by J. Paxton

Created on: November 20, 2008

As anyone who has worked or lived with children knows, sometimes it can seem impossible to convey the experience. Here are some words that give it more justice than I ever could:

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance."

"Women gather together to wear silly hats, eat dainty food, and forget how unresponsive their husbands are. Men gather to talk sports, eat heavy food, and forget how demanding their wives are. Only where children gather is there any real chance of fun."-Mignon McLaughlin

"I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult."-Fran Lebowitz

"Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?"-Samuel Johnson

"Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility"-Kate Wiggin

"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them."-Richard L. Evans

"Kids-they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music."-William Stafford

"There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million."-Walt Streightiff

"What we desire our children to become, we must endeavor to be before them."-Andrew Combe

"If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much."-Marian Wright Edelman

"Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of humanity."-Rabindranath Tagor

"The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him."-Pablo Casals

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."-Rachel Carson

"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see."-John Whitehead

"Every child born has innate goodness."

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted."-Garrison Keillor

"While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about."-Angela Schwindt

And, my personal favorite that has often ran through my mind during long nights due to homesickness or a nightmare:

"There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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