Children and Childhood Quotes

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it. ~ The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless. ~ The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow. ~ The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot "Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can." ~ Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price--purchased with all she had--her mother's only treasure! ~ The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne "For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love." ~ Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new. ~ Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. ~ A Christmas Tree by Charles Dickens In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's. ~ Silas Marner by George Eliot She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep--only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky--before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway. ~ Silas Marner by George Eliot