Quotes & Sayings About Toddlers

Where did the bonds of maternity end? All children grew up, changed, became somebody else. Parents who trembled that they might lose a gap-toothed toddler to some terrible accident ended up losing him anyway, always, to time. The toddlers died, after all, and what was left was a bond with another adult, who had once been the beloved child. — Nancy Kress

For toddlers I suggest leaving their mittens on year-round, indoors and out. That way they can't get into aspirin bottles, liquor cabinets, or boxes of kitchen matches. — P. J. O'Rourke

Teenagers are basically toddlers with hormones - old enough to want to do stuff without having any of the common sense. — Jojo Moyes

[politicians are] like toddlers arguing over who gets the candy, but with a better vocabulary and less whacking each other with toys. — Garon Whited

I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce.
Beth went a little nuts.
I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year old dental hygienist, Beth got involved with the junk food aisle at the grocery store. She carried processed snack cakes the way toddlers carry teddy bears. She gained, like, twenty pounds, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I figured she'd get back to her usual weight once the shock wore off.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person who noticed.
May 14 was 'Fun and Fit Day at Surry Middle School, so the gym was full of booths set up by local health clubs and doctors and dentists and sports leagues, all trying to entice us to not end up as couch potatoes. That part was fine. What wasn't fine was when the whole school sat down to watch the eighth-grade cheerleaders' program on physical fitness. — Katie Alender

He just has to step away from the moment to see it. Which isn't surprising. Lots of parents will tell you that when they aren't fighting with their teenagers about homework or scraping up raisins their toddlers have expertly ground into the kitchen floor, they're quite happy, upon reflection. — Jennifer Senior

There is growing consensus that new parents need help
information, advice, practical assistance
and that infants and toddlers need stimulation as well as care and nurture. — Sheila Kamerman

TLC should stand for Toddlers, Lunatics, and Cake. — Natasha Leggero

Pretend that toddlers are just people that are really drunk — Katelyn Perrier

Babcock knew no Southerners personally but he had seen them in court often enough ... and Ed's manner and appearance said Dixie to him. He imagined Ed at home with his family, a big one, from old geezers to toddlers. He saw them eating their yams and pralines and playing their fiddles and dancing their jigs and guffawing over coarse jokes and beating one another to death with agricultural implements. — Charles Portis

If we were all our most real and raw selves every moment of the day things would be just awful. The world would be full of man-size toddlers. — Kelly Williams Brown

Grown-up people do very little and say a great deal ... Toddlers say very little and do a great deal ... With a toddler you cannot explain, you have to show. You cannot send, you have to take. You cannot control with words, you have to use your body. — Penelope Leach

Many Christians wonder if it is good for children to have them in the regular service. After all, they cannot understand what is going on. But imagine saying that you're not going to have toddlers sit at the table for meals with the family because they do not understand the rituals or manners. Or keeping infants isolated in a nursery with nothing but mobiles and squeaky toys because they cannot understand the dialogue of the rest of the family around them. We know, instinctively, that it's important for our children to acquire language and the ordinary rituals of their family environment in order to become mature. — Michael S. Horton

We live in a time of instant everything, courtesy of the electronic highway. It creates a community of toddlers. When they don't get immediate gratification, they get petulant and sulky. — Faye Kellerman

Teenagers talk about the idea of having each other's 'full attention.' They grew up in a culture of distraction. They remember their parents were on cell phones when they were pushed on swings as toddlers. Now, their parents text at the dinner table and don't look up from their BlackBerry when they come for end-of-school day pickup. — Sherry Turkle

Toddlers were running the place like some miniature version of Lord of the Flies, complete with weapons made from blocks and tinker toys. One of them came at me, charging my knees and the pink pod that held my precious baby. I screamed and made a run for the front door, flip-flops sticking to squelchy dried puddles of juice. I let out a relieved sigh when we were outside breathing fresh air. The near-deafening roar of the highway was a lark song compared to the screeching we'd just escaped. — Piper Vaughn

Toddlers need to get off the soccer field and onto the playground. Children need to get out of the gym and into neighborhood stickball games. We need to give kids room to create their own rules, set their own terms, and move their bodies in their own ways. — Darell Hammond

What I like most about an aquarium is that all ages, from toddlers to pre-schoolers to retired grandparents, can really enjoy the wonders of the sea. — Jim Pattison

It was unbelievable seeing me as an action figure! In a few months, toddlers all around the country will be biting my head off! — Emma Watson

