I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. -- John Adams

Children, taught either years beneath their intelligence or miles wide of relevance to it, or both: their intelligence becomes hopelessly bewildered, drawn off its centers, bored, or atrophied. -- James Agee

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay. -- Brian W. Aldiss

Most of the people who will walk behind me will be children so make the beat keep time with short steps. -- Hans Christian Andersen

This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own. -- Aristotle

Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder. -- Eberhard Arnold

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

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. -- James Baldwin

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. -- James Barrie

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm. -- Bruce Barton

There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world. -- Jean Baudrillard

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

Childhood: The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age. -- Ambrose Bierce

Outings are so much more fun when we can savor them through the children's eyes. -- Lawana Blackwell

Youth isn't always all it's touted to be. -- Lawana Blackwell

There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. -- Erma Bombeck

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. -- Anatole Broyard

I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up. -- Pearl S. Buck

Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation. -- Lois McMaster Bujold

Our children change us ... whether they live or not. -- Lois McMaster Bujold

Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son. -- Lois McMaster Bujold

You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one. -- Lois McMaster Bujold

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. -- Leo J. Burke

Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life. -- Robert Byrne

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. -- Rachel Carson

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life. -- Rachel Carson

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

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 someday in life you will have been all of these. -- George Washington Carver

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

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either. -- Dick Cavett

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father! -- Lydia Maria Child

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children? -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place. -- Colette

Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home. -- Bill Cosby

The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children. -- Clarence Darrow

The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children. -- Clarence Darrow

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life. -- Robertson Davies

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

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. -- Diogenes

If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things. -- Norman Douglas

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much. -- Marian Wright Edelman

If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out. -- Marian Wright Edelman

The old notion that children are the private property of parents dies very slowly. In reality, no parent raises a child alone. How many of us nice middle-class folk could make it without our mortgage reduction? -- Marian Wright Edelman

Children are all foreigners. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. -- Marilyn French

Cultural expectations shade and color the images that parents-to-be form. The baby product ads, showing a woman serenely holding her child, looking blissfully and mysteriously contented, or the television parents, wisely and humorously solving problems, influence parents-to-be. -- Ellen Galinsky

Your children are not your children. / They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. -- Kahlil Gibran

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

Bitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them. / Deep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them. / Sharp is the grief of a child: Take it from him. / Soft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it. -- Pamela Glenconner

Before puberty the child's personality has not yet formed and it is easier to guide its life and make it acquire specific habits of order, discipline, and work... -- Antonio Gramsci

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

Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to-day. -- Thomas Gray

Home is the place where boys and girls first learn how to limit their wishes, abide by rules, and consider the rights and needs of others. -- Sidonie Gruenberg

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle. -- Thich Nhat Hanh

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

Children are our most valuable natural resource. -- Herbert Hoover

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

All women should know how to take care of children. Most of them will have a husband some day. -- Franklin P. Jones

Be gentle with the young. -- Juvenal

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted. -- Garrison Keillor

Wealth and children are the adornment of life. -- Koran

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

I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult. -- Fran Lebowitz

Becoming responsible adults is no longer a matter of whether children hang up there pajamas or put dirty towels in the hamper, but whether they care about themselves and others -- and whether they see everyday chores as related to how we treat this planet. -- Eda LeShan

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

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. -- Michael Levine

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. -- Michael Levine

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

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The story goes that Longfellow denied writing this, but according to The Great American Baby Almanac he finally admitted writing it saying "When I recall my juvenile poems and prose sketches, I wish that they were forgotten entirely. They however cling to one's skirt with a terrible grasp." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. -- Groucho Marx

My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one. -- Groucho Marx

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. -- Groucho Marx

My mother loved children--she would have given anything if I had been one. -- Groucho Marx

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children. -- W. Somerset Maugham

At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent. -- Golda Meir

What guides us is children's response, their joy in learning to dance, to sing, to live together. It should be a guide to the whole world. -- Yehudi Menuhin

Family life is full of major and minor crises -- the ups and downs of health, success and failure in career, marriage, and divorce -- and all kinds of characters. It is tied to places and events and histories. With all of these felt details, life etches itself into memory and personality. It's difficult to imagine anything more nourishing to the soul. -- Thomas Moore

In early infancy, the baby tends to experience herself andher mother as one, a union. If the mother responds attentively and empathetically to the infant, a life-sustaining function is provided which is felt to be part of thebaby‘s self. -- Andrew P. Morrison

Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better? -- Jane Nelson

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much. -- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home. -- Robert Orben

Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected. -- Robert Orben

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs. -- P. J. O'Rourke

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

The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant--and let the air out of the tires. -- Dorothy Parker

The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant -- and let the air out of the tires. -- Dorothy Parker

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

Chaque enfant réveille en moi Tendresse et respect; Tendresse pour ce qu'il est, Respect pour ce qu'il deviendra. -- Louis Pasteur

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

You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers. -- John J. Plomp

You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers. -- John J. Plomp

It takes a village to raise a child. -- African proverb

One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. -- Chinese proverb

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. -- Anna Quindlen

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

You can understand and relate to most people better if you look at them -- no matter how old or impressive they may be -- as if they are children. For most of us never really grow up or mature all that much -- we simply grow taller. O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales. -- Leo Rosten

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

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

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

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

No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. -- Florida Scott-Maxwell

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it isTo have a thankless child! -- William Shakespeare

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

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

There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and its mother's age. -- Benjamin Spock

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. -- Elizabeth Stone

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction. -- Annie Sullivan

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps— does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning. -- Rabindranath Tagore

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 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

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething. -- Mark Twain

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -- Mark Twain

Some children's answers to church school questions - from the Church of England: -- Unknown

Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of. -- Peter Ustinov

A three-year-old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm. -- Bill Vaughn

Never have children, only grandchildren. -- Gore Vidal

The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children. -- King Edward VIII

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children. -- Bill Watterson

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

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. -- John Wilmot

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, how big my house was, or what kind of car I drove. But the world may be a little better, because I was important in the life of a child. -- Forest Witcraft

Oh happy we, the first-born heirs of nature, For whom the Heavenly Sun delays his light! He by the sweets of every mortal creature Tempers eternal beauty to our sight; And by the glow upon love's earthly feature Maketh the path of our departure bright. -- George E. Woodberry

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

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