Children quotes
25.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside children — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"When a war is over I think it's a cowardly thing to leave the war behind you in minefields that hit women and children and the most vulnerable. Imagine the war is finished and you go to work and there are snipers shooting at you. Imagine taking your kids to the beach and you find that the beach is blowing up beneath you. Like there's nowhere safe."
"I have never said, as is sometimes believed, or even suggested that lower-class children should not learn the so-called educated norm of the Portuguese language of Brazil. What I have said is that the problems of language always involve ideological questions and, along with them, questions of power."
"Thy will be done, my Lord. Because you know the weakness in the heart of your children, and you assign each of them only the burden they can bear. May you understand my love–because it is the only thing I have that is really mine, the only thing that I will be able to take with me into the next life. Please allow it to be courageous and pure; please make it capable of surviving the snares of the world."
"I have sat in the dark and looked at them both, the child and the woman. And the feeling has become too much. It is not sorrow or joy; it is the weight and the pressure of having been brought into their lives, and of knowing that if one were ever to be separated from them, it would mean your obliteration."
"There's a widespread notion that children are open, that the truth about their inner selves just seeps out of them. That's all wrong. No one is more covert than a child, and no one has a greater need to be that way. It's a response to a world that's always using a can opener to open them up to see what's inside, wondering whether it ought to be replaced with a more useful sort of preserves."
"If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don't crush them with some clever remark straight away."
"A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that' s love by a different name."
"A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started ... He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations ... The fate of humanity is in his hands."
"Let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty."
"There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed."
"My dad said: Now Teddy, you have to make up your mind whether you want to have a constructive and positive attitude and influence on your time. And if you're not interested in a purposeful, useful, constructive life, I just want you to know I have other children that are out there that intend to have a purposeful and constructive life. And so you have to make up your mind about which direction you're going to go. I remember getting - climbing into bed and staring at the ceiling for a good time, but the night hadn't been over when it was very clear to me what kind of life I wanted to lead."
"How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how complicate, how wonderful is man! Distinguished link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! A frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! Insect infinite! A worm! A God!"
"Wisdom must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child-on a field-mouse instead of a human soul."
"We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children."
"Children use the fist until they are of age to use the brain."
"It is so easy to take the violet flame and to use it that I am certain that once you begin you will recognize that the violet flame and the angels of the violet flame are the servants of the sons and daughters of God and the children of the Light, that the violet flame joyously serves you and acts to cleanse your entire being so that, as Jesus said, your whole body can be full of light."
"What is a godly mother? A godly mother is one who loves the Lord her God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength and then passionately, consistently, and unrelentingly teaches her child to do the same."
"Even before I knew I was gay, I knew I didn't want to have a child. I knew I didn't want to have one. I never want to have to release it from me. Listen, I love babies. I love children. And I melt when I'm around them. I also love my freedom and I love that I can sleep at night."
"The powers know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. ... An army and navy represents the people's toys."
"I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to ... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors."