But the toddler mission is never mindless. They have two goals: find poison and find something to destroy. Toddlers — Jim Gaffigan

If the Internet were planet Earth, the amount of space devoted to pregnancies, motherhood, infants, and toddlers would surely fill a continent. Of course, the Internet had an enormous investment in the subject: those future babies would be its next generation of users. — Christopher Bollen

It was as if we had fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in a frat house Fu ll of drunken toddlers. Suddenly, Eat Me had a whole new meaning. — Jamie McGuire

What distinguishes a human being from a computer? The ability to add up numbers? The ability to understand language? The ability to be logical? It is, of course, none of the above. It is the ability to play. Computers cannot have fun. They cannot fantasize. They cannot dream, they cannot experience emotion or summon intuition. These rare, precious qualities come naturally to every child on this earth yet they tend to be seen, by well meaning adults, as faults, foibles and failings. In pushing tiny toddlers to 'perform', we rob them of the ability to imagine. — Jonathan Cainer

Before moving on, I want to pause to point out that a lot of what search candidates call "illegal" questions may not technically be illegal. But they are absolutely inappropriate, and may well be ambiguous enough that they could lead to lawsuits alleging discrimination, and often do in hiring contexts that are more litigious than the academy. Not every grossly inappropriate and discomfiting question necessarily falls into the illegality. I am no lawyer and no expert, so beyond this I direct you to investigate further with human resources at your institution. In the meantime, master the art of redirection, as with toddlers. — Karen Kelsky

As a parent is our job to teach our children wrong from right, but when they grow up we don't give up. don't say I did my job "I taught them well enough so I trust them completely." Remember children are like apples in the basket, if one bad apple is in the basket it will rotten the whole basket of apples" as you can see our job is not done our job just started, teen age children need as much love and support as toddlers doo. — Beta Metani'Marashi

In a household of toddlers and pets, we discover this rule of thumb about happy families - that they are least two-thirds incontinent. — Robert Breault

What feminists refer to as microaggressions, the rest of us sane adults call life....The concept of microaggressions encourages women to think that every single thing in the world is, or should be, about them. It encourages breathless levels of narcissism, solipsism and just plain delusion....Feminism encourages women to believe that they have the same reasoning and coping abilities as toddlers. No thanks. — Janet Bloomfield

Previously, young children had to be shown by their parents how to use a mouse or a remote, and the connection between what they were doing with their hand and what was happening on the screen took some time to grasp. But with the iPad, the connection is obvious, even to toddlers. — Hanna Rosin

One current reaction to change in families, for example, is the proposal for more "education for parenthood," on the theory that this training will not only teach specific skills such as how to change diapers or how to play responsively with toddlers, but will raise parents' self-confidence at the same time. The proposed cure, in short, is to reform and educate the people with the problem. — Kenneth Keniston

I learned that buying expensive furniture with toddlers around is pointless. — Nicole Polizzi

We continue to blame the poor for their own condition. They are lazy. We do not want to know that the poorest of the poor are toddlers under three years of age. — Madeleine M. Kunin

Hi Ayden!"
Oh, come on! I skidded a sharp right and hunkered down, peeking through shelves.
Ayden strode past the front desk. "Ladies. Don't you all look especially radiant today."
They giggled like toddlers. Pushovers.
"Ayden, could you help us put some of the books away on the taller shelves?"
"Can't. Sorry." He faced them but walked backwards, arms spread wide. "I'm on a mission. Maybe you can help. Did you happen to see a stunning redhead? Tall, leggy. I call her my goddess of a girlfriend."
More giggles. From me. Pull it together, Aurora.
A&E Kirk, Drop Dead Demons — A&E Kirk

Imagine that you do not have any control over most things, which by the way describes toddlers' daily experiences. Something makes you feel frustrated and angry but you cannot control your own emotions. On top of that, you are told that your feelings are wrong ("It's no big deal. No need to be upset."), your attempt to heal hurts is met with disapproval ("Don't cry."), and you are scolded for something you cannot help ("Stop being a baby.") Wouldn't you want to throw an explosive fit, too? — Pamela Li

I'm sure the other kids wouldn't mind not being lectured by another toddler over the virtues of sharing and the mental benefits of toy blocks. — Hayden Thorne

Historians have shown that "parents in the Middle Ages worried about their kids no less than we worry about ours today," and by the nineteenth century there is evidence of bars being placed on windows to protect toddlers from falling out as well as "leading strings
so that young children wouldn't wander off during walks. — Alfie Kohn

