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Quote by Jean Liedloff

“It's perfectly clear that the millions of babies, who are crying at this very moment, want unanimously to be next to a live body. Do you really think they're all wrong? Theirs is the voice of nature. This is the clear, pure voice of nature, without intellectual interference.”

Quote by Jean Liedloff

Author

Jean Liedloff was a renowned author known for her research on primitive cultures and her unique insights into human development. Her work primarily explored the impact of early human cultures on individual growth, particularly on children. more

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“This, at last, was where things were as they ought to be. Everything was in its place -- the tree, the earth underneath, the rock, the moss. In autumn, it would be right; in winter under the snow, it would be perfect in its wintriness. Spring would come again and miracle within miracle would unfold, each at its special pace, some things having died off, some sprouting in their first spring, but all of equal and utter rightness.”

Firsts Would Be Earth Lasts Perfect Tree Special Rocks Ought Equal Spring Miracle Died Winter Snow Autumn Pace Moss

Author:Jean Liedloff

“It is our genetic nature as a species to believe as young children that our parents and elders are right. We watch them to see what's what. Later on we can judge for ourselves and rebel if need be, but when we're just months old, or a year or two, and a parent looks at us with impatience, or disgust, or disdain, or just leaves us there to cry and doesn't answer us even though we're longing to be embraced and nurtured, we assume that something must be wrong with us. Unfortunately, at that age it's impossible to think there might be something wrong with them.”

“As a child I was attracted to Tarzan and everything that had to do with jungles. It seemed to me -- and this is in retrospect -- that there was something primal, something right about it. Tarzan represented a pure being, somehow before the fall.”

Children Fall Pure Jungle Primal Retrospect

Author:Jean Liedloff

“Children need to see that they are assumed to be well-intentioned, naturally social people who are trying to do the right thing and who want reliable reactions from their elders to guide them.”

People Want Needs Trying Wells Children Social Guides Reactions Right Thing Elders

Book:The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

Source: The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

“Nobody's born rotten. You just don't have bad kids. It's not true. There is no such thing. But we can make them bad.”

Kids Born Rotten

Author:Jean Liedloff

“I knew, even at eight, that the confusion of values thrust upon me by parents, teachers, other children, nannies, camp counselors, and others would only worsen as I grew up. The years would add complications and steer me into more and more impenetrable tangles of rights and wrongs, desirables and undesirables. I had already seen enough to know that.”

Source: The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

“The two words that I've arrived at to describe what we all need to feel about ourselves, children and adults, in order to perceive ourselves accurately, are worthy and welcome. If you don't feel worthy and welcome, you really won't know what to do with yourself. You won't know how to behave in a world of other people. You won't think you deserve to get what you need.”

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Author:Jean Liedloff

“Our parents, our tribesman, our authority figures, clearly expect us to be bad or anti-social or greedy or selfish or dirty or destructive or self-destructive. Our social nature is such that we tend to meet the expectations of our elders. Whenever this reversal took place and our elders stopped expecting us to be social and expected us to be anti-social, just to put it in gross terms, that's when the real fall took place. And we're paying for it dearly.”

Real Self Fall Social Parent Term Figures Authority Expectations Expected Selfish Dirty Destructive Expecting Greedy Gross Elders Self Destructive Reversal Anti Social Authority Figures

Author:Jean Liedloff

“We take it for granted that life is hard and feel lucky to have whatever happiness we get. We do not look upon happiness as a birthright, nor do we expect it to be more than peace or contentment. Real joy, the state in which the Yequana spend much of their lives, is exceedingly rare among us.”

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Book:The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

Source: The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

“Come with me while the moon is on the sea The night is young and so are we Dreams come true in Blue Hawaii And mine could all come true This magic night of nights with you”

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Author:Leo Robin