Motivational Quotes

Children

When I consider how little of a rarity children are -- that every street and blind alley swarms with them -- that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance -- that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these bargains -- how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, etc. -- I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them.

- Lamb, Charles

Best Quotes about Children

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Oscar Wilde

You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.

John J. Plomp

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.

Fran Lebowitz

Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when they are old.

Proverb, English

Children are all foreigners.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who is not attracted by bright and pleasant children, to prattle, to creep, and to play with them?

Epictetus

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

Robertson Davies

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.

Bill Watterson

10.

Childhood is the sleep of reason.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

11.

Let the child's first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt.

Franklin, Benjamin

12.

Children are curious and are risk takers. They have lots of courage. They venture out into a world that is immense and dangerous. A child initially trusts life and the processes of life.

Bradshaw, John

13.

There are few successful adults who were not first successful children.

Chase, Alexander

14.

Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.

Larkin, Philip

15.

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Angelou, Maya

16.

Hugs can do great amounts of good -- especially for children.

Diana, Princess of Wales

17.

I am amused when goody-goodies proclaim, from the safety of their armchairs, that children are naturally prejudice-free, that they only learn to "hate" from listening to bigoted adults. Nonsense. Tolerance is a learned trait, like riding a bike or playing the piano. Those of us who actually live among children, who see them in their natural environment, know the truth: Left to their own devices, children will gang up on and abuse anyone who is even slightly different from the norm.

Josh Lieb

18.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

Swift, Jonathan

19.

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

Baldwin, James

20.

Children are living jewels dropped unsustained from heaven.

Pollok, Robert

21.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

22.

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

Waitley, Denis

23.

What's more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?

Smith, Logan Pearsall

24.

If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed.

Burbank, Luther

25.

If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.

Updike, John

26.

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.

Dobson, Dr. James C.

27.

Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaken need for an unshakable God.

Angelou, Maya

28.

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

Mary MacCracken

29.

A child is not a salmon mousse. A child is a temporarily disabled and stunted version of a larger person, whom you will someday know. Your job is to help them overcome the disabilities associated with their size and inexperience so that they get on with being that larger person.

Ehrenreich, Barbara

30.

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

Wilmot, John

31.

There is not so much comfort in having children as there is sorrow in parting with them.

Proverb

32.

Your children will see what you're all about by what you live rather than what you say.

Dyer, Wayne

33.

Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there's always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the way the arranger desires.

Cox, Marcelene

34.

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

35.

Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.

Wiesel, Elie

36.

How little is the promise of the child fulfilled in the man.

Ovid

37.

Kids are wonderful, but I like mine barbecued.

Hope, Bob

38.

We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.

Greer, Germaine

39.

Facing a mirror you see merely your own countenance; facing your child you finally understand how everyone else has seen you.

Daniel Raeburn

40.

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.

Phyllis Diller

41.

A young and vital child knows no limit to his own will, and it is the only reality to him. It is not that he wants at the outset to fight other wills, but that they simply do not exist for him. Like the artist, he goes forth to the work of creation, gloriously alone.

Harrison, Jane

42.

Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.

Wilde, Oscar

43.

We've had bad luck with our kids -- they've all grown up.

Morley, Christopher

44.

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

Rabbinical Saying

45.

The best way for a man to train up a child in the way he should go is to travel that way himself.

46.

The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.

Sam Levenson

47.

Children are given to us to discourage our better emotions.

Saki

48.

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours of parental time --but the truth is that we neglected you. We allowed you a charade of trivial freedoms in order to avoid making those impositions on you that are in the end both the training ground and proving ground for true independence. We pronounced you strong when you were still weak in order to avoid the struggles with you that would have fed your true strength. We proclaimed you sound when you were foolish in order to avoid taking part in the long, slow, slogging effort that is the only route to genuine maturity of mind and feeling. Thus, it was no small anomaly of your growing up that while you were the most indulged generation, you were also in many ways the most abandoned to your own meager devices by those into whose safe-keeping you had been given.

Decter, Midge

49.

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

Roosevelt, Theodore

50.

Children always turn to the light.

Hare, David