Charles Horton Cooley Quotes

The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children.

By the word simplicity, is not always meant folly or ignorance; but often, pure and upright Nature, free from artifice, craft or deceitful ornament.

"Body am I, and soul" - so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?

People is themselves when they are children, and not again till they know they'm dying.

If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil's angels.

How often the priest had heard the same confession--Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.

The simple-hearted and sincere never do more than half deceive themselves.

Children, as persons, are entitled to the greatest respect. Children are given to us as free-flying souls, but then we clip their wings like we domesticate the wild mallard. Children should become the role-models for us, their parents, for they are coated with the spirit from which they came- out of the ether, clean, innocent, brimming with the delight of life, aware of the beauty of the simplest thing; a snail, a bud.

Evil is not interesting. What is it, chopping off someone's head? We used to do that as kids, you know, you tear up paper dolls and stuff. I know everyone's done it in the history of the world, but maybe everybody was dumb and they were just looking for something interesting to do. What's really interesting and hard is being good.

For success in training children the first condition is to become as a child oneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending baby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors. What it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the child as the child himself is absorbed by his life.

In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.

there is no need to justify what we are. there is no need to work hard to become what we are not. we just need to return to our intergrity, to the way we were before we learned to speak. perfect. as little children, we are authentic. only the present time is real for us; wo don't care about the past, and we aren't worried about the future. we enjoy life; we want to explore and have fun. nobody teaches us to be that way; we are born that way.

Dandelions don't tell no lies.

Love. Children are loving, they dont gossip, they dont complain, theyre just open-hearted. Theyre ready for you. They dont judge. They dont see things by way of color. Theyre very child-like. Thats the problem with adults: they lose that child-like quality. And thats the level of inspiration thats so needed and is so important for creating and writing songs and for a sculptor, a poet or a novelist. Its that same kind of innocence, that same level of consciousness, that you create from. And kids have it. I feel it right away from animals and children and nature. Of course.

I was happy but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you.

What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda.

In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.

Is not thy home among the flowers?

Food from the platter / Water from the rain / The subject and the matter / I'm going home again / Can't sell a leaf to a tree / Nor the wind to the atmosphere / I know where I am meant to be / And I can't be satisfied here

Everybody's twelve years old in an apple orchard.

Children lack morality, but they also lack fake morality.

As long as there are flowers and children and birds in the world, have no fears: everything will be fine.

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.

If you wish to be like a little child, study what a little child could understand — nature; and do what a little child could do — love.

...no cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them.