"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life" Rachel Carson

"There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity." Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860).]

"The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard." Sloan Wilson

"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength."
 Rachel Carson

"An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." Spanish Proverb

"Each person's map of the world is as unique as their thumbprint. There are no two people alike...no two people who understand the same sentence the same way...So in dealing with people try not to fit them to your concept of what they should be." Milton Erickson

"The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. We need to educate our children for their future, not our past..." Arthur C. Clarke

"Children Learn What They Live. If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy. If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with impropriety, he learns to feel shame. If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient. If a child lives with encouragement he learns confidence If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate. He a child lives with fairness, he learns justice. If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith. If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself. If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world. With what is your child living?" Dorothy Law Neite

"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people." Thich Nhat Hanh

"What its children become, that will the community become."Suzanne La Follette

"A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine." Unknown

"Children act in the village as they have learned at home." Swedish proverb

"A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)

"Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own." Doug Larson

"If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm." Bruce Barton

"While we try to teach our children all about life, Our children teach us what life is all about." Angela Schwindt

"No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement." Florida Scott-Maxwell

"Working with metaphor involves the skill of transforming one thing into another that is more valuable. Metaphors are intimately connected to the concept of transformation; in ancient Greek, the word metaphor means a transformer. Children naturally transform so many things they encounter around them. With imaginative boldness, the turn bed pillows into mountains, a cardboard box into a ship, and a blanket into an ocean to sail across. Like children, we need to use the power of metaphor to touch the inner truths of the images we create, because metaphor is the authentic reflection of artistic creativity. Like art, it is dynamic, has not strict rules about meaning, and is by nature fluid and flexible." Cathy Malchiodi

"The soul is healed by being with children." Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (1821-1881)

"How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?" Paul Sweeney

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older." Abraham Sutzkever

"Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world." Maria Montessori

"The most potent muse of all is our own inner child." Stephen Nachmanovitch

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance." Franklin P. Jones

"Overprotected kids do not flourish."Sally Satel

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child." Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

"It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation." John Gray, author (b. 1951)

"The soul is healed by being with children." Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (1821-1881)

“All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.” Michael Carr

"A mother is not a person to lean upon, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." Dorothy Canfield

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.” Alex Haley

“Children reinvent your world for you.” Susan Sarandon

“What's done to children, they will do to society.” Karl A. Menninger, psychiatrist (1893-1990)

“To nourish and raise children against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.” Marilyn French

“The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.” Carl Sagan

“Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

“If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money.” Abigail Van Buren, advice columnist (1918- )

“There may be no more pleasing picture in the world than that of a child peering into a book--the past and the future entrancing each other.” Roger Rosenblau

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (1906-1945)

“Fifty years from now it will not matter what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in, how much you had in your bank account, or what your clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because you were important in the life of a child.” Source Unknown

“All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.” Michael Carr

“Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships.” Jodie Foster

“What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.” P.D. James, writer (1920- )

”Children are always the only future the human race has; teach them well.” Unknown

“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” W.R. Wallace

“The best inheritance a parent can give to his children is a few minutes of their time each day.” M. Grundler

“Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them.” Richard L. Evans

“Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? You should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been a child like you. And look at your body--what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! You may be a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.” Pablo Casals (1876-1973) Spanish cellist, conductor, composer

“Youth is a quality and if you have it, you never lose it.” Frank Lloyd Wright

“When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.” Louis Pasteur, chemist and bacteriologist (1822-1895)

“A child is like an empty bucket. As a parent, you want to make sure you fill that bucket up as much as you can. The more time you spend with kids, the more you fill those buckets.” Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.” Neil Postman, professor and author (1931- )

“If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.” Bruce Barton

“We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.” Mark Twain

“Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child.” Ron Wild

“Children are the dreams we send to a future that we will never see.” Unknown

“Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.” George Bernard Shaw

“The children are both our near and distant future. It is by them and through them that we feel linked to the immortality of the human race.” Elie Wiesel

“The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon the how our children grow up today. There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing when we save our children, we save ourselves.” Margaret Mead

“Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.” Eugene Ionesco

“As children we all possess a natural uninhabited curiosity, a hunger for explanations, which seems to die slowly as we age--suppressed, I suppose by the need not to appear ignorant.” Mahlon Hoagland

“Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.” Charles R. Swindoll

“If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.” Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis