The quotes about children on this page are from sources and authors surnames H through to M. The other pages cover: A to G and N to Z. There is also a page of words from unknown sources: Sayings About Children and there a page of Spiritual Poems For Children.
Quotes about Children are listed alphabetically on surname/source

Quotes About Children: H

Alex Haley 1921 – 1992
Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.
Tying the little folks with the older folks is a great and powerful tool to preserve and to protect the family and the individual.

Brooke Hampton
As mamas, papas, grandparents, teachers and caregivers we have a responsibility to protect these little Earth warriors. It’s our job to protect and nurture their love, their innocence, their spirits, their imagination, their gifts, their health, and wellbeing, their spirituality, their confidence, their character, their freedom of thought, their instincts, their wildness, and their magic! There is nothing we can do in this lifetime that will compare to the importance of this work. These little ones are our future. Guard them well!

Brooke Hampton
Speak to them [children] as if you were on stage in front of thousands of people. Respond to them with the respect they deserve. They are our future. Guard your tongue. Be brave enough to try harder. Let’s create a childhood that our children won’t have to recover from.
Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on Earth, for what they believe is what they will become.

Neil Patrick Harris 1973
Parents need to be more accepting of who their kids are and less concerned about what society thinks they need to be.

Louise Hart
The best thing to spend on your children is.. Time.

Katherine Butler Hathaway 1890 – 1942
Everybody knows that a good mother gives her children a feeling of trust and stability… Somehow even her clothes feel different to her children’s hands from anybody else’s clothes. Only to touch her skirt or her sleeve makes a troubled child feel better.

Jim Henson 1936 – 1990
The attitude that you have as a parent is what your kids will learn from, more than what you tell them. They don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.
Heraclitus 535BC – 475BC
Time is a game… played beautifully by children.

Florence Hoatson 1881 – 1964
God whose name is Love
Happy children we
Listen to the hymn
That we sing to Thee
Hands together, softly so
Little eyes shut tight
Father, just before we go
Hear our prayer tonight
We are all Thy children here
This is what we pray
Keep us when the dark is near
And through every day

Eric Hoffer 1902 – 1983
Children are the keys of paradise.

Gary Holland
Every child is a deliberate, passionate creation of God. If you doubt that, just look into their eyes. You will find a gentle little spirit who hungers for life and for your love.

Oliver Wendell Holmes 1809 – 1894
Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.

Nicola Horlick 1960
When I pick up one of my children and cuddle them, all the strain and stress of life temporarily disappears. There is nothing more wonderful than motherhood and no one will ever love you as much as a small child.

Joe Houldsworth
The only thing worth stealing is a kiss from a sleeping child.

Whitney Houston 1963 – 2012
(Also sung by George Benson. Written by Michael Masser & Linda Creed)
I believe the children are our future,
Teach them well and let them lead the way.
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier.
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.

Elbert Hubbard 1856 – 1915
Where parents do too much for their children…
the children will not do much for themselves.

Kate Hudson 1979
Your children teach you so much. It’s a real mirror of yourself.

Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885
If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.

Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Quotes About Children: J

Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
Children show me in their playful smiles, the Divine in everyone. This simple goodness shines straight from their hearts and only asks to be loved.
In their innocence, very young children know themselves to be Light and Love. If we allow them, they can teach us to see ourselves the same way.

P. D. James 1920 – 2014
What a child doesn’t receive.. he can seldom later give.

Randell Jarrell 1914 – 1965
One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups, to a child, is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

Lady Bird Johnson 1912 – 2007
Children are likely to live up to what you believe in them.

Angelina Jolie 1975
Sometimes, when I want to take on the world, I try to remember that it’s just as important to sit down and ask my son how he’s feeling or talk to him about life.

Franklin P. Jones
You can learn many things from children…
How much patience you have, for instance.

Juvenal 55 – 127
Be gentle with the young.

Quotes About Children: K

Amit Kalantri 1988
No matter how knowledgeable you are, respect your parents for their experience and your children for their curiosity.

Bel Kaufman 1911
Children are the true connoisseurs, what’s precious to them has no price, only value.

Lionel Kaufman
Children are a great comfort in old age.

Montague Keen 1925 – 2004
The greatest gift you can give your children is…
your love and your time.

John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.

John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Miranda Kerr 1983
There are no words that could ever describe the happiness and the joy that you feel when you see your son smile in the morning. I just feel so lucky.

