Children have more need of models than of critics.

— Joseph Joubert, French moralist and essayist, 1754-1824

Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it.

— Harold S. Hulbert, U.S. actor, 1909-1959

The wildest colts make the best horses.

— Plutarch, Greek biographer and essayist, 45-120 CE

The habits we form from childhood make no small difference. They make all the difference.

— Takao Hensch, U.S. joint Professor of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University’s Center for Brain Science

There are no illegitimate children – only illegitimate parents.

— Leon R. Yankwich, U.S. Federal judge, 1888-1975

What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give.

— P.D. James, English crime novelist, 1920-2014

A child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.

— Ellen Key, Swedish feminist writer and an early advocate of a child-centered approach to education and parenting, 1849-192

. . . within the core of each of us is the child we once were. This child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be.

— Rhawn Joseph, U.S. neuroscientist and author

Many children, many cares. No children, no felicity.

— Christian Bovee, U.S. writer, 1820-1904

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until . . . we have stopped saying It got lost, and say I lost it.

— Sydney J. Harris, U.S. journalist and columnist, 1917-1986
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