What is really special about dogs is they're really similar to even human toddlers. — Brian Hare

Computers tend to separate us from each other - Mum's on the laptop, Dad's on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers are on the DS, and so on. — Tom Hodgkinson

Mangle was meant to become the Toy Foxy, but rapidly evolved into a favorite connected with toddlers who could pull him separate piece by portion. The staff might put him back together each day; however they soon grew fed up with this and decided to simply leave them as a pulling-apart toy for the kids. They dubbed him " Mangle". Presently theorized simply by fans to be the animatronic behind. Balloon — Storyville Books

Here's the thing: public school is a completely unnatural environment. At no other point in your life will you spend 90 percent of your time with people your exact age, socio-economic status, and zip code. It is neither natural nor healthy for children to spend almost all of their time with other children, and this is what has brought out the culture we see of fads, teen pregnancy, drug use by younger and younger kids, and marketing to toddlers. Kids are looking to other children for guidance rather than adults. — Kathy LaPan

'How to Survive a Plague' is history-telling at its best. It's a film I'll show my two children, now toddlers, when they are old enough to understand. It's a movie that I cannot forget. — Ira Sachs

When you've had one call after another and your little one is tugging on your shirt, remember what really matters. When the milk is splattered all over the floor and those little eyes are looking at you for your reaction, remember what really matters. It takes 5 minutes to clean up spilled milk; it takes much longer to clean up a broken spirit. — Rebecca Eanes

Looking with his eyes? Seriously? What else would he look around with?"

Trish nonchalantly uses her middle finger to scratch her temple. "Toddlers learn by making connections between the body part and the action."

Vince blinks. "Oh, so talking to a kid like that's normal?"

"Someday I hope to have a conversation where I don't sound like a character from Star Wars."

"I can see how you'd look forward to that. — Jess Molly Brown

Brains are like toddlers. They are wonderful and should be treasured, but that doesn't mean you should trust them to take care of you in an avalanche or process serotonin effectively. I — Jenny Lawson

But can you imagine if the very first time that you fell after pulling yourself up on that coffee table, a voice came thundering down at you, berating you for falling? "I knew you couldn't do it! You fell, you idiot! I can't believe you fell. Everyone else is walking, but not you. You are a pathetic little crawler and you always will be!" No, quite the opposite! Toddlers are met with lavish praise at each minor progression, even steps in the general direction of progress. When the little one pulls herself up, she gets applause. Mom grabs the video camera and calls the grandparents. Can you imagine how different - and by different, I mean better - this journey would be if with every advancement you made, every small, wobbly step you took in the direction toward Hunger Directed Eating (however imperfect it was), you lavished praise, delighted wonderment, and encouragement upon yourself? — Josie Spinardi

Dear ignoramuses,
Halloween is not 'a yankee holiday' celebrated only by gigantic toddlers wearing baseball caps back to front and spraying 'automobiles' with eggs. This is ignorance.
Halloween is an ancient druidic holiday, one the Celtic peoples have celebrated for millennia. It is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the souls of the departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap. What could be more thrilling and worthy of celebration than that? It is a time to celebrate sweet bounty, as the harvest is brought in. It is a time of excitement and pleasure for children before the dark sets in. We should all celebrate that.
Pinatas on the other hand are heathen monstrosities and have no place in a civilised society. — Jenny Colgan

I don't get jazz. It always sounds like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room. — Libba Bray

I never really did years of movie-after-movie-after-movie but when you've got three toddlers in the house you're performing all day long, anyway, with puppet shows and stories - I act around the clock. — Julia Roberts

We explore our environment, more than we are compelled to utter poetry, when we're toddlers. We start doing that later. Before that happens, every child is a scientist. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress. — Steven Pinker

With toddlers around, times are always interesting. — Beth Ann Fennelly

She had watched other women with infants and eventually understood what she craved: the boundless permission-no, the absolute necessity- to hold and kiss and stroke this tiny person. Cradling a swaddled infant in their arms, mothers would distractedly touch their lips to their babies' foreheads. Passing their toddlers in a hall, mothers would tousle their hair even sweep them up in their arms and kiss them hard along their chins and necks until the children squealed with glee. Where else in life, Mabel wondered, could a woman love so openly and with such abandon? — Eowyn Ivey

The false pride of perennial celebration, of wearing flag lapel pins while betraying the values that the flag stands for, is like the self-esteem curriculum for toddlers, where everything is praised and no achievement ultimately has meaning. — Anne-Marie Slaughter