Jay Kessler
Young people need something stable to hang onto, a culture connection, a sense of their own past, a hope for their own future. Most of all, they need what grandparents can give them.

Ellen Key 1849 – 1926
At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life; the thorns should never be plucked from the roses.

Nicole Kidman 1967
I love acting… but it’s much more fun taking the kids to the zoo.

Knights of Pythagoras
A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.

L. R. Knost
A lifestyle of reading puts the vast knowledge of the ages into the hands of our children. Exchanging the life-long riches of a love of reading for the temporary value of facts gleaned from required reading lists is a paltry deal, indeed. Encourage reading, yes, but let their hearts, their interests, their imaginations choose their reading material. Whatever momentary facts they need for the next test or quiz can be found just as easily on Google. A passion for reading can only be found in the heart of the child.
It is time for a return to childhood, to simplicity, to running and climbing and laughing in the sunshine, to experiencing happiness instead of being trained for a lifetime of pursuing happiness. It is time to let children be children again.
It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.
Jiddu Krishnamurti 1895 – 1986
Education in the true sense is helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness. That is what we should be interested in, and not in shaping the child according to some idealistic pattern.

Quotes About Children: L
Jess Lair 1927 – 2000
Children are not things to be moulded, but are people to be unfolded.
Praise is like sunlight to the human spirit, we cannot flower and grow without it.

Dalai Lama 1935
Give the ones you love…
Wings to fly, roots to come back. And reasons to stay.
It is vital that when educating our children’s brains, that we do not neglect to educate their hearts.

Dalai Lama 1935
The time has come to take concrete steps to bring about a real transformation in the ways we educate our future generations. We need to combine both an education of the mind with an education of the heart.

Charles Lamb 1775 – 1834
A sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature.

Anne Lamott 1954
There really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child.

Ann Landers
It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.

Vicki Lansky 1942
You will always be your child’s favourite toy.

Penelope Leach 1937
Loving a child is a circular business…
the more you give, the more you get,
the more you get, the more you give.

Kelly Lebrock 1960
Success for me.. is to raise happy, healthy human beings.
Giacomo Leopardi 1798 – 1837
Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything.

Alan Jay Lerner 1918 – 1986
Stay close to the young… and a little rubs off.

Amy Leslie
No animal is so inexhaustible as an excited infant.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.

Sam Levenson 1911 – 1980
Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn’t poor.
One of the virtues of being very young is that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your imagination.
The simplest toy, one which even the youngest child can operate is called a grandparent.

C. S. Lewis 1898 – 1963
Children are not a distraction from more important work.. They are the most important work.

Ming Li
All children who are held and loved will know how to love others. Spread these virtues in the world. Nothing more need be done.

Bruce Lipton 1944
The most important thing that we need to understand as parents is that everything you say, everything you do, for the first seven years of that child’s life is being recorded and becoming their behaviour.

Robert Llewelyn 1956
Mother to six year old: “Jane, what are you doing?”
“I’m drawing God.”
“But darling, nobody knows what God looks like.”
“No mummy, they don’t yet, but they will when they’ve seen my drawing.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 – 1882
A torn jacket is soon mended, but harsh words bruise the heart of a child.

Diane Loomans
If I had my child to raise over again…
I’d finger paint more, and point the finger less.
I’d do less correcting, and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less, and know to care more.
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I’d run through more fields, and gaze at more stars.
I’d do more hugging, and less tugging.
I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I’d teach less about the love of power,
and more about the power of love.
It matters not whether my child is big or small,
from this day forth, I’ll cherish it all.

Richard Louv 1949
Teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem and the potential for healing.

Luther Standing Bear 1868 – 1939
If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitantly set that child’s feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian.
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man’s heart away from nature becomes hard. He knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. So he kept his children close to nature’s softening influence.

Quotes About Children: M

Harvey MacKay 1932
We start out as pretty creative beings… Children let their imaginations take them to place they’ve never seen and do things that seem impossible. We encourage it as fun and playtime, but we should celebrate it as the potential for great discovery and accomplishment.

Mae Maloo
Children seldom misquote you.
They more often repeat, word for word, what you shouldn’t have said.

