Intelligent Children Quotes & Sayings

If we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children's mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives. — Danny Glover

An intelligent home differs from an unintelligent one chiefly in that the habits of life and intercourse which prevail are chosen, or at least colored, by the thought of their bearing upon the development of children. — John Dewey

Parents create guilt. That is the greatest sin against humanity. To create guilt in a child is criminal because once the guilt is created, the child will never be free of it. Unless he is very intelligent it will be impossible for him to get rid of it; something of it will remain around him like a hangover. — Rajneesh

Fear, as well as the hopeful (if not pointless) solutions offered to combat it, is ultimately what make progressivism so successful. It's what makes otherwise intelligent, rational, and good human beings succumb so easily to obviously absurd visions of the future painted by politicians. It's why our brothers and sisters and our children - and sometimes even you and I - are continually tempted by the progressive siren song. — Glenn Beck

One thing scientists have discovered is that often-praised children become more intelligent than often-blamed ones. There's a creative element in praise. — Thomas Dreier

My Selection wasn't a farce, but it wasn't that far off. My father chose all the
contestants by hand, picking young women with political alliances, influential families, or enough
charm to make the entire country worship the ground they walked on. He knew he had to make it
varied enough to seem legit, so there were three Fives thrown into the mix but nothing below that.
The Fives were meant to be little more than throwaways to keep anyone from being suspicious."
I realized my mouth was gaping open and shut it immediately. "Mom?"
"Was meant to be gone almost immediately. Truth be told, she barely made it past my father 's
attempts to sway my opinion or remove her himself. And look at her now." His whole face changed.
"Though it was hard for me to imagine, she is even more beloved as queen than my mother. She has
made four beautiful, intelligent, strong children. And she has been the source of every happiness in
my life. — Kiera Cass

Children usually have a natural curiosity about the world and everything in it until they get to school and somebody throws them against the locker because they get A's and act intelligent. After that, some kids try to dumb it down and adapt. — Joshua Neik

The man is a success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I think you're intelligent and charming, and that you're a person with a kind heart. I know that when you want to, you can look more beautiful than anyone I've ever met. You're independent, you've got a good sense of humor, and you show surprising patience with children. -Alex — Nicholas Sparks

Our purpose is to be able to measure the intellectual capacity of a child who is brought to us in order to know whether he is normal or retarded ... We do not attempt to establish or prepare a prognosis and we leave unanswered the question of whether this retardation is curable, or even improveable. We shall limit ourselves to ascertaining the truth in regard to his present mental state. — Alfred Binet

Yes. Mind you, sociopaths experience many of the same needs we all do," Hetheridge continued. "They attend school, maintain jobs. I believe they can even love, in the way little children love - a combination of wanting and demanding. But sociopaths have no conscience, no innate sense of responsibility toward others. They cannot believe other people have separate lives beyond the sociopath's own needs and expectations. Sociopaths are incapable of empathy, though the more intelligent ones are frequently able to fake it. And that's the key. — Emma Jameson

In attempting to construct such (artificially intelligent) machines we should not be irreverently usurping His (God's) power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children," Turing had advised. "Rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates. — Alan Turing

He's convinced most human adults do not know how to play anymore and that playing is one of the best ways to think. Franky finds children, by far, much more pleasant and intelligent than most adults, but they are easily ruined by their families, schools, and society. He says one of the ways they are ruined is by being forced to think of all the tasks that need to be done as work, not as play. It takes the joy out of living. — William Wharton

For a while parents seemed to forget that their responsibility as parents did not cease when the child turned on the radio; rather it increases. In the August, 1938, issue of Your Life, Mary Linton has this to say to the parent who is blaming everyone but himself for his child's actions:
It isn't up to the teachers in the schools, nor the Federal Radio Commissioners, nor anyone else on earth. It's up to us - it's our job! Our job to teach them right from wrong, honesty from dishonesty, a clean and intelligent attitude toward sex, a healthful fastidiousness about their own bodies. We can teach these things because we have the daily opportunity of knowing our children and their reactions. — Judith C. Waller

Before the Kennedys were elected, there had been older Presidents. Then here was this devastatingly attractive young couple with two beautiful children. They were so intelligent, graceful, gracious and funny. They enjoyed life so much. That's what caught America's eye. — Letitia Baldrige

I can't imagine something being beautiful at this point in history if it's destroying the planet or causing children to get sick. How can anything be beautiful if it's not ecologically intelligent at this point? — William McDonough

