John Ruskin Quotes

I thought children were pure and innocent, and that was inherently better.

It is indeed a mistake to confuse children with angels

The greatest privilege of childhood is to live totally in the present.

I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence.

When you're six years old, you don't look at things the way an adult looks at things.

I don't know, maybe I'm overly paranoid that they're going to be spoiled, but I want to keep them going as kids for as long as I can. I want to keep them innocent and free.

Hold back the tide. Keep your kids innocent as long as possible.

Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.

Most of the time, a kid doesn't think about what he's doing or why. This is the privilege of childhood.

As a child, you only think of the now.

Take in every moment. Don't try to grow up too quickly.

Watching my little 18 month old confidently waddle around his weekend exploring the world, I realized that one of the things that's so joyful about being around little one's is that they haven't absorbed all of our cultural programming yet.

A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten.

Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young children, after all, and equally gratuitous.

Babies are unreasonable; they expect far too much of existence. Each new generation that comes takes one look at the world, thinks wildly, "Is this all they've done to it?" and bursts into tears.

There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.

Only children tell the whole truth, you know. That's what makes them children.

Everything is explicable in the terms of the behavior of a small child.

I'm sure I shall always feel like a child in the wood.

There is something very cheerful and courageous in the setting-out of a child on a journey of speech with so small baggage and with so much confidence.

Your little child is the only true democrat.

Children are very fair minded, they really are.

The greatest poem ever known Is one all poets have outgrown: The poetry, innate, untold, Of being only four years old.