William Martin
How do children learn to correct their mistakes?
By watching how you correct yours.
How do children learn to overcome their failures?
By watching how you overcome yours.
How do children learn to treat themselves with forgiveness?
By watching you forgive yourself.
Therefore, your mistakes and your failures are blessings; opportunities for the best in parenting. And those who point out your mistakes are not your enemies, but the most valuable of friends.
You do not have to make your children into wonderful people. You only have to remind them that they are wonderful people. If you do this consistently from the day they are born, they will believe it easily.


Mary McBride
What a difference it makes to come home to a child.

Mignon McLaughlin 1913 – 1983
Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children.

Adam McLeod
As children, we see life only in the present moment. Children feel a certain way and react intuitively in the here and now. They have not yet developed an analytical process which interferes with intuition.

Margaret Mead 1901 – 1978
Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

Barbara F. Meltz
Whether your child is three or thirteen, don’t rush in to rescue him, until you know he’s done all he can to rescue himself.

Bradley Millar
Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar, is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.

Rebecca Miller
That’s one thing I find about having children – it does unlock a door that separates you from other women who’ve had children.

A. A. Milne 1882 – 1956
If ever there is a tomorrow when we’re not together there is something you must always remember… You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. Even if we’re apart, I’ll always be with you.

Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
All little girls should be told they are pretty.

Thomas S. Monson 1927
Raising children, be aware that the piles and piles of laundry will disappear all too soon and that you will, to your surprise, miss them profoundly.
Maria Montessori 1870 – 1952
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.
Maria Montessori 1870 – 1952
When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength.

Christopher Moore
Children see magic because they look for it.
Mourning Dove 1888 – 1936
aka Christal Quintasket
Children were encouraged to develop a strict discipline and a high regard for sharing. When a girl picked her first berries and dug her first roots, they were given away to an elder so she would share her future success. When a child carried water for the home, an elder would give compliments, pretending to taste meat in water carried by a boy or berries in that of a girl. The child was encouraged not to be lazy and to grow straight like a sapling.

Movie – A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

Robert Muller 1923 – 2010
A child thinks that life is really beautiful and that it will become even more beautiful. It is the duty of society to fulfil that expectation.
Adults are the first and foremost teachers of love, peace, truth, tolerance, happiness and spirituality to their children. No school on Earth can ever replace them.
Dear children and youth, please remember always that: you are your parents’ main contribution to evolution and further human ascent; you are their immorality; you are their greatest work of art and joy; you will be their last thought and pride at their moment of death. You must think of the chain of life from which you come and will continue on this miraculous planet in the vast solar system. Your parents are sacred and so are you.
I love all my children but with different loves each adapted to the child’s particular nature. Thus is God’s love for all His children on Earth.
I wish the world would cover itself again with fruit trees for the happiness of little children. Every child on Earth should have the pleasure of touching and picking live fruits from a tree.
If we only knew what children think and feel about life, nature, people and the world into which they are born. It would give us many clues about the meaning of life and happiness.
It is the natural and perennial role of parents to teach, to warn, to protect, to guide, to help, to prepare, to ‘raise’ their children. Children, for their part, have their own predispositions, nature, dreams and likings. The result will be blending of the two, of the past, the present and the future. And thus humanity proceeds on its evolutionary path, epitomised and moulded in each of the Earth’s hundreds of millions of families. The family is the first and greatest school of love, peace and happiness on Earth. As for all other human groups, there should be no confrontation, no conflict, no breakage of the family, only give and take, understanding, love and cooperation. For these are the ways of ascent of humanity.
Love must become the subject of serious scientific study. Loved children are healthier, happier, more peaceful children. Loved husbands have seldom heart attacks. Loved plants grow better. Loved animals are not vicious. Loved nations do not wage war. A humanity of loving people will be a peaceful humanity. To promote love means therefore to promote peace. Yes, let us have a loveology, a science of love, to start with a World University of Love.
Observe your children closely, they often have fundamental approaches and answers to the mysteries of life which we have lost as adults.


Robert Muller 1923 – 2010
The example of parents is the greatest teacher. Parents must stand out as models of happiness to their children.
Was I more myself when I was a child? I could burst with joy and also cry. I was fascinated by everything. I fell asleep, exhausted by the wonders of life.
We have entered an age of such complexity that we are now turning to children and youth for answers on many issues.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
When I was an adult, I no longer spoke like a child.
When I became old and wise, I spoke again like a child.
I wish I had spoken all my life like a child.