Inspirational Quotations on Parenting and
Children
Every day and hour... see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don't know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him, and it may grow... all because you did not foster in yourself an active, actively benevolent heart.
Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
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, The Sense of Wonder
It is my pleasure that my children are free and happy, and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.
Abraham Lincoln
Except in rare times of great stress or danger, there is no reason why we cannot say 'No' to children in just as kind a way as we say 'Yes'. Both are words. Both convey ideas which even tiny children are smart enough to grasp. One says, 'We don’t do it that way', the other says 'That’s the way we do it'. Most of the time, that is what children want to find out. Except when overcome by fatigue, curiosity, or excitement, they want to do it right, do as we do, fit in, take part.
John Holt
Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow.
Thomas Bray, 18th century Anglican minister
The real choice a human baby must make is whether to trust or mistrust other humans. This basic trust-versus-mistrust stage is the first building block upon which all later love relationships are formed.
Dr. Ken Magid
Child of the pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy tale.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, "Introduction"
We can often better help another by fanning a glimmer of goodness than by censuring his faults.
Edmund Gibson
Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
Zora Neale Hurston
Recipe for having beautiful children: Be a beautiful parent!
Elbert Hubbard