associated with stupidity: ‘’pueritia amentia’’.
    We find similar attitudes in other thinkers influenced by Stoicism-for example, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Children were employed above all as a symbol of the irrationality to be found in adults who had not studied philosophy, on the grounds that children were not capable of discovering by means of reasoning that which is ethically right, and at most could learn by heart a basic ethical principle or rule.

    • p.17
  • Children were not only considered to be weak in the sense that they lacked logos. The Romans held that they were physically weak, particularly vulnerable, and exposed to sickness. When he bear in mind the high mortality rate among children, this view is not surprising.
    • p.18
  • Pliny obviously finds it paradoxical that the creature who is to rule over the other creatures should begin his life in a state of weakness and helplessness, and he does not attempt to conceal his contempt and lack of esteem for this phase in human life. Naturally, his reflections imply that the child has the potential to grow out of the weakness and those other qualities that he regards as negative. Aristotle says that a child is not complete and whole, but attains this state only when it grows up and is formed in keeping with conduct appropriate to noble adult behavior. Cicero made the well-known observation that it is difficult to find any reason to praise a child for its inherent qualities. It deserves praise only on account of the potential it has to become something in the future, that is, an adult human being with the qualities characteristic of adulthood: ”The thing itself cannot be praised, only its potential.” Although these words refer in context to the child’s capabilities as a rhetorician, we can in many ways take it as a general expression of the way classical antiquity saw and evaluated children’s qualities.
    • p.19
  • Although children’s qualities tended to be portrayed in negative terms, that is, as a counterpart to the positive qualities associated with the free male urban citizen, we do find examples of positive descriptions of children too. Sometime, they are described as “sweet.” We also note a tendency, especially in Greek antiquity, to think that small children represent a natural state of innocence, since they have performed neither good nor bad actions. However as we shall see, this characteristic of children attracted much less interest and attention among pagans than in the Christian tradition. Nor were children used as positive paradigms in order to persuade adults to imitate this quality.
    • p.21
  • In the philosophical tradition, children were portrayed, along with other weak groups, as the negative counterfoil to the free male urban citizen. Children lack reason, or at best have a limited measure of reason. They also lack the physical strength and courage that are typical of men (or at least of the ideal man). This means that children are portrayed as negative symbols or paradigms for adult conduct.
    • pp.21-22
  • Our source material is far from furnishing a complete picture of how Christians in late antiquity viewed children’s nature, characteristics, and qualities, but we can reconstruct certain aspects of this picture. We have seen how Jesus’ saying about the child as paradigmatic citizen of the kingdom of God was interpreted. According to the fathers, Jesus used small children as examples because they are simple, innocent and pure in a moral sense. This means that they are not sexually active; they have not yet developed sexual desire; they are not plagued by anger and grief; and they are indifferent to the wealth and positions that are associated with honor and status in this world. Besides this, children obey their parents. It is primarily in the Eastern fathers-Origen, John Chrysostom, and especially Clement of Alexandria-that we find such ideas, but we also find in Tertullian the idea that the child is taken as a model because it is not plagued by sexual desire.
    • p.104
  • We must, however, emphasize that the fathers attribute such qualities to small children. As they grow older, the passions take shape. According to Clement of Alexandria and Origen, this development is analogous to the emergence of the reason and of speech (logos). At the same time, the reason is a necessary presupposition, if one is to be able to choose and to resist desire. It is not clear at what age the child leaves behind an existence of simplicity and purity, but it appears that Origen believes that something happens to the child when it reaches the age of four or five, while John of Chrysostom limits the phase of innocence to the first years of a child’s life.
    • pp.104-105
  • As I have indicated, Clement and Origen presuppose a connection between the emergence of the reason (logos) and the growth away from innocence, while also affirming that, if desire were to be overcome, reason I the necessary instrument. We also find a connection between reason and desire in John Chrysostom, but his approach is different, since he believes that the passions are present in the child before the reason emerges, and that the child is tyrannized by ” all the passions (pathos)” precisely because it lacks rationality. This is why he normally employs children and their characteristic qualities as negative paradigms, unlike Clement, he generally reflects a positive evaluation of children’s qualities and invariably employs children and the conduct associated with them as positive examples.
    The idea that infants are innocent, or morally neutral, is found consistently in all the patristic material I have studied, until a clear break occurs among Western theologian at the beginning of the fifth century. Although Eastern theologians agreed with the Western tradition, which emphasized that Adam’s sin had consequences for his posterity, and some even came close to affirming or at least implicitly presupposing, the idea of original sin, this was asserted with much greater vigor by Augustine. In the course of the Pelagian controversy, where the fundamental issue concerned anthropology Augustine elaborated a theological defense of the doctrine of original sin and underlined that children enter this world with a nature already marked by original sin. Children are not innocent! Although Augustine does emphasize that physical limitations make it impossible for newborn children personally to commit sins, he claims that they are guilty because they are born with original sin. This sinful nature can be seen in the infant’s greed for its mother’s breast and in the jealousy it shows when other children lie at the mother’s or wet nurse’s breast. Accordingly, Augustine claims that when Jesus speaks of children as positive examples, he is referring only to their physical weakness, which makes it impossible for them to perpetrate sinful actions. The importance of the doctrine of original sin was that it allowed Augustine to make sense of the idea of God’s righteousness. His main argument is that if a child is without original sin and hence is innocent, god would be unjust when he punished it by means of sufferings. Punishment presupposes guilt. It follows that the child must be guilty, that is, must be born with original sin, for otherwise God would be afflicting an innocent person. That, in turn is unthinkable, since God’s righteousness is one of his fundamental qualities.

