Bruce Lesley > Bruce's Quotes

“We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today.”
― Gabriela Mistral

“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt, Great Speeches

“It's the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it.”
― Frank Warren

“If we are worried about the future, then we must look today at the upbringing of children.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes

“The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.”
― Hubert H. Humphrey

“Having children is like living in a frat house - nobody sleeps, everything's broken, and there's a lot of throwing up.”
― Ray Romano

“...how can we live in the richest, most privileged country in the world, at the peak of its economic performance, and still hear the Republicans, and too many Democrats, that we cannot afford to provide a good education for every child, that we cannot afford to provide health security for all our citizens?”
― Paul Wellstone, The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda

“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product...if we should judge the United States of America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
― Robert F. Kennedy

“There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing...when we save our children, we save ourselves”
― Margaret Mead

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
― Robert Orben

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
― Mark Twain

“A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.”
― Carl Sandburg

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
― Margaret Mead

“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.”
― Fred Rogers

“Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.”
― Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

“We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There's something wrong there.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Every child needs a champion.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton

“Children are our greatest natural resource.”
― Herbert Hoover

“You should listen to even the smallest voice, someday it could be the one that makes a difference.”
― Crystal Marcos

“We cannot always build a future for our youth, but we can always build our youth for the future.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Men

“The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“In God's eyes all children are beautiful but here on earth we have higher standards.”
― Steven Colbert

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
― Stephen King

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain