If you want to recapture your youth, just cut off his allowance.

If you want to recapture your youth, just cut off his allowance.

Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.

Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.

The child is father of the man.

The child is father of the man.

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.

Flowers are words which even a baby can understand.

Flowers are words which even a baby can understand.

I don't know any parents that look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say, How can we screw read more

I don't know any parents that look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say, How can we screw this kid up.

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.

It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age.

A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age.