    • p.105
  • The church fathers see children as moral subjects. They are moral individuals who bear responsibility for their actions. This is particularly clear in Augustine, who affirms that the degree of responsibility grows in proportion to the child’s intellectual development It appears that he holds children to be fully responsible for their actions once they are about sixteen years old.
    The fourth- and fifth century fathers in East and West may differ on the question of original sin, but they agree that children are driven by passions or desires.. At the same time, they emphasize the child’s potential to be molded in keeping with Christian ideals, and John Chrysostom has an especially optimistic view of the possibilities of forming children, whom he compares to the sculptures in the artist’s hand. Chrysostom goes so far as to hold that it takes as little as to months to transform a child I accordance with Christian ideals. The premise for such a positive view of the possibility of change is the idea that the child is created in God’s image. When the parents educate their child in virtue that reflect God’s own being for example, kindness and forgiveness, they uncover God’s image in the child. We are not told explicitly what level of maturity must be reached before a child can internalize the Christian virtues, but it is clear that the process is in full swing by the time the child begins its schooling. Chrysostom exhorts parents to discipline their children “from the first,” since it is easier to form a child’s soul while it is still small. This indicates that the formation must start before the child begins school. Jerome assumes that a child of four or five has the necessary presuppositions for learning moderation.
    The study of the Bible was a central element in Christian education. According to Jerome, a seven-year-old child should read the scriptures and learn them y heart. The order that Jerome proposes for reading the individual books reflects his awareness that it is easier for children to absorb material related to rules of conduct and morality than more abstract theological texts. We find the same awareness that one must begin with children’s own presuppositions in John Chrysostom, who exhorts parents to teach their children biblical narratives from the beginning of their schooling. He assumes that seven-year-olds have reached the level of intellectual maturity necessary to grasp the relationship between rewards and merits and that they are able to relate the biblical material to their own lives.

    • p.106
  • Education requires one to see children as religious individuals who must develop their own individual relationship to God. Parents are urged to take their children with them to church while they are so small that it is still natural to hold their hands. According to Jerome, seven-year-old children should participate in a comprehensive and regular life of piety. In other words, children are religious subjects who must live their relationship to God both as individuals and in fellowship with adults.
    This, however, does not mean that the moral and religious individuality of children is acknowledged as something positive or valuable per se. It is a means toward the attainment of a future goal. The children’s moral and religious life attracts the church father’s attention primarily because the correct input in this area lays those foundations that allow the child at some future date to become an adult who believes and who lives in accordance with particular Christian ideals. Children are seen as “raw material” that must be worked on, so that they can be “attractive products” later on-adult person who have internalized the Christian faith and its consequences for a virtuous life. We find this line of thought more or less explicitly in all the patristic writers of the fourth and fifth centuries who I have studied, but it finds its clearest expression in Jerome who quotes Cicero’s explicit affirmation that a child deserves praise not so much because of what it now is, but rather because of what it will become.
    Our modern Western thinking, influenced by the insights of child psychology, may be inclined to say that such affirmation imply a negative view of children’s qualities and characteristics. This impression seems confirmed by the idea that children are tyrannized by passions which must be tamed (John Chrysostom) or that they are born with original sin (Augustine), since such notions supply the premise for the picture of children as “raw material”.

    • pp.106-107
  • [T]he apparently negative attitude toward children must be nuanced by other factors, such as the intensity of the debate about the salvation of children. Gregory of Nyssa composed a theological treatise that discusses why God permits the death of small children and what awaits them on the far side of the grave. Augustine emphasizes that Jesus died for babies too. His controversy with Pelagius about which of them represented the more “child-friendly” theology of the salvation of children is a clear indication that theologians were concerned about children’s eternal happiness. Children were seen as individuals with a dignity and a nature that made them (just as much as adults) the recipients of God’s salvation.
    A second factor, linked to this, is the emphasis that children are created in god’s image. In Eastern theology, represented by Gregory of Nyssa, this implies that the child shares in god’s life and that the goal of education is t sow the virtues in the child, so that its soul will be cleaned of consequences of the fall, and it can truly achieve that degree of sharing in God for which it was created. In a similar manner, John Chrysostom holds that when parents educate their child to a virtuous life, they uncover God’s image in it. Although Augustine goes further than the Eastern fathers in the dramatic consequences for the child’s nature, which he ascribes to the fall, he too emphasizes that the child is created in God’s image. The acknowledgement of this fact and of its implications for his own existence and life as a boy lead him to strikingly positive affirmations: “In a living creature such as this everything is wonderful and worthy of praise.” Even if it had been God’s will that he should not outlive his own childhood, Augustine would still owe him profound thanks. This fundamentally positive evaluation is connected to Augustine’s belief that God has created children in such a way that they can seek him and find him, but this does not diminish the strikingly positive character of his attitude to children and to their qualities, especially in the light of prevalent attitudes in his period. This means that Augustine combine the idea of original sin and of the child as a sinner with a basically positive assessment of children, based on the theology of creation.
    Third, the life and existence of babies had such a significance and dignity that theologians reflected on their suffering in the form of deformity, sickness, and death. Both Gregory of Nysssa and Augustine discuss the suffering and death of small children in relation to the idea of God’s righteousness. Their approaches to this question and the answers they offer may differ, but the very fact that these patristic writers devoted specific attention to the suffering of babies, and related this topic to fundamental characteristics of God’s own being, demonstrates that they thought the lives and fates of small children a matter worthy of their concern.

    • pp.107-108

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