In the Reggio Emilia preschools, however, each child is viewed as infinitely capable, creative, and intelligent. The job of the teacher is to support these qualities and to challenge children in appropriate ways so that they develop fully. — Louise Boyd

For a long time I felt I had done a very brave thing. There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children. I felt I wasn't the best person to bring them up. I would have ended up an alcoholic or a frustrated intellectual like my mother. — Doris Lessing

The essence of parenthood is to make children think that they are the most handsome, intelligent, brilliant person in the world. — Maurice Saatchi

If a beautiful sunflower is somehow supposed to be evidence of the Christian god, then what is a parasitic worm that eats children's eyeballs evidence of? — Guy P. Harrison

If you want intelligent children give them a book. If you want more intelligent children give them more books. — Jackie French

I do have hope. Nature is enormously resilient, humans are vastly intelligent, the energy and enthusiasm that can be kindled among young people seems without limit, and he human spirit is indomitable. But if we want life, we will have to stop depending on someone else to save the world. It is up to us-you and me, all of us. Myself, I have placed my faith in the children. — Jane Goodall

If there were some recipe that would make all of our children really sane and civic-minded and hugely intelligent, I think we'd probably all do it. But I don't know that there is a recipe for creating that. — Amanda Peet

It is ironical that in an age when we have prided ourselves on our progress in the intelligent care and teaching of children we have at the same time put them at the mercy of new and most terrible weapons of destruction. — Pearl S. Buck

Tibetans are not famed for their perseverance. Full of enthusiasm at the start, and ready for anything new, their interest flags before long. For this reason I kept losing pupils and replacing them, which was not very satisfactory for me. The children of good families whom I taught were without exception intelligent and wide awake, and were not inferior to our children in comprehension. In the Indian schools the Tibetan pupils are ranked for intelligence with Europeans. One must remember that they have to learn the language of their teachers. In spite of that handicap, they are often at the head of the class. There was a boy from Lhasa at St. Joseph's College, at Darjeeling, who was not only the best scholar in the school, but also champion in all the games and sports. — Heinrich Harrer

No people in all history paid a higher price for freedom. And no people have done so much to advance the dignity of man. We are called materialistic. May be so ... but our materialism has made our children the biggest, tallest, most handsome, and intelligent generations of Americans yet. They will live longer with fewer illnesses, learn more, see more of the world, and have more success in realizing their personal dreams and ambitions than any other people in any other period of our history - because of our materialism ... I think on our side of civilization and on the other side is the law of the jungle ... We all have to recognize that this country has been handed the responsibility, greater than any nation, to preserve some 6000 years of civilization against the barbarians. — Ronald Reagan

People who are exceptionally intelligent are often lonely because there are few people as intelligent as them. I have two little children, and everyone says: 'I hope they're doing well in school. I hope they're bright.' And I think: 'Why would anyone want their children to be the brightest?' Academia is a lonely world. — Helen McCrory

People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be-both in their youth and in adulthood-intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience. — Alice Miller

Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. "If you want your children to be intelligent," he said, "read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." He — Neil Gaiman

Children are the future of a nation. If the children are intelligent, the country will be prosperous.

Thai proverb — Elaine Russell

Children are not less intelligent than adults; what they are is less informed. — Philip Pullman

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it. — Alexandre Dumas

If I had married a woman intelligent enough to guide me, to rule me without my feeling that I was ruled, I should have taken good care of my money, I should have had children, and I should not be, as now I am, alone in the world and possessing nothing. — Giacomo Casanova

After all, how can a society flourish, a country attain democracy and health, children grow into intelligent beings, sensitive to the needs of an ever more fragile and endangered planet, if half it's people are kept out of the driver's seat? — Alice Walker

There should be a public outcry about what happened to me and other women in the name of our government! But history has shown "the customs of society and laws of the State allowed it to crush my aspirations and barred me from the the pursuit of almost every object worthy of an intelligent, rational mind."45 What law has the right to entrust the interest of myself and my children into the hands of such an evil bunch of men? I did not occupy my rightful place in 1976.
45. (paraphrased from Gurko, Miriram, The Ladies of Seneca Falls; the Birth of the Women's Rights Movement, 1974. — Diane Chamberlain

