Children Quotes – Reflections on Childhood

"All of us are products of our childhood."

Michael Jackson

"You can make your own son or daughter one of a kind if you have the time and will to do so; school can only make them part of a hive, herd or anthill."

John Taylor Gatto

"Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers whom you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child's mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years? Could there be a more radical idea than that? Back in Colonial days in America, if you proposed that kind of idea, they'd burn you at the stake, you mad person! It's a mad idea!"

John Taylor Gatto

"If students get a sound education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, they may grow to be adults who use technology rather than be used by it."

Neil Postman

"Whatever you're doing today, do it with the confidence of a 4-year-old in a batman t-shirt."

Unbekannt

"Children are taught in their geography books, when too young to apprehend aright the meaning of such things, that the world is a great globe revolving around the Sun, and the story is repeated continuously, year by year, till they reach maturity, at which time they generally become so absorbed in other matters as to be indifferent as to whether the teaching be true or not, and, as they hear of nobody contradicting it, they presume that it must be the correct thing, if not to believe at least to receive it as a fact. They thus tacitly give their assent to a theory which, if it had first been presented to them at what are called ‘years of discretion,’ they would at once have rejected. The consequences of evil-teaching, whether in religion or in science, are far more disastrous than is generally supposed, especially in a luxurious laisser faire age like our own. The intellect becomes weakened and the conscience seared."

David Wardlaw Scott

"Ideally, every child throughout their entire schooling should be repeatedly told: "You are being indoctrinated. We have yet to develop an education system that is not an indoctrination system. We are sorry, but this is the best we can do. What is taught here is a mixture of common prejudices and the decisions of this particular culture. The slightest glance at history shows how unstable these must be. You are taught by people who were able to fit into a thought pattern set by their predecessors. It is a self-sustaining system. Those among you who are more robust and individual than others are encouraged to leave the classroom and find ways to educate yourselves – to form your own judgments. Those who stay must constantly remember that they are being shaped and patterned to fit the narrow and special needs of this particular society.""

Doris Lessing

"But it’s no good getting hung up about them because the main thing is to get the kids. You know, this is the Catholic trick — they nail you when you’re young and brainwash you, and then they’ve got you for the rest of your life. In actual fact, do this sort of thing — but brainwash people with the truth"

George Harrison

"Never before has there been an art form that was so exclusively aimed at children. The music business is unique in that it is almost exclusively aimed at children."

Dr. Alan Bloom

"There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see."

Leonardo da Vinci

"In schools, children learn above all to accept the system, to work for paper money, and not to question the government. They do not learn to make peace, to forgive, to be helpful to all people, and certainly not wisdom.
It is a breeding ground for training the future workhorses of the elites to be puppets loyal to the system."

Matthias Lubos

"The situation is clear. And I think my colleagues [doctors who vaccinate children] are being very naive if they don't fully inform patients about what's actually going on. And the political wind can change at any time. And if children die as a result, the statute of limitations only expires after 20 years. And then, as a doctor, you will be sued for negligent homicide and you will go to prison – even after 15 years. [...] I don't think many colleagues understand that."

Dr. med. Gunter Frank

"No one in their right mind would let a sixteen-year-old whose parents gave them an anatomy atlas for Christmas remove their appendix. No one who wants to build a house for themselves and their family would hire a sixteen-year-old architect who has only built sandcastles so far. And no one who can tell the difference between a hedge fund and a building society savings agreement would entrust their fortune to a sixteen-year-old. But when it comes to the climate and the world we live in, noisy children suddenly mutate into esteemed prophets of impending doom."

Henryk M. Broder

"It isn't a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state's goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government's propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They'll fasten the chains to their own ankles."

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

"The well-known school critic and teacher John Taylor Gatto identifies seven lessons as the real teachings of school:

Confusing the student
Awakening class consciousness
Teaching indifference
Creating intellectual and emotional dependence
Weakening self-confidence
and Accustoming students to constant supervision.

"School condemns most people to being lowly building blocks in a pyramidal social model. In collaboration with television, schooling robs children of the time they need to develop a unique personality, thereby preventing them from growing up. School has replaced the ‘family curriculum’ with the components of privacy, independence, and social life. In its place has come the factory school, a prison for children's souls that fragments social relationships into networks and cannot be survived without damage."

"It replaces the intellectual growth of children with the violent creation of subjects.
It kills the curiosity of its subjects, places them in a dense fog of confusion from which many will never be able to free themselves in their entire lives, it blocks their path to individual freedom and denies them the fulfillment that comes with a free spirit.""

John Taylor Gatto

"Three things remain with us from paradise: the stars of the night, the flowers of the day, and the eyes of children."

Dante Alighieri

"If I ever had a son, he should become something prosaic: a lawyer or a pirate."

Lord Byron

"You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If the baby eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, then we’re real carnivores!"

Gary Yourofsky