# Childhood

Quotes regarding Childhood, a broad term usually applied to the phase of development in humans between infancy and adulthood.
    See also: Children.

## Quotes

* 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 Aldiss, Billion Year Spree : The History of Science Fiction (1973); and the revised edition: Trillion Year Spree : The History of Science Fiction (1986).
* My lovely living Boy, My hope, my hap, my Love, my life, my joy.
** Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes, Second Week (1584), Fourth Day, Book II.
* 'Tis not a life, 'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.
** Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding (c. 1609; 1620), Act V, scene 2, line 15.
* Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells And sights, before the dark of reason grows.
** John Betjeman, Summoned By Bells (1960).
* CHILDHOOD, n. 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, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
* Women know The way to rear up children (to be just); They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words; Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although such trifles.
** Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book I, line 48.
* [Witches] steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dæmonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings.
** Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I. Sect, II. Memb. 1. Subsect. 3.
* Diogenes struck the father when the son swore.
** Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III. Sect, II. Memb. 6. Subsect. 5.
* Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.
** Lord Byron, Beppo (1818), Stanza 39.
* A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing, And mischief-making monkey from his birth.
** Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 25.
* Children, because of their helplessness, evoke our tenderness. But we must give them more than that: a vigilant sense of responsibility, an exquisite equilibrium between the extremes of exercising our authority and respecting their freedom. There is no greater satisfaction than a child who, when grown and at the age of accountability, is able to forgive us.
** Rosario Castellanos "In Praise of Friendship" (1964) In Another Way to Be: Selected Works of Rosario Castellanos translated from Spanish by Myralyn Allgood
* Teach your child to hold his tongue, He'll learn fast enough to speak.
** Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard Maxims (1734).
* By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, The sports of children satisfy the child.
** Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 153.
* No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.
** Alice Hoffman Practical Magic (1995)
* Childhood, whose very happiness is love.
** Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Erinna, The Golden Violet (1827)
* Jonas did not want to go back. He did not want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden. But the choice was not his. He returned each day to the Annex room.
   * Lois Lowry, The Giver, p. 121
* Ay, these young things lie safe in our hearts just so long As their wings are in growing; and when these are strong They break it, and farewell! the bird flies!
** Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Lucile (1860), Canto VI, Part II, Stanza 29.
* The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day.
** John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671), Book IV, line 220.
* As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore.
** John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671), Book IV, line 330.
* Every stage of education begins with childhood. That is why the most educated person on earth so much resembles a child.
** Novalis, "Miscellaneous Observations" in Philosophical Writings, #48
* There is nothing fine about being a child: it is fine, when we are old, too look back to when we were children.
** Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living, 1945-09-06
* Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
** Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle II, line 275.
* I wonder– didn’t the Creator really do injustice? With a power to defeat everyone without any battle, children are busy at play with the most beautiful moments of their life. Once they grow conscious of it, those moments will have gone away never to return to them.
** Suman Pokhrel, Children
* Once positioned on their(children's) lips, even the scariest of words come out as a melodious lisp.
** Suman Pokhrel, Children
* Even If they (children) fall during their play, the nature, having come under the spell of their creative sports, doesn’t know when they again start to play so full of jest. Believing that they fall unknowingly the ground, mostly, does not even hurt them.
** Suman Pokhrel, Children
* If they (children) smash, the flower vase assumes a smile while turning into pieces. For a chance to be spilled by their hands, anything they hold gets spilled itself full of happiness. For a chance to play with them, water forgets about its own colourlessness.
** Suman Pokhrel, Children
* When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
** Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 12
* And children know, Instinctive taught, the friend and foe.
** Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto II, Stanza 14.
* It is only when we start enjoying childhood that we have stepped out of it.
** Dimitri Semenikhin, The Ghost and the Storyteller.
* O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!
** William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 103.
* We have no such daughter, nor shall ever see That face of her again. Therefore begone Without our grace, our love, our benizon.
** William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act I, scene 1, line 266.
* Fathers that wear rags Do make their children blind; But fathers that bear bags Shall see their children kind.
** William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act II, scene 4, line 48.
* It is a wise father that knows his own child.
** William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act II, scene 2, line 80.
* Oh, 'tis a parlous boy; Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable; He's all the mother's from the top to toe.
** William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 1, line 154.
* Your children were vexation to your youth, But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
** William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act IV, scene 4, line 305.
* Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father, eye, nose, lip, The trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles; The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.
** William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610-11), Act II, scene 3, line 98.
* No sooner does a divine gift reveal itself in youth or maid than its market value becomes the decisive consideration, and the poor young creatures are offered for sale, as we might sell angels who had strayed among us.
** John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 21.
* From infancy you have known the holy writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.
** Paul of Tarsus, 2 Timothy 3:15
* You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one.
** P. L. Travers, as quoted in Sticks and Stones : The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2002) by Jack Zipes.
* The booby father craves a booby son, And by heaven's blessing thinks himself undone.
** Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-28), Satire II, line 1.
* Adolescents are simply those people who haven't as yet chosen between childhood and adulthood. For as long as anyone tries to hold on to the advantages of childhood—the freedom from responsibility, principally—while seeking to lay claim to the best parts of adulthood, such as independence, he is an adolescent. [...] Eventually most people choose to be adults, or are forced into it. A very few retreat into childhood and never leave it again. A large number remain adolescents for life.
** Gene Wolfe, The Book of the Short Sun, Volume 2: In Green's Jungles (2000), Ch. 23.