I want people to hear really exciting music played by the best, but in a context where they can clap when they want to, chase their toddlers, drink beer, take photos, get lost in the music and generally be themselves. And because a field has no rules, it's the perfect place to create unlikely combinations of musical genres. — Charles Hazlewood

Little kids talk about the strangest things. They really do. — Stephen Chbosky

The needs of babies and toddlers were constant and drained the life out my sense of self and my family's relationship with each other. — Mika Brzezinski

An old man with overalls walked by; I don't think old people should wear overalls; it makes them look like shrivelly toddlers. — Aimee Bender

Nearly the physical size of Los Angeles, Bukchang housed fifty thousand prisoners who were kept in by, among many other things, a four-meter-high fence. If you were sent here, so was your entire family-the classic definition of guilt by association, which extended to infants, toddlers, teenagers, siblings, spouses, and grandparents. Babies born here shared the same guilt as their families. Unauthorized babies born here, because intercourse and pregnancies were strictly regulated, were killed. Age and personal culpability meant nothing, and a toddler and an ancient grand- mother were treated the same-brutally. — David Baldacci

Toddlers can make you feel as if you have violated some archaic law in their personal Koran and you should die, infidel. — Anne Lamott

toddlers learn more between 12 months and three years old than during any other stage throughout their whole life? — Laura Stewart

On Work and Charity
Likewise (Maria) watched (Martin's) toils and knew the measure of the midnight oil he burned. Work! She knew that he outdid her, though his work was of a different order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he had, the harder he worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was better than he could bake. And again, she would send one of her toddlers in to him with a great pitcher of hot soup, debating inwardly the while whether she was justified in taking it from the mouths of her own flesh and blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the poor, and that it ever in the world there was charity, this was it. — Jack London

Up until the age of 12, I went to dog shows every weekend. Mum showed beagles. It's a really competitive and eclectic world filled with characters who wear interesting outfits - similar to 'Toddlers & Tiaras,' but with dogs. — Rebel Wilson

Making children cry for a photographer can be considered mean. But I would say that making children laugh and show off their jeans for an apparel ad is just as exploitative and less natural. Toddlers' natural state, like, 30 percent of the time, is crying, and it doesn't indicate pain or suffering. — Jill Greenberg

Of course there are people who would like to eat breakfast without the screams of toddlers all around them, but those people should get over themselves and stop being stuck up and idiotic. — Jon Ronson

Babies and toddlers are mostly what I've been exposed to at this point. I'm hoping parenting just gets much easier after this. It does, right? — Jim Gaffigan

My hustle has often involved food, because, much like household pets or toddlers, I am food-motivated, which is a handy thing to know about me. — Amy Schumer

The boarded-up homes, the decaying storefronts, the aging church rolls, kids from unknown families who swaggered down the streets - loud congregations of teenage boys, teenage girls feeding potato chips to crying toddlers, the discarded wrappers tumbling down the block - all of it whispered painful truths. — Barack Obama

To the deepest, most cellular level of my being, I resent people who believe that depression is the same as weakness, that "sad" people must be coddled like helpless toddlers. — Emery Lord

Whenever someone says zygotes are babies, I reply: 'Imagine a thousand zygotes in test tubes in one room, and three toddlers in another. A fire breaks out, and you only have time to get to one room. Which would you save from burning - the zygotes or the children?' — Kurt Eichenwald

I've found my productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio to be one to seven. So, for every eight hour day of writing, there is only one good productive hour of work being done. The other seven hours are preparing for writing: pacing around the house, collapsing cardboard bxes for recycling, reading the DVD extras pamphlet from BBC Pride & Prejudice, getting snacks lined up for writing, and YouTubing toddlers who learned the 'Single Ladies' dance. I know. Isn't that horrible? So, basically, writing this piece took me the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. — Mindy Kaling

I mean you might have wanted Carrie Bradshaw, but to me she's like toddlers and tiaras gone berserk! — Michael Kors

And isn't that weird? Think about this, when you're born, you nurse on your mama. And then you get a little older, you go to applesauce. And then you see these toddlers walking around with these Ziploc baggies full of Cheerios. Then you get to be my age, and the doctor wants you to start eating Cheerios to watch your cholesterol. Then you lose your teeth, you go to applesauce. I now know why old men like women with really big boobs. They see a trend. I mean, they call it a nursing home, hello. — Bill Engvall

