Quotessence
Home / Authors / Louise J. Kaplan
Louise J. Kaplan

Louise J. Kaplan Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllAdolescenceChildrenHumansMotherInfantParentWorldBabyIdealsSelfAdultsEmotionalExistenceFatherOrderPastBodyChildhoodEnergyFacts

Famous Louise J. Kaplan Quotes

“By directing our sentiments, passions, and reason toward the common human plight, imagination grants us the advantages of a moralexistence. What we surrender of innocent love of self is exchanged for the safeties and pleasures of belonging to a larger whole. We are born dependent, but only imagination can bind our passions to other human beings.”

HumansSelfReasonWholePassionBornImaginationHuman BeingsPleasureCommonSelf LoveAdvantageSafetySurrenderInnocentDependentGrantsBelongingSentimentsPlightInnocent Love
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
Create image

“It is a human circumstance that when we are born we have not yet come into existence. We are lured into our special human existence by a mothering presence that gratifies our innate urges to be suckled, held, rocked, caressed. But that same gratifying presence puts limits on desire and rations satisfaction. In this sense the mother is also the first lawgiver.”

FirstsHumansMotherDesireBornExistenceSpecialCircumstancesLimitsSatisfactionUrgesInnateHuman ExistenceMotheringRations
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
Create image

“The most significant change wrought by adolescence is the taming of the ideals by which a person measures himself. . . . Love of oneself becomes love of the species. Conscience is pointed to the future, whispering permission to reach beyond the safety net of our ordinary and finite human existence.”

HumansPersonsExistenceSelf LoveFutureOrdinaryConscienceIdealsSafetySpeciesOneselfSignificantPermissionAdolescenceFiniteHuman ExistenceWhisperingSafety NetTamingSignificant Change
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
Create image

“Adolescence is the time to enlarge the natural sentiments of pity, friendship, and generosity, the time to develop an understanding of human nature and the varieties of human character, the time to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of all men and to study the history of mankind.”

MenHumansCharacterTimeUnderstandingNaturalStudyMankindStrengthHuman NatureWeaknessGainsInsightPityVarietyGenerositySentimentsAdolescenceStrength And Weakness
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
Create image

“We humans undergo two major growth spurts: one during infancy and another from eleven to twelve until fifteen or sixteen--pubescence. Between the two is a relatively quiescent growth period in which most of the body takes a rest from growing while the brain continues to mature. This period of life is general referred to as childhood or, sometimes, latency.”

HumansTwoSometimesBodyLife IsGrowthBrainGrowingChildhoodPeriodsMajorsMatureTwelveFifteenElevenSixteenInfancy
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
Create image

“In all times and in all places--in Constantinople, northwestern Zambia, Victorian England, Sparta, Arabia, . . . medieval France,Babylonia, . . . Carthage, Mahenjo-Daro, Patagonia, Kyushu, . . . Dresden--the time span between childhood and adulthood, however fleeting or prolonged, has been associated with the acquisition of virtue as it is differently defined in each society. A child may be good and morally obedient, but only in the process of arriving at womanhood or manhood does a human being become capable of virtue--that is, the qualities of mind and body that realize society's ideals.”

MindHumansMayChildrenDoeHas BeensBodyProcessRealizingHuman BeingsQualityVirtueChildhoodCapableIdealsEnglandBe GoodAll TimeDefinedFranceAdulthoodWomanhoodManhoodFleetingMind And BodyMedievalAcquisitionObedientArabiaArrivingVictorianDresdenSpartaPatagoniaNorthwesternConstantinopleCarthageZambia
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
Create image

“Another potentiality of our irrepressible juvenility is a capacity to maintain until the onset of senility an active creative interaction with our environment. We persist in exploring, investigating, inventing, discovering. In these respects humans of all eras, in all societies, all ages of life, are more like baby chimps and not at all like the sedate and rigidly conforming adult chimpanzee, who hasn't changed much since she was five or six years old.”

YearsHumansAgeCreativeEnvironmentFiveChangedBabySixAdultsCapacityActiveErasInteractionDiscoveringPersistExploringConformOur EnvironmentInventingChimpanzeesInvestigatingSix Year OldsSenilityIrrepressible
Book:Adolescence: The Farewell to Childhood
Create image

“We humans, once we have become emotionally invested in a homeplace, a prized personal possession, or, especially, in another person, find it immensely difficult to give them up....Because they were made at a time of life when we were utterly dependent on them, the love attachments of infancy have inordinate power over us, more than any other emotional investment.”

GivingHumansPersonsMadeDifficultEmotionalInvestmentPossessionDependentAttachmentInfancyEmotional Investment
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
Create image