Childhood sometimes does pay a second visit to man; youth never.

Childhood sometimes does pay a second visit to man; youth never.

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours read more

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours of parental time --but the truth is that we neglected you. We allowed you a charade of trivial freedoms in order to avoid making those impositions on you that are in the end both the training ground and proving ground for true independence. We pronounced you strong when you were still weak in order to avoid the struggles with you that would have fed your true strength. We proclaimed you sound when you were foolish in order to avoid taking part in the long, slow, slogging effort that is the only route to genuine maturity of mind and feeling. Thus, it was no small anomaly of your growing up that while you were the most indulged generation, you were also in many ways the most abandoned to your own meager devices by those into whose safe-keeping you had been given.

A society in which adults are estranged from the world of children, and often from their own childhood, tends to read more

A society in which adults are estranged from the world of children, and often from their own childhood, tends to hear children's speech only as a foreign language, or as a lie. Children have been treated. as congenital fibbers, fakers and fantasisers.

Children are curious and are risk takers. They have lots of courage. They venture out into a world that is read more

Children are curious and are risk takers. They have lots of courage. They venture out into a world that is immense and dangerous. A child initially trusts life and the processes of life.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after read more

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation. -Pearl S. Buck.

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child, the most important lesson for every time of life, is read more

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child, the most important lesson for every time of life, is this: "Never hurt anybody.".

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

Let a man turn to his own childhood -- no further -- if he will renew his sense of remoteness, read more

Let a man turn to his own childhood -- no further -- if he will renew his sense of remoteness, and of the mystery of change.