Leaving the house in general really doesn't mix with toddlers, but long lines just indicate poor parental planning and judgment. — Jim Gaffigan

Families survive the Terrible Twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons. A 2-year-old with the physical capacities of an adult would be terrifying. — Paul Bloom

It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed. — Paula Poundstone

Toddlers ask many questions, and so do school children - until about grade three. By that time, many of them have learned an unfortunate fact, that in school, it can be more important for self-protection to hide one's ignorance about a subject than to learn more about it, regardless of one's curiosity. — Jan Hunt

We know that young babies, as they become capable of moving voluntarily, will share. They will share food, for instance, with their siblings and with kids that are around. They will sooth. If they see somebody else in pain, even the youngest of toddlers will try to reach out and pat the person. — Paul Bloom

Others point to data showing that even as toddlers, 40 percent of American two-year-olds watch TV for at least three hours a day - hours they are not interacting with people who can help them learn to get along better. The more TV they watch, the more unruly they are by school age. — Daniel Goleman

In a houseful of toddlers and pets, you can start out having a bad day, but you keep getting detoured. — Robert Breault

She had a woman's swagger at twelve-and-a-half. Hair: strawberry-blonde, and I vaguely recall a daisy in the crook of her ear. She was an inch taller than me, two with the ponytail; smooth cheeks and darling brown eyes that marbled in luscious contrast with her magnolia skin; cream, melting to peach, melting to pink. She beamed like a cherub without the baby fat; a tender neck; pristine lips that would never part for a dirty word. Her body
of no interest to me at the time
was wrapped from neck to toes with home-made footie pajamas, the kind they make for toddlers, but I didn't laugh; the girl filled that silly one-piece ensemble as if it were couture. — Jake Vander Ark

A lot of people say, 'Wow, you're a single father of twin boys, that's crazy!' Two toddlers can get hectic, but I wouldn't change it for anything. Every day they teach me different things. The love is there. When you have a two-year-old saying every other hour, 'Papi, te amo. Papi, I love you,' it can't get better. — Ricky Martin

Having toddlers always means that there's a fair amount of chaos at home, but that's part of the fun. And from a work perspective, we have projects under construction all over the world, including many right here in the US. — Ivanka Trump

No country in history ever sent mothers of toddlers off to fight enemy soldiers until the United States did this in the Iraq war. — Phyllis Schlafly

Toddlers are germ-warfare machines in a cute package
- Debora Geary — Debora Geary

Go to any airport in this country and you'll see how well our government is dealing with the terrible danger you're in. TSA staffers are wanding 90-year-old ladies in wheelchairs, and burrowing through their suitcases. Toddlers are on the no-fly list. Lipsticks are confiscated. And it's all done with the highest seriousness. It's a show of protection and it stirs the fear pot, giving us over and over an image of being in grave personal peril, needing Big Brother to make sure we're safe. — Ann Medlock

Although Hollywood commonly portrays children in foster care as toddlers clutching teddy bears, nearly one-half are eleven or older. And about one-fifth - 103,500 - are sixteen or older. — Martha Shirk

Swept away with the idea, he said it felt like an awakening to him. More like a remembering, I think. The animacy of the world is something we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction - not just for Native peoples, but for everyone. Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion - until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Education - lifelong education for everyone - from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers - is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole. — Ben Bernanke

Toddlers are active explorers. They eagerly try new things and use materials in different ways. Toddlers want to be independent and they have a strong sense of ownership. — Janet Gonzalez-Mena

Few people can present a completely secular argument detailing why abusing toddlers is objectively wrong. But that hardly stops them from recognizing this moral truth even if they can't articulate their reasons in strictly secular terms. — Scott Klusendorf

Children under five are the poorest age group in America, and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development. — Marian Wright Edelman

We put on a pot of tea, a necessity between these two writing friends. We
could no more imagine writing without this hot sustenance than we could
without pen and paper. We sat at the table to talk shop, sort through our
notes, and make plans for the book. Then we settled down in the sunroom,
giggling a little at the unexpected absurdity of our activity, editing
within arm's reach of each other, like toddlers at parallel play. — Mary Potter Kenyon

The exception, as ever, was the children. Freed from the constraints of silence which had been enforced during the bard's performance, the children dashed into the woods with wild cries, and enthusiastically immersed themselves in a game whose rules were incomprehensible to all those who had bidden farewell to the happy years of childhood. Children of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-elves, quarter-elves and toddlers of mysterious provenance neither knew — Andrzej Sapkowski