You Are Your Children As a father or mother, you have to listen to your son or your daughter. This is very important because your son is yourself; your daughter is yourself. Your child is your continuation. The most important task for you is to restore communication between you and your child. If your heart does not function well, if your stomach is not in good health, you don't think of cutting it out and throwing it away. You cannot say, "You are not my heart! My heart does not behave like that. You are not my stomach! My stomach does not behave like that. I will have nothing to do with you anymore!" This is not intelligent. You might talk to your son or your daughter like that, and this is not intelligent, either. The — Thich Nhat Hanh

There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children. — Doris Lessing

Yes, it is true that sometimes unusually intelligent and sensitive children can appear to be stupid. But stupid children can sometimes appear to be stupid as well. I think that's something you might have to consider. — Douglas Adams

I have never found it difficult, as some do, to speak to children. All one has to do is pretend that they're some kind of intelligent farm animal: a pig, perhaps, or a horse. — Hanya Yanagihara

The American child is a highly intelligent human being; characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, has a strong sense of excitement, energy, and healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives. Lucky indeed is the grown-up who manages to carry these same characteristics into adult life. It usually makes for a happy and successful individual. — Walt Disney

The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking. — George Wald

Often low-income parents give their children every other thing they need for successful participation in school and the world of work except the planning and organizing skills and habit patterns needed to operate in complex settings. Many intelligent and able college students from low-income backgrounds confront these deficits when faced with a heavy assignment load ... These patterns are best acquired at an early age and need to be quite well developed by late elementary school or twelve or thirteen years of age. — James P. Comer

[She] knew there were women who worked successfully out of the home. They ran businesses, created empires and managed to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted children who went on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard or became world-renowned concert pianists. Possibly both.
These women accomplished all this while cooking gourmet meals, furnishing their homes with Italian antiques, giving clever, intelligent interviews with Money magazine and People, and maintaining a brilliant marriage with an active enviable sex life and never tipping the scale at an ounce over their ideal weight ...
She knew those women were out there. If she'd had a gun, she'd have hunted every last one of them down and shot them like rabid dogs for the good of womankind. — Nora Roberts

The orphan in children's literature allows the child protagonist to move the story forward themselves. I think that, however happy a family, every intelligent child thinks: 'How did I come to be born to these parents?' - it is about finding your place in the world. — Brian Selznick

Ironically, Alfred Binet, one of the creators of the IQ test, intended the test to serve precisely the opposite function. In fact, he originally designed it (on commission from the French government) exclusively to identify children with special needs so they could get appropriate forms of schooling. He never intended it to identify degrees of intelligence or "mental worth." In fact, Binet noted that the scale he created "does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured." Nor did he ever intend it to suggest that a person could not become more intelligent over time. "Some recent thinkers," he said, "[have affirmed] that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity that cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism; we must try to demonstrate that it is founded on nothing. — Ken Robinson

The better class of Briton likes to send his children away to school until they're old and intelligent enough to come home again. Then they're too old and intelligent to want to. — Malcolm Bradbury

Mr. Gibbons had the talent that many puppeteers have of speaking to children as though he believed they were intelligent and could understand a thing or two. — Jesse Ball

All the children seem to be coming out quite intelligent, thank goodness. It would have been such a bore to be the mother of morons, and it's an absolute toss-up, isn't it? If one could only invent them, like characters in books, it would be much more satisfactory to a well-regulated mind. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Each child should be more intelligent than his parents. — Clarence Darrow

drawing fair and intelligent distinctions has never been one of their long suits. Some of 'em, sad to say, are only seeking revenge for hurtful things that happened to them as children — Anonymous

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has left the world better than he found it,
Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction. — Bessie Anderson Stanley

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. — Albert Einstein

To be proactive means to plan. Life is easier when you plan ahead. Many discipline problems can be avoided with a little planning. Planning makes use of the only advantage that we have over our children: EXPERIENCE. We are not more intelligent, and they have more time and certainly more energy. If you plan, you will have fewer problems. — Sal Severe

I lost my father when I was 13 years old. He was a great man, my father, and very intelligent. I love him very much. I believe it's very important that parents have a personal connection with their children. It helps kids feel more secure, have a feeling of family, makes them feel loved. — Preity Zinta

Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister. — Stephen King

Patriotism, or the peculiar relation of an individual to his country, is like the family instinct. In the child it is a blind devotion; in the man in intelligent love. The patriot perceives the claim made upon his country by the circumstances and time of her growth and power, and how God is to be served by using those opportunities of helping mankind. Therefore his country's honor is dear to him as his own, and he would as soon lie and steal himself as assist or excuse his country in a crime. — George William Curtis

