Child Temperament Quotes & Sayings

Charles Williams loved his son with reservations, complaining that "a child is a guest of a somewhat inconsistent temperament, rather difficult to get rid of, almost pushing; a poor relation rather than a pleasant kind. — Philip Zaleski

But a child is a sensitive instrument. You can hide the factual truth from a child, but you can't blanket influence. Your agitation will out, and over time it will mod your child's temperament as surely as water wear at rock. — Daniel Smith

The capacity for extravagant emotion that my husband finds so attractive in me can be exhausting, especially to a child. My moods are mercurial, and this can be terrifying. I know, because I was a daughter of a mother with a changeable temperament. — Ayelet Waldman

A thousand minus one is never a thousand — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kinds of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard's education. The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of power, but to use well the kind you've been granted. — Susan Cain

Every child is so different. Their experience growing up and their experience relating to the world has so much to do with their temperament, and their likes and their dislikes. — Julianne Moore

These include Philip Marshall Dale, Medical Biographies: The Ailments of Thirty-Three Famous Persons (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952); Brian Dillon, The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives (New York: Faber and Faber, 2010); Douglas Goldman et al., Retrospective Diagnoses of Historical Personalities as Viewed by Leading Contemporary Psychiatrists (Bloomfield, NJ: Schering Corporation, 1958); Kay Redfield Jamison, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (New York: Free Press, 1993); Jeffrey A. Kottler, Divine Madness: Ten Stories of Creative Struggle (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006); Philip Mackowiak, Post-Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries (Philadelphia: American College of Physicians, 2007); Roy Porter, Madness: A Brief History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); David Rettew, Child Temperament: New Thinking About the Boundary Between Traits and Illness (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013). Articles — Claudia Kalb

The St. Vincents arrived with their daughter Phoebe, a red-haired infant with an alarmingly changeable temperament. One moment the child was placid and adorable. The next, she was a squalling devil-spawn who could only be soothed by the sound of her father's voice. "There, darling," St. Vincent had been known to coo into the infant's ear. "Has someone displeased you? Ignored you? Oh, the insolence. My poor princess shall have anything she wants ... " And, appeased by her father's outrageous spoiling, Phoebe would settle into hiccupping smiles. — Lisa Kleypas

All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten. Share everything ... Don't hit people ... Clean up your own mess ... — Robert Fulghum

Even a fellow with a camera has his favourite subjects, as we can see looking through the Kodak-albums of our friends. One amateur prefers the family group, another bathing scenes, another cows upon an alp, or kittens held upside down in the arms of a black-faced child. The tendency to choose one subject rather than another indicates the photographer's temperament. Nevertheless, his passion is for photography rather than for selection, a kitten will serve when no cows are available ... — E. M. Forster

That a good fit between parental handling and child temperament is vital to help children adapt to the imperatives of their society is a crucial concept that can be applied to other cultures. — Stella Chess

Nothing keeps its promise. — Philip Roth

Has the painter not always gone to an art school, or at least to an established master, for instruction? And the composer, the sculptor, the architect? Then why not the writer? Good poets, like good hybrid corn, are both born and made. — Paul Engle

Some people miss flesh as a drunkard misses his dram ... — John Muir

We need to do teacher training to educate them about what temperament means. Shyness is painful and you want to help a child with shyness - but the underlying temperament of being a careful, sensitive person is to be honoured, valued and respected. — Susan Cain

Playing a positive role on a network television show, it was great. I took it as a responsibility. Poncherello was supposed to be Poncherelli, and then when I got this part I said, 'You know what, this guy isn't going to be Italian-American, he's gonna be Hispanic American.' And they went with it. — Erik Estrada

I was an only child. And it's very much my temperament. I remember playing with a piece of string in my room for hours. I had never thought about what it would be like to have siblings. — Leigh Newman

If you write literary fiction that's set partly in the future, you're apparently a sci-fi writer ... I think of it as being more of a story about what remains after we lose everything and the importance of art in our lives. — Emily St. John Mandel

The word "fine" is the greatest abbreviation and obviously wrong. — Lydia Davis

Every articulate family ... generates its own stories, explanations and myths to illuminate the differences in temperament and talent among its children, the lines of allegiance and influence between parent and child. — Elizabeth Fishel

The only thing we accomplish by accenting the child's constitution, his temperament, his natural dilemmas and his own synthesizing activity, is to take the parents "off the hook" of their own burden of guilt for how their children turn out. But why should they have such unreasonable guilt anyway? Didn't Nietzsche point out that the only creatures who deserve to feel guilt (or pride) are gods, since only they have undisputed freedom of action? Perhaps we could say that if parents want to feel a bit godlike they are entitled to feel a little guilt; and if they were gods they would deserve to feel plenty. — Ernest Becker

A Libertarian's just a Democrat whose vote doesn't count. Same thing. — Kenneth Eade

I am always suspicious of those who impose 'rules' on child rearing. Every child is different in terms of temperament and learning, and every parent responds to a particular child, not some generalized infant or youngster. — Siri Hustvedt

Children are just different from one another, especially in temperament. Some are shy, others bold; some active, others quiet; some confident, others less so. Respect for individual differences is in my view the cornerstone of good parent-child relationships. — Sandra Scarr

They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child - though equally dependent and friendless - Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained ... — Charlotte Bronte

Home in Ireland, I went to Collins Barracks and spent some time wandering around, making notes on the various guns, knives and swords. — Sarah Rees Brennan

There's going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. I'm not going to do any corrections digitally to even wires that show ... If 1941 comes on Blu-ray I'm not going to go back and take the wires out because the Blu-ray will bring the wires out that are guiding the airplane down Hollywood Blvd. At this point right now I think letting movies exist in the era, with all the flaws and all of the flourishes, is a wonderful way to mark time and mark history. — Steven Spielberg

A child's temperament appears to play another significant role in the child's own perceptions and worldview. — Asa Don Brown