In case it is not obvious, whilst many of these quotations are consistent with Taking Children Seriously, many of them are not. Sometimes it is just interesting that that person said it, or it is interesting for some other reason.
“On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD…”
– William Lloyd Garrison, 1831, The Liberator
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls live in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”
– Kahlil Gilbran, 1923, The Prophet, On children, p. 21
“Enterprising experiment is not only natural to childhood, but a positive virtue. That is the quality which leads the world onward, and the lack of it is a Chinese wall against progress.”
– Charlotte Perkins [Stetson] Gilman, 1900, Concerning Children, Chapter IV: The child and the slipper, p. 93
“To learn what you don’t know is always a step up. But why need we add to this the difficulty of making the child dislike the work? ‘Because it is necessary in this world to do what you don’t like!’ is the triumphant rejoinder. This is an enormous mistake. It is necessary in this world to like what you do, if you are to do anything worth while. One of the biggest of all our troubles is that so many of us are patiently and wearily doing what we do not like. It is a constant injury to the individual, draining his nervous strength and leaving him more easily affected by disease or temptation; and it is a constant injury to society, because the work we do not like to do is not as good as it would be if we liked it. The kind of forcing we use in our educational processes, the ‘attention’ paid to what does not interest, the following of required lines of study irrespective of inclination,—these act to blunt and lower our natural inclinations, and leave us with this mischievous capacity for doing what we do not like.”
– Charlotte Perkins [Stetson] Gilman, 1900, Concerning Children, Chapter VII: Unconscious schooling, pp. 151-152
“The duty of the child to the parent was largely invented by parents, from motives of natural self-interest, and has been so long sanctioned and practised that we look on without a shudder and see a healthy middle-aged mother calmly swallowing the life of her growing daughter. […] The child does not owe the parent.”
– Charlotte Perkins [Stetson] Gilman, 1900, Concerning Children, Chapter VIII: Presumptuous age, pp. 162-164
“There is reverence that we owe to every thing in human shape. I do not say that a child is the image of God. But I do affirm that he is an individual being, with powers of reasoning, with sensations of pleasure and pain, and with principles of morality; and that in this description is contained abundant cause for the exercise of reverence and forbearance. By the system of nature he is placed by himself; he has claim upon his little sphere of empire and discretion; and he is entitled to his appropriate portion of independence. Violate not thy own image in the person of thy offspring. That image is sacred. He that does violence to it is the genuine blasphemer. The most fundamental of all principles of morality is the consideration and deference that man owes to man; nor is the helplessness of childhood by any means unentitled to the benefit of this principle.”
– William Godwin, 1797, The Enquirer, Part I, Essay X: Of domestic or family life, pp. 78-79
“The right of the parent over his child lies either in his superior strength or his superior reason. If in his strength, we have only to apply this right universally, in order to drive all morality out of the world. If in his reason, in that reason let him confide. It is a poor argument of my superior reason, that I am unable to make justice be apprehended and felt in the most necessary cases, without the intervention of blows.”
– William Godwin, 1793, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, VII.II p. 370
“If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such. If you cannot demonstrate its excellence, it may well be suspected that you are no proper judge of it.”
– William Godwin, 1797, The Enquirer, Part I, Essay IX: Of the communication of knowledge, p. 69
“This plan is calculated entirely to change the face of education. The whole formidable apparatus which has hitherto attended it, is swept away. Strictly speaking, no such characters are left on the scene as either preceptor or pupil. The boy, like the man, studies, because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of his own invention, or which, by adopting, he has made his own. Every thing bespeaks independence and equality. The man, as well as the boy, would be glad in cases of difficulty to consult a person more informed than himself. That the boy is accustomed almost always to consult the man, and not the man the boy, is to be regarded rather as an accident, than anything essential. Much even of this would be removed, if we remembered that the most inferior judge may often, by the varieties of his apprehension, give valuable information to the most enlightened. The boy however should be consulted by the man unaffectedly, not according to any preconcerted scheme, or for the purpose of persuading him that he is what he is not.”
– William Godwin, 1797, The Enquirer, Part I, Essay IX: Of the communication of knowledge, pp. 71-72
“To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.”
– William Godwin, 1793, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, p. 373
“In what manner would reason, independently of the received modes and practices of the world, teach us to communicate knowledge? Liberty is one of the most desirable of all sublunary advantages. I would willingly therefore communicate knowledge, without infringing, or with as little possible violence to, the volition and individual judgement of the person to be instructed.”
– William Godwin, 1797, The Enquirer, Part I, Essay IX: Of the communication of knowledge, pp. 67-68
“According to the received modes of education, the master goes first and the pupil follows. According to the method here recommended, it is probable that the pupil should go first, and the master follow.”
– William Godwin, 1797, The Enquirer, Part I, Essay IX: Of the communication of knowledge, p. 70
“The condition of a negro slave in the West-Indies, is in many respects preferable to that of the youthful son of a free-born European. The slave is purchased upon a view of mercantile speculation; and, when he has finished his daily portion of labour, his master concerns himself no further about him. But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.”
– William Godwin, 1797, The Enquirer, Part I: Essay VIII: Of the happiness of youth, p. 54
“Let us consider the effect that coercion produces upon the mind of him against whom it is employed. It cannot begin with convincing; it is no argument. It begins with the sensation of pain, and the sentiment of distaste. It begins with violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to be impressed. It includes in it a tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.”
– William Godwin, 1793, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, VII.II p. 370
“That man brings a certain character into the world with him, is a point that must readily be conceded. The mistake is to suppose that he brings an immutable character.”
– William Godwin, 1797, 1823, The Enquirer, Part I: Essay IV: Of the sources of genius, p. 21
“[T]he interactions of life’s earliest years lay down a set of emotional lessons based on the attunement and upsets in the contacts between infant and caretakers.”
– Daniel Goleman, 1995, 2006, Emotional Intelligence, Chapter 2: Anatomy of an emotional hijacking, p. 22
“Some technologies really have reshaped our lives, minds, and societies. Almost always before the technology emerges people view it with exaggerated anxiety or anticipation, and after it’s become widely accepted they barely notice it and take it for granted.”
– Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children, Chapter 8: The future and the past: children and technology, The world of screens
“‘Parent’ is not actually a verb, not a form of work, and it isn’t and shouldn’t be directed toward the goal of sculpting a child into a particular kind of adult. Instead, to be a parent—to care for a child—is to be part of a profound and unique human relationship, to engage in a particular kind of love. […] To be a wife is not to engage in ‘wifing,’ to be a friend is not to ‘friend,’ even on Facebook, and we don’t ‘child’ our mothers and fathers. Yet these relationships are central to who we are. […] We might say that we try hard to be a good wife or husband, or that it’s important to us to be a good friend or a better child. But I would not evaluate the success of my marriage by measuring whether my husband’s character had improved in the years since we wed. I would not evaluate the quality of an old friendship by whether my friend was happier or more successful than when we first met—indeed, we all know that friendships show their quality most in the darkest days. Nevertheless, this is the implicit picture of parenting—that your qualities as a parent can be, and even should be, judged by the child you create.”
– Alison Gopnik, 2016, The Gardener and the Carpenter: what the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children, Introduction: The Parent Paradoxes: From parenting to being a parent
“Here is a little-known psychological truth—a paradox, too: you acquire more influence with young people when you give up using your power to control them! … [T]he more you use power to try to control people, the less real influence you’ll have on their lives. Why? Because power methods create resistance (not doing what the adult wants), rebellion (doing the opposite), or lying (not doing it but saying you did).”
– Thomas Gordon, 1989, Teaching Children Self-Discipline, p. 7
Return to alphabetical index of Quotations pages
Taking Children Seriously, ‘Quotations G’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/quotations/