Children, like grown-ups, enjoy the sense of achievement derived from mastering a difficulty, but this requires a consistency of effort of which few are capable without some outside encouragement. The capacity for consistent self-direction is one of the most valuable that a human being can possess. It is practically unknown in young children, and is never developed either by a very rigid discipline or by complete freedom.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Social Order [Education and the Modern World], ch. 2 “The Negative Theory of Education” (1932)
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Quotations about:
child-raising
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
A child should always say what’s true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
At least as far as he is able.Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Poem (1885), “Whole Duty of Children,” A Child’s Garden of Verses
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It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue.
John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1775-10-29) to Abigail Adams
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No one is more susceptible to an experts fearmongering than a parent. Fear is in fact a major component of the act of parenting. A parent, after all, is the steward of another creature’s life, a creature who in the beginning is more helpless than the newborn of nearly any other species. This leads a lot of parents to spend a lot of their parenting energy simply being scared.
Steven Levitt (b. 1967) American economist and author
Freakonomics, ch. 5 “What Makes A Perfect Parent?” (2005) [with Stephen Dubner]
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What is the goal of parenting? It’s to help a child grow up to be a decent human being, a mensch, a person with compassion, commitment, and caring.
Haim Ginott (1922–1973) Israeli-American school teacher, child psychologist, psychotherapist [b. Haim Ginzburg]
Between Parent and Child, ch. 10 “Summing Up” (2003 ed.) [with A. Ginott and H. W. Goddard]
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Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child’s mind, they are not easily eradicated.
May Sarton (1912–1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
I Knew a Phoenix, “A Belgian School” (1959)
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Don’t threaten a child; either punish or forgive him.
The Talmud (AD 200–500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
Passage
It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French author, existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist
Les Belles Images, ch. 3 (1966) [tr. O’Brian (1968)]
