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Childhood Quotes

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Childhood Quotes

“It cannot be doubted that theistic belief is a comfort and a solace to those who hold it, and that the loss of it is a very painful loss. It cannot be doubted, at least, by many of us in this generation, who either profess it now, or received it in our childhood and have parted from it since with such searching trouble as only cradle-faiths can cause. We have seen the spring sun shine out of an empty heaven, to light up a soulless earth; we have felt with utter loneliness that the Great Companion is dead.”

Source: The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays

“My childhood was full of deep sorrows - colic, whooping-cough, dread of ghosts, hell, Satan, and a Deity in the sky who was angry when I ate too much plumcake.”

Hell Too Much Sky Atheism Childhood Sorrow Angry Positive Atheism Ghost Satan Dread Deities Deep Sorrow Whooping Cough Colic

Author:George Eliot

“Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.”

Years Firsts Has Beens Feelings Care Christian Form Law Belief Taken Atheism Childhood Habit Our Children Slave Positive Atheism Paris Customs Bent False Gods

Author:Voltaire

“There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.”

Ifs Humans May Age Fear Five Air Atheism Childhood Educational Rage Absurdity Repetition Solemnity

Book:The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer - Studies in Pessimism (illustrated)

Source: The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer - Studies in Pessimism (illustrated)

“I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts.”

Form Cases Atheism Childhood Essentials Extraordinary Convinced Unhappy Exceptional Formation Unhappy Childhood

Book:Conversations with Thornton Wilder

Source: Conversations with Thornton Wilder

“The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight - that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.”

Believe Religion Stars Sky Atheism Childhood Adults Shining Delight Myth Symbols Abandoned Concrete Sane Santa Santa Claus Shining Star

Book:Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life

Source: Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life

“Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.”

Religion Religious Atheism Childhood Neurosis

Book:THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION

Source: THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION

“If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it - the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.”

Ifs Men Mind Long Book Reading Belief Sin Company Doubt Atheism Childhood Mankind Taught Regard Down And Arise Disturbing

Book:Lectures and Essays, by the Late William Kingdon Clifford

Source: Lectures and Essays, by the Late William Kingdon Clifford

“My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.”

People Persons Mother Father Atheism Childhood Monsters Unhappy Nervous Worried Sarcastic Happy Person Unhappy Person Very Sarcastic Good Childhood

Author:Paula Danziger

“In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.”