WIST Quotations

Adams, John -- Letter (1775-10-29) to Abigail Adams

Dave — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:03:44 +0000

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
(Source)

Levitt, Steven -- Freakonomics, ch. 5 “What Makes A Perfect Parent?” (2005) [with Stephen Dubner]

Dave — Mon, 13 May 2024 14:27:36 +0000

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]
(Source)

Ginott, Haim -- Between Parent and Child, ch. 10 “Summing Up” (2003 ed.) [with A. Ginott and H. W. Goddard]

Dave — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 21:56:53 +0000

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]
(Source)

Sarton, May -- I Knew a Phoenix, “A Belgian School” (1959)

Dave — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 14:10:47 +0000

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)
(Source)

Talmud -- Passage

Dave — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 15:01:33 +0000

Don’t threaten a child; either punish or forgive him.

The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
Passage

Beauvoir, Simone de -- Les Belles Images, ch. 3 (1966) [tr. O’Brian (1968)]

Dave — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:21:36 +0000

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)]