Childhood Quotes 

Share

More Childhood Quotes 

childhood is analogous to language learning. It has a biological basis but cannot be realized unless a social environment triggers and nurtures it, that is, has need of it. If a culture is dominated by a medium that requires the segregation of the young in order that they learn unnatural, specialized, and complex skills and attitudes, then childhood, in one form or another, will emerge, articulate and indispensable.

neil postman

— Ch. 9 : Six Questions

Tags: analogous, language, learning, biological, basis, realized, social, environment, triggers

Share
twitter

Travel is a caprice in childhood, a passion in youth, a necessity in manhood, and an elegy in old age.

josé rizal

— "Los Viajes"

Tags: Travel, caprice, passion, youth, necessity, manhood, elegy, old, age

Share
twitter

Good theories of the mind must span at least three different scales of time: slow, for the billions of years in which our brains have survivied; fast, for the fleeting weeks and months of childhood; and in between, the centuries of growth of our ideas through history.

marvin minsky

— Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind (1988) Ch.1

Tags: Good, theories, mind, span, least, three, different, scales, time

Share
twitter

I remember, I remember how my childhood fleeted by. The mirth of its December, and the warmth of its July.

winthrop mackworth praed

— Winthrop Mackworth Praed, I Remember, I Remember.

Tags: remember, fleeted, mirth, December, warmth, July

Share
twitter pinterest

It seems like a cliche, but you do grow up a lot faster when you travel a lot, go through things like this interview, spend time away from home and hang around with other actors. It's inevitable that you're not going to have a so-called normal childhood.

matt dillon

— Michael Blowen (November 3, 1983), "Matt Dillon Meets Fame ....Diffidently", The Boston Globe.

Tags: cliche, you, grow, faster, when, travel, things, interview, spend

Share
twitter

The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.


— Charles Darwin in:Journal of Researches Into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. "Beagle" Round the World, Under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, R.N. Fifteenth Thousand, J. Murray, 1882, p.504

Tags: earthquake, one, most, impressive, event, earth, our, earliest, type

Share
twitter

If I could only live at the pitch that is near madness When everything is as it was in my childhood Violent, vivid and of infinite possibility.


— 1947  'If I Could Only Live at the Pitch That Is Near Madness'.

Tags: live, pitch, near, madness, When, everything, Violent, vivid, infinite

Share
twitter

Whole great chunks of written history are of little value to the psychohistorian, while other vast areas which have been much neglected by historians childhood history, content analysis of historical imagery, and so on suddenly expand from the periphery to the center of the psychohistorian's conceptual world, simply because his or her own new questions require material nowhere to be found in history books.

lloyd demause

— Ch. 2, ibid.

Tags: Whole, great, chunks, written, history, little, value, psychohistorian, while

Share
twitter

The seen and seeing softly mutually strike Their glass barrier that arrests the sight. But the world's being hides in the volcanoes And the foul history pressed into its core; And to myself my being is my childhood And passion and entrails and the roots of senses; I'm pressed into the inside of a mask At the back of love, the back of air, the back of light.

stephen spender

— "The Mask" (The Still Centre (1939))

Tags: seen, seeing, softly, mutually, strike, glass, barrier, arrests, sight

Share
twitter

Man, the period of whose life is one hundred years, should practise Dharma , Artha, and Kama at different times and in such a manner that they may harmonize, and not clash in any way. He should acquire learning in his childhood; in his youth and middle age he should attend to Artha and Kama, and in his old age he should perform Dharma, and thus seek to gain Moksha , that is, release from further transmigration.


— Part 1, ch. 2

Tags: Man, period, life, one, hundred, years, practise, Dharma, Artha

Share
twitter

Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood.

beryl bainbridge

— The New York Times, March 1, 1981. [2]

Tags: Everything, you, grow, never, recover

Share
twitter

To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream.

giorgio de chirico

— 'On Mystery and Creation', Giorgio de Chirico, Paris 1913, as quoted in "Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough", Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p . 231

Tags: become, immortal, work, art, escape, human, limits, logic, common

Share
twitter

What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini... in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind.

lin yutang

— Ch. IV : On Having A Stomach

Tags: What, patriotism, love, good, things, we, ate, our, elsewhere

Share
twitter

Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?

Anton Chekhov

— The Bishop (1902)

Tags: sweet, unforgettable, irrevocable, time, forever, departed, brighter, more, festive

Share
twitter

Richard Chase declares, "No great poet has written so much bad verse as Emily Dickinson." He blames the Victorian cult of little women for the fact that "two thirds of her work" is seriously flawed: "Her coy and oddly childish poems of nature and female friendship are products of a time when one of the careers open to women was perpetual childhood." Dickinson's sentimental feminine poems remain neglected by embarrassed scholars. I would maintain, however, that her poetry is a closed system of sexual reference and that the mawkish poems are designed to dovetail with those of violence and suffering.


— p. 637 (Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990))

Tags: Chase, declares, great, poet, written, bad, verse, Emily, Dickinson

Share
twitter

We have preachers and savants who dilate endlessly on the sanctity of family and childhood but who tolerate a system in which a casual observer can correlate a child's social origin with its physical well-being.

christopher hitchens

— "Hating Sweden" (1989)

Tags: We, preachers, savants, who, dilate, endlessly, sanctity, family, tolerate

Share
twitter

Tim Guest’s extraordinary account of his childhood in the communes of Bhagwan [Rajneesh], the notorious Indian guru, is a survivor’s tale, poignant, funny and wise.


— Christopher Hart (25 January 2004). "Review: Memoir: My Life in Orange by Tim Guest". The Sunday Times (Times Newspapers Ltd). Retrieved on 2008-10-17. 

