Children quotes
25.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside children — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"In love affairs, there is no mediator like a merry, simple-hearted child - ever ready to cement divided hearts, to span the unfriendly gulf of custom, to melt the ice of cold reserve, and overthrow the separating walls of dread formality and pride."
"The Witch's Life" When I was a child there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story window from behind the wrinkled curtains and sometimes she would open the window and yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp and a voice like a boulder. I think of her sometimes now and wonder if I am becoming her."
"Children are holy and pure. Even those of bandits and crocodiles belong among the angels.... They must not be turned into a plaything of one's mood, first to be tenderly kissed, then rabidly stomped at."
"Only the children know what they are looking for. They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry."
"There are people whom even children's literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon."
"Parents have to really talk to their children before they leave home."
"Since music has so much to do with the molding of character, it is necessary that we teach it to our children."
"It doesn't matter what the income level of your family is, or if English is the first or second language. It makes no difference. The bottom line is that every child can be an academic champion, an academic champion and a superstar in academics."
"When I was a child, if someone had talked to me about buying water, I would have thought it was a joke."
"I speak for those children who cannot speak for themselves, children who have absolutely nothing but their courage and their smiles, their wits and their dreams."
"As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he'd promised her, making the father angry?"
"You have to let individuals make their own choices and respect that, even if it's your own child. And that's what was taken away from me. My father passed away thinking I still had to go back to his way of believing."
"The car, the furniture, the wife, the children - everything has to be disposable. Because you see the main thing today is - shopping."
"First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that."
"Over 20 million children of conflict are out of school. Education is often forgotten."
"Be compassionate to everyone. Don't just search for whatever it is that annoys and frightens you-see beyond those things to the basic human being. Especially see the child in the man or woman. Even if they are destroying you, allow a moment to see how lost in their own delusion and suffering they are."
"The forest is the first cathedral. I felt that from the time I was a child. I credit my mother with that. I used to think it came from her Native-American side. Whichever it was, she instinctively connected with nature, and taught me that. Church just could not hold my spirit."
"HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child."
"HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them."
"It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's 'mature' critics often are."
