Children

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction.

The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.

A child’s nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another human being.

Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.

Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.

Parentage is a very important profession; but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself.

The vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a child's character.

The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parent's first duty.

I THOUGHT I HATED EVERYBODY, BUT WHEN I GREW UP I REALISED IT WAS JUST CHILDREN I DIDN’T LIKE.

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

A child should always say what’s true,

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

Alas, regardless of their doom,

Three little maids from school are we.

Your children are not your children.

For secrets are edged tools,

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

My sister and my sister’s child,

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.