Don't take up a man's time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about read more

Don't take up a man's time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about the smartness of his children.

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.

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.

A boy is a magical creature--you can lock him out of your workshop, but you can't lock him out of read more

A boy is a magical creature--you can lock him out of your workshop, but you can't lock him out of your heart.

There is nothing so aggravating as a fresh boy who is too old to ignore and too young to kick.

There is nothing so aggravating as a fresh boy who is too old to ignore and too young to kick.

When you can't do anything else to a boy, you can make him wash his face.

When you can't do anything else to a boy, you can make him wash his face.

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.

A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.

A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.

It is dangerous to confuse children with angels.

It is dangerous to confuse children with angels.