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 109-113.
* The children in Holland take pleasure in making What the children in England take pleasure in breaking.
** Old Nursery Rhyme.
* Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears.
** Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Cry of the Children.
* Pietas fundamentum est omnium virtutum.
** The dutifulness of children is the foundation of all virtues.
** Cicero, Oratio Pro Cnœo Plancio, XII.
* When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
** I Corinthians, XIII. 11.
* Better to be driven out from among men than to be disliked of children.
** Richard Henry Dana, The Idle Man, Domestic Life.
* They are idols of hearts and of households; They are angels of God in disguise; His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses, His glory still gleams in their eyes; Those truants from home and from Heaven They have made me more manly and mild; And I know now how Jesus could liken The kingdom of God to a child.
** Charles M. Dickinson, The Children.
* When the lessons and tasks are all ended, And the school for the day is dismissed, The little ones gather around me, To bid me good-night and be kissed; Oh, the little white arms that encircle My neck in their tender embrace Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven, Shedding sunshine of love on my face.
** Charles M. Dickinson, The Children.
* Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
** George Eliot, Mill on the Floss, Book I, Chapter IX.
* Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe— Sailed on a river of crystal light Into a sea of dew.
** Eugene Field, Wynken, Blynken and Nod.
* Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play; No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to-day.
** Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), Stanza 6.
* But still when the mists of doubt prevail, And we lie becalmed by the shores of age, We hear from the misty troubled shore The voice of the children gone before. Drawing the soul to its anchorage.
** Bret Harte, A Greyport Legend, Stanza 6.
* I think that saving a little child And bringing him to his own, Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around the throne.
** John Hay, Little Breeches.
* Few sons attain the praise Of their great sires and most their sires' disgrace.
** Homer, The Odyssey, Book II, line 315. Pope's translation.
* Nondum enim quisquam suum parentem ipse cognosvit.
    It is a wise child that knows his own father.
** Homer, The Odyssey, Book I. 216 Translation from the Greek by Clarke. Same idea in Euripides. Quoted by Eustath, Ad Hom., p. 1412. Aristotle, Rhetoric. Menander, Carthaginian. See Stobæus, Anthology, LXXVI. 7.
* Another tumble! that's his precious nose!
** Thomas Hood, Parental Ode to My Son.
* Oh, when I was a tiny boy My days and nights were full of joy. My mates were blithe and kind! No wonder that I sometimes sigh And dash the tear drop from my eye To cast a look behind!
** Thomas Hood, Retrospective Review.
* Children, ay, forsooth, They bring their own love with them when they come, But if they come not there is peace and rest; The pretty lambs! and yet she cries for more: Why, the world's full of them, and so is heaven— They are not rare.
** Jean Ingelow, Supper at the Mill.
* Nil dictu fœdum visuque hæc limina tangat Intra quæ puer est.
    Let nothing foul to either eye or ear reach those doors within which dwells a boy.
** Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), XIV. 44.
* Les enfants n'ont ni passé ni avenir; et, ce qui ne nous arrive guère, ils jouissent du présent.
    Children have neither past nor future; and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present.
** Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, XI.
* Mais un fripon d'enfant (cet âge est sans pitié).
    But a rascal of a child (that age is without pity).
** Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, IX. 2.
* A babe is fed with milk and praise.
** Charles Lamb, The First Tooth. In Poetry for Children by Charles and Mary Lamb.
* Oh, would I were a boy again, When life seemed formed of sunny years, And all the heart then knew of pain Was wept away in transient tears!
** Mark Lemon, Oh, Would I Were a Boy Again.
* There was a little girl, And she had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead; When she was good she was very, very good, When she was bad she was horrid.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. See Blanche Roosevelt Tucker-Machetta, Home Life of Longfellow.
* Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Children, Stanza 4.
* Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught In schools, some graduate of the field or street, Who shall become a master of the art, An admiral sailing the high seas of thought Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet For lands not yet laid down in any chart.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Possibilities.
* Who can foretell for what high cause This darling of the gods was born?
** Andrew Marvell, Picture of T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers.
* Each one could be a Jesus mild, Each one has been a little child, A little child with laughing look, A lovely white unwritten book; A book that God will take, my friend, As each goes out at journey's end.
** John Masefield, Everlasting Mercy, Stanza 27.
* And he who gives a child a treat Makes Joy-bells ring in Heaven's street, And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom come, And she who gives a baby birth, Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth.
