Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673Quotes
The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward VIII, 1957A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.
—Jane Austen, 1816Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
—George Eliot, 1860Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688The young man must store up, the old man must use.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 63Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.
—Margaret Atwood, 1976I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
—Lord Byron, 1813The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.
—Plato, c. 348 BCA dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.
—Cicero, 44 BCBlessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924