Tags: Tim, extraordinary, account, communes, Bhagwan, Rajneesh, notorious, Indian, guru

Share
twitter

We have seen the birth of geometry in Egypt, its transference to the Ionian Islands, thence to Lower Italy and to Athens. We have witnessed its growth in Greece from feeble childhood to vigorous manhood, and now we shall see it return to the land of its birth and there derive new vigour.


— p. 34 (The Greeks)

Tags: We, seen, birth, geometry, Egypt, transference, Ionian, Islands, thence

Share
twitter

Backward, flow backward, O full tide of years! I am so weary of toil and of tears, Toil without recompense tears all in vain, Take them and give me my childhood again. I have grown weary of dust and decay, Weary of flinging my heart's wealth away Weary of sowing for others to reap; Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.


— A. M. W. Ball, Rock me to Sleep, Mother. Attributed to Elizabeth Akers Allen. See Northern Monthly, Volume II. 1868. Pub. by Allen line Bassett, Newark, N. J. Appendix to March, Volume II. 1868. Ball shows proof that he wrote it in 1856–7. Produces witness who saw it before 1860. Mrs. Allen says she wrote it in Italy, 1860. It was published in The Knickerbocker Magazine, May, 1861.

Tags: Backward, flow, full, tide, years, weary, toil, tears, without

Share
twitter

I, who have not cried since my childhood , I cry now like a child because of all that I shall never have. I cry over lost beauty and grandeur. I love everything that I should have embraced.


— Henri Barbusse, in The Inferno (1917), L'Enfer, as translated by Edward J. O'Brien (1918), Ch. XVII

Tags: who, cried, cry, now, child, never, over, lost, beauty

Share
twitter

childhood in large parts of modern Britain, at any rate, has been replaced by premature adulthood, or rather adolescence. Children grow up very fast but not very far. That is why it is possible for 14 year olds now to establish friendships with 26 year olds - because they know by the age of 14 all they are ever going to know.

anthony daniels

— Frontpage Magazine Interview (August 31, 2005)

Tags: large, parts, modern, Britain, rate, been, replaced, premature, adulthood

Share
twitter

Remember your own childhood. That complete certainty you had, looking at the grown-ups, that you would never be like that. It was a lonely feeling, but euphoric, too.


— 1994  Interview with Sarah Gristwood in The Times Magazine, 'Jane Campion:  A Childhood',1  Jan.

Tags: Remember, own, complete, certainty, you, looking, grownups, never, lonely

Share
twitter

The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day. Be famous then By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, So let extend thy mind o'er all the world.

john milton

— 1671Paradise Regained, bk.4, l.220-3.

Tags: shows, man, morning, day, famous, then, wisdom, empire, extend

Share
twitter

What a childhood I had. My mother never breast-fed me. She said she liked me as a friend.

rodney dangerfield

— p. 19 (It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004))

Tags: What, mother, never, me, liked, friend

Share
twitter

What was the rock my gliding childhood struck, / And what bright unreal path has led me here?'

philip larkin

— Lines from an early poem, letter to J.B. Sutton, 16 April 1941

Tags: What, rock, gliding, struck, bright, unreal, path, led, me

Share
twitter

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

Tags: You, chop, section, imaginative, substance, book, specifically, children, honest

Share
twitter

So the first step out of childhood is made all at once, without looking before or behind, without caution, and nothing held in reserve.

ursula k. le guin

— Chapter 1, "The Rowan Tree"

Tags: first, step, once, without, looking, before, behind, caution, nothing

Share
twitter

The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.

dmitri shostakovich

— Page 6 (Testimony (1979))

Tags: most, uninteresting, biography, composer, preludes, reader, hurries, fugue

Share
twitter

Death is a stage in human progress, to be passed as we would pass from childhood to youth, or from youth to manhood, and with the same consciousness of an everlasting nature.


— Edmund Sears, p. 177. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))

Tags: Death, stage, human, progress, passed, we, pass, youth, manhood

Share
twitter
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • »
  • Dictionary
  • Thesaurus
  • Examples
    • See in a sentence
    • Example articles
  • Quotes
    • Famous Quotes
    • Quote Articles
  • Spanish
    • Spanish-English Translation
    • Reference
  • Reference
    • Education
    • ESL
    • Grammar
    • Abbreviations
    • Biography
    • Books & Literature
    • Examples
    • Foreign Languages
    • Resources
    • Slideshows
  • Word Finder
    • 4 Pics 1 Word Answers
    • Anagram Solver
    • Scrabble Dictionary
    • Unscramble
    • Word Cookies Cheat
    • Scrabble Checker
    • Words With Friends Cheat
    • More Games
Share
  • Dictionary
  • Thesaurus
  • Examples
    • See in a sentence
    • Example articles
  • Quotes
    • Famous Quotes
    • Quote Articles
  • Spanish
    • Spanish-English Translation
    • Reference
  • Reference
    • Education
    • ESL
    • Grammar
    • Abbreviations
    • Biography
    • Books & Literature
    • Examples
    • Foreign Languages
    • Resources
    • Slideshows
  • Word Finder
    • 4 Pics 1 Word Answers
    • Anagram Solver
    • Scrabble Dictionary
    • Unscramble
    • Word Cookies Cheat
    • Scrabble Checker
    • Words With Friends Cheat
    • More Games
Share
  • Home
  • Quotes
  • childhood quotes
Send your feedback to YourDictionary
Get our free Amazon Alexa Skills!

Join YourDictionary today

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Please set a username for yourself.
People will see it as Author Name with your public flash cards.