** John Masefield, Everlasting Mercy, Stanza 50.
* Lord, give to men who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And let keep bright and undefiled The young years of the little child.
** John Masefield, Everlasting Mercy, Stanza 67.
* Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
** Matthew, II. 18; Jeremiah, XXXI. 15.
* Ah, il n'y a plus d'enfant.
    Translation: Ah, there are no children nowadays.
** Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire, II. 2.
* Parentes objurgatione digni sunt, qui nolunt liberos suos severa lege proficere.
    Parents deserve reproof when they refuse to benefit their children by severe discipline.
** Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, IV.
* The wildest colts make the best horses.
** Plutarch, Life of Themistocles.
* A wise son maketh a glad father.
** Proverbs. X. 1.
* Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.
** Proverbs, XXII. 6.
* Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
** Proverbs, XXXI. 29.
* Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.
** Psalms. CXXVII. 5.
* Thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
** Psalms. CXXVIII. 3.
* There is nothing more to say, They have all gone away From the house on the hill.
** Edwin A. Robinson, The House on the Hill.
* Pointing to such, well might Cornelia say, When the rich casket shone in bright array, "These are my Jewels!" Well of such as he, When Jesus spake, well might the language be, "Suffer these little ones to come to me!"
** Samuel Rogers, Human Life, line 202.
* L'enfance est le sommeil de la raison.
    Childhood is the sleep of reason.
** Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, Book II.
* Glücklicher Säugling! dir ist ein unendlicher Raum noch die Wiege, Werde Mann, und dir wird eng die unendliche Welt.
    Happy child! the cradle is still to thee a vast space; but when thou art a man the boundless world will be too small for thee.
** Friedrich Schiller, Das Kind in der Wiege.
* Wage du zu irren und zu träumen. Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kind'schen Spiel.
    Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays.
** Friedrich Schiller, Theklo, Stanza 6.
* A little child born yesterday A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed.
** Percy Bysshe Shelley, Homer's Hymn to Mercury, Stanza 69.
* It is very nice to think The world is full of meat and drink With little children saying grace In every Christian kind of place.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, Child's Garden of Verses, A Thought.
* In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, Child's Garden of Verses, Bed in Summer.
* When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, Child's Garden of Verses, Looking Forward.
* Every night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day, And every day that I've been good, I get an orange after food.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, Child's Garden of Verses, System.
* While here at home, in shining day, We round the sunny garden play, Each little Indian sleepy-head Is being kissed and put to bed.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, Child's Garden of Verses, The Sun's Travels.
* Children are the keys of Paradise, They alone are good and wise, Because their thoughts, their very lives, are prayer.
** Richard Henry Stoddard, The Children's Prayer.
* If there is anything that will endure The eye of God, because it still is pure, It is the spirit of a little child, Fresh from his hand, and therefore undefiled.
** Richard Henry Stoddard, The Children's Prayer.
* "Not a child: I call myself a boy," Says my king, with accent stern yet mild; Now nine years have brought him change of joy— "Not a child."
** Algernon Charles Swinburne, Not a Child, Stanza 1.
* But still I dream that somewhere there must be The spirit of a child that waits for me.
** Bayard Taylor, The Poet's Journal, Third Evening.
* Nam qui mentiri, aut fallere insuerit patrem, aut Audebit: tanto magis audebit cæteros. Pudore et liberalitate liberos Retinere satius esse credo, quam metu.
    For he who has acquired the habit of lying or deceiving his father, will do the same with less remorse to others. I believe that it is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect, and by gentleness, than by fear.
** Terence, Adelphi, I. 1. 30.
* Ut quisque suum vult esse, ita est.
    As each one wishes his children to be, so they are.
** Terence, Adelphi, III. 3. 46.
* Birds in their little nests agree: And 'tis a shameful sight, When children of one family Fall out, and chide, and fight.
** Isaac Watts, Divine Songs, XVII.
* In books, or work, or healthful play, Let my first years be past, That I may give for every day Some good account at last.
** Isaac Watts, Against Idleness.
* Oh, for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for.
** John Greenleaf Whittier, The Barefoot Boy, Stanza 3.
* The sweetest roamer is a boy's young heart.
** George E. Woodberry, Agathon.
* The child is father of the man.
** William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up.
* Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now.
** William Wordsworth, To a Butterfly.
* A simple child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?
** William Wordsworth, We Are Seven.

## See also

* Age
* Child labour
* Child poverty
* Children and adolescents in Pakistan
* Children and adolescents in the United States
* Coming of age
* Youth