It's ain't sad that I want my child to look like me? Every intelligent person wants their child to look like him. — Muhammad Ali

Buy a dog. Dogs are faggot children."
"Nonsense. It is possible for two intelligent men to be turned on to each other in totality: emotionally, physically, and intellectually. Though I am about to become middle-aged, I shall not become a bitchy, middle-aged queen. I shall not turn sour."
"I tell you, buy a dog. — Larry Kramer

When I was a child, my behavior was far from being what most people would label 'intelligent.' It was often limited, repetitive and anti-social. I could not do many of the things that most people take for granted, such as looking someone in the eye or deciphering a person's body language, and only acquired these skills with much effort over time. — Daniel Tammet

If you had a free society you couldn't get people to go to war, if you had an intelligent type of upbringing in ones children. They would say; There must be many other ways of solving problems other then killing people. — Jacque Fresco

I discovered when I had a child of my own that I had become a biased observer of small children. Instead of looking at them with affectionate but nonpartisan eyes, I saw each of them as older or younger, bigger or smaller, more or less graceful, intelligent, or skilled than my own child. — Margaret Mead

I'm convinced that promoting sport is an intelligent way of educating our children. — Shakira

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON — Lama Surya Das

One day, a pretty, fresh-faced young lady - intelligent and sincerely concerned - asked me if abortion wasn't preferable to making a young, unmarried girl have a baby she didn't want and which would, therefore, grow up unloved and probably turn out to be a criminal. I gave an answer which apparently she hadn't considered. I told her there were literally millions of people in this country who wanted but could not have children and who waited eagerly, sometimes for years, to adopt the baby she had described. — Ronald Reagan

The only effective way to help well-intentioned, intelligent persons to do the best they can in raising children is to encourage and guide them always to do their own thinking in their attempts at understanding and dealing with child-rearing situations and problems, and not to rely blindly on the opinions of others. — Bruno Bettelheim

The brave man is intelligent; he faces danger because he understands it and is prepared to meet it. The drunkard who runs, in the delirium of intoxication, into a burning house is not brave; he is only stupid. But the clear-eyed hero who makes his way, with every sense alert and every nerve strung, into the hell of flames to rescue some little child, proves his courage. — Henry Van Dyke

Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesnt help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes todays intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice. — Dan Quayle

Merlin: "Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit lately, I notice, of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish. I trust we are free of this?"
Arthur: "Everybody knows that children are more intelligent than their parents."
Merlin: "You and I know it, but the people who are going to read this book do not.
Our readers of that time ( ... ) have exactly three ideas in their magnificent noodles. The first is that the human species is superior to others. The second, that the twentieth century is superior to other centuries. And the third, that human adults of the twentieth century are superior to their young. ( ... ) — T.H. White

Games sometimes require lateral thinking. They sometimes require quite skilled hand-eye coordination and so on. But they're not in any sense intelligent in the way that you want your children to develop intelligence to make the mind not just supple, but actually informed. — Salman Rushdie

The really intelligent person keeps his childhood alive to his last breath.He never loses it-the wonder the child feels looking at the birds,looking at the flowers,looking at the sky ... Intelligence also has to be,in the same way,childlike. — Rajneesh

I'd hoped for someone who was remarkably intelligent, but disadvantaged by home circumstance, someone who only needed an hour's extra tuition a week to become some kind of working-class prodigy. I wanted my hour a week to make the difference between a future addicted to heroin and a future studying English at Oxford. That was the sort of kid I wanted, and instead they'd given me someone whose chief interest was in eating fruit. I mean, what did he need to read for? There's an international symbol for the gents' toilets, and he could always get his mother to tell him what was on television. — Nick Hornby

Usually this desire [for family limitation] has been laid to economic pressure It has asserted itself among the rich and among the poor, among the intelligent and the unintelligent. It
has been manifested in such horrors as infanticide, child abandonment and abortion. — Margaret Sanger

Instead of being overwhelmed by the universe, I think that perhaps one of the deepest experiences a scientist can have, almost approaching a religious awakening, is to realize that we are children of the stars, and that our minds are capable of understanding the universal laws that they obey. The atoms within our bodies were forged on the anvil of nucleo-synthesis within an exploding star aeons before the birth of the solar system. Our atoms are older than the mountains. We are literally made of star dust. Now these atoms, in turn, have coalesced into intelligent beings capable of understanding the universal laws governing that event. — Michio Kaku

I will remark, that it is a common misconception of Ravenclaws that all the smart children are Sorted there, leaving none for other Houses. This is not so; being Sorted to Ravenclaw indicates that you are driven by your desire to know things, which is not at all the same quality as being intelligent. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

It is interesting that amongst children of preschool age, the more intelligent ones tend to sleep less than the dull ones. After the age of seven this relationship is reversed, the more intelligent schoolchildren sleeping more than the dull ones. — Desmond Morris

There is no doubt that the princess did become a queen
not only on the screen. One of the most loved, one of the most skillful, one of the most intelligent, one of the most sensitive, charming actresses
and friends, in my life
but also in the later stages of her life, the UNICEF ambassador to the children of the world. The generosity, sensitivity, the nobility of her service to the children of the world and the mothers of the world will never be forgotten. — Gregory Peck

Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children. — Michael Morpurgo

At present, intelligent people do not have their children vaccinated, nor does the law now compel them to. The result is not, as the Jennerians prophesied, the extermination of the human race by smallpox; on the contrary, more people are now killed by vaccination than by smallpox. — George Bernard Shaw

My father had always said there are four things a child needs: plenty of love, nourishing food, regular sleep, and lots of soap and water. After that, what he needs most is some intelligent neglect. — Ivy Baker Priest

When she was three, I sent her to day care for a couple
of hours every morning. After a few weeks, the teacher
called me and said that she was worried about Lucy. When it
was time for the children to have their milk, Lucy would always
hang back until all the other kids had taken a carton before
she'd take one for herself. The teacher didn't understand. Go
get your milk, she'd say to Lucy, but Lucy would always wait
around until there was just one carton left. It took a while for me
to figure it out. Lucy didn't know which carton was supposed to
be her milk. She thought all the other kids knew which ones
were theirs, and if she waited until there was only one carton in
the box, that one had to be hers. Do you see what I'm talking
about, Uncle Nat? She's a little weird - but intelligent weird, if
you know what I mean. Not like anyone else. If I hadn't used
the wordjust, you would have known where I was all along ... — Paul Auster

What advice can we give to new mothers? Their children need to work at an interesting occupation: they should not be helped unnecessarily, nor interrupted, once they have begun to do something intelligent. — Maria Montessori

Then I reminded myself that all intelligent children suffer bad dreams. — Grant Morrison

My mother is very wise and intelligent. If I have children and can do half as good a job as she did in keeping me in line, I'll be very happy. — Brandon Lee

All children are much more intelligent than they are told they are or the school thinks they are; they just have different intelligences. — Tony Buzan

The more intelligent our children, the better our lives and the richer our culture will be. — Jacque Fresco

The intelligent desire self-control; children want candy. — Rumi

Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man. — Maria Montessori

Being smarter gives you a tailwind throughout life. People who are more intelligent earn more, live longer, get divorced less, are less likely to get addicted to alcohol and tobacco, and their children live longer. — Steven Pinker

1. Santa Claus is real. However, your parents are folkloric constructs meant to protect and foritfy children against the darknesses of the real world. They are symbols representing the return of the sun and the end of winter, the sacrifice of the king and the eternal fecundity of the queen. They wear traditional vestments and are associated with certain seasonal plants, animals, and foods. After a certain age, no intelligent child continues believing in their parents, and it is embarrassing when one professes such faith after puberty. Santa Claus, however, will never fail us. — Catherynne M Valente

So I am nineteen years old and don't usually know what I'm doing, snap my thoughts out of the printed page, get my looks from other eyes, do not overtake dotards and cripples in the street for fear I will depress them with my agility, love watching children and animals at play but wouldn't mind seeing a beggar kicked or a little girl run over because it's all experience, dislike myself and sneer at a world less nice and less intelligent than me. I take it this is fairly routine? — Martin Amis

He [an earnest young reporter] seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children's books is to whip the little rascals into shape. — Katherine Paterson

The intelligent want self-control; children want candy. - RUMI — Kelly McGonigal

I am edgy, raw, offensive, vulgar, untruthful, but intelligent. My jokes are always realistic. I do not make fun of children or people who cannot fight back. That is my limitation. — Vir Das

Every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Children are inspiring because they are open and a lot more intelligent than grown ups. They also have contagious playfulness and joy. For me as an artist the challenge of having a child is having to think ahead a lot more. Which in a way is good, since I sometimes lack self-discipline. — Olof Arnalds