We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, from The Conduct of Life 

The soul is healed by being with children. -Fyodor Dostoevsky 

There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and his mother's age. -Modern Maturity 

Before I married, I had three theories about raising children and no children.Now, I have three children and no theories. -John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester 

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love themas God gives them to us. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from Hermann and Dorothea

A child is . . .  a person 
who is going to carry on what you have started. 
He is going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, 
attend to those things you think are important. 
He will assume control over cities, states and nations. 
He is going to move in and take over your churches,
school, universities and corporations . . . 
The fate of humanity is in his hands . . . 
-Abraham Lincoln

An aware parent loves all children he or she meets and interacts with; for you are a caretaker for those moments in time. 

For only as we ourselves, as adults, actually move and have our being in the state of love, can we be appropriate models and guides for our children. What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become. from Teaching Children to Love, introduction. -Joseph Chilton Pearce 

As adults, we must ask more of our children than they know how to ask of themselves. What can we do to foster their openhearted hopefulness, engage their need to collaborate, be an incentive to utilize their natural competency and compassion . . . show them ways they can connect, reach out, weave themselves into the web of relationships that is called community. . -Dawna Markova 

Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow. . -Thomas Bray 

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 

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. -Harry S Truman

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week. -Mario Cuomo

Your children need your presence more than your presents. -Jesse Jackson

We are apt to forget that children watch examples better than they listen to preaching. -Roy L. Smith

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. -Clarence Budinton Kelland 

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own. -Doug Larson 

Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble. -Dennis Fakes 

Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home. -Bill Cosby 

Teenagers are people 
who act like babies if 
they're not treated like adults. 
-MAD Magazine 

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. -Ed Asner 

Children are natural mimics: they act like their parents in spite of every attempt to teach them good manners. -Anonymous 

There is always a moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. -Graham Green 

Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain. -Martin Mull

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth. -Peter Ustinov 

You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers . -John Plomp 

A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm. -Bill Vaughan 

Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force to an immovable object. -Laurence J. Peter 

Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. -Arab proverb 

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it. -Margaret Fuller 

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. -Unknown 

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. -Clarence Budinton Kelland 

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings. -Hodding Carter