Billy Graham Quotes

Behind every successful child is an adult who believed in him.

I've always kind of lived my life to be as much as possible a positive role model for children.

Every child should be taught to be a caring adult and be given an opportunity to serve their communities.

One of the things that I learned at a very young age is the power of a parent's words to their children.

Children are primed to take in something of more moral value than they're getting. I know I'm blowing my own horn here, but 'E.T.' had value to it in terms of the feeling about yourself that you walked away with.

In fact, I am a pessimist. But when I'm making a film, I don't want to transfer my pessimism onto children. I keep it at bay. I don't believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children, children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There's no need to force our own visions onto them.

You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?

I just watched cartoons for three years, and that had a strong affect on me.

The most wonderful thing in life is to do something for a child because they're children for such a short time. We can't allow ourselves to let them live a miserable childhood.

There is little mysticism without an element of transcendence, and conversely, there is no transcendence without a certain degree of egocentrism. It may be that the genesis of these experiences is to be sought in the unique situation of the very young child in relation to adults. The theory of the filial origin of the religious sense seems to us singularly convincing in this connection.

When you're an only child, you get very used to pleasing the adults around you.

But an adult if he is to provide proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.

A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

The child should live in an environment of beauty.

Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?

Children never lie...I remember my daughter standing in her crib the first time I gave her caviar. I put it on bread. She ate it and said, "Encore, Papa."

So mothers everywhere take heart. The indoctrination you administer now may have unanticipated positive effects years later.

When kids can't come to my show, I feel bad, because grown-up 21 and up people really probably don't need my help as much as an 11-year-old child.

In the man whose childhood has known caresses and kindness, there is always a fiber of memory that can be touched to gentle issues.

A little bit of attention and kindness can totally change a whole life, and a lack of that can do the same.

There is nothing more influential in a child's life than the moral power of quiet example. For children to take morality seriously they must see adults take morality seriously.

The popular idea of a role model implies that an adult's influence on a child is primarily occupational, and that all a black child needs is to see a black doctor, and then this child will think, "Oh, I can become a doctor too."

The first years of life are not just important; they are more crucial to shaping children than any other time. Even before they speak, children are extremely sensitive to the messages adults send them.

It would be very sad if children had no memories before those of school. What they need most is the love and attention of their mother.

I remember little things that break my heart. We were coming out of Michael's house one day, and he noticed my shoelaces were undone. He bent down and tied them. I almost cried. To me, it was such a gesture of love.