Previous Quotes of the Month for 2002
January
"Peace in society depends upon peace in the family."
Augustine
February
"It is my pleasure that my children are free and happy, and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents."
Abraham Lincoln
March
"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,
The Sense of Wonder
April
"No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure."
Emma Goldman
May
"If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred, we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life. For that is where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation - or love and trust."
Suzanne Arms
from the video Giving Birth: Challenges & Choices
June
"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element ... It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather ... I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether the crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized."
Haim Ginott,
Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers
July
"Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another."
Juvenal
1st - 2nd century C.E.
August
"Kindness in thought leads to wisdom. Kindness in speech leads to eloquence. Kindness in action leads to love."
Lao Tsu
September/October
"When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That's if you want to teach them to think."
Bertrand Russell
November
"I watch these little kids, all eager and into their little world, and sometimes they dissolve into little molecules, bounding around, vital and energetic. And it's so wonderful and comical and so great that, for a moment, I see the whole human condition that way. It's all like a joyous creation in which the gods and goddesses are taking delight. So why shouldn't we? And I'll just plunge into the dance.
Sometimes I carry this feeling home with me, and I have it around the house. I feel it at work inside. I'm cleaning up, and calling this friend and that, and dropping in on a person down the hall, and helping them out with whatever. And it's like the only reason to be here at all is to play. And the fact that this take on things makes me and everyone else feel so good will make me stop for a moment and think, 'My God, maybe it's true.'"
Ram Dass,
How Can I Help
More Quotes of the MonthDecember
"It is wisdom to believe the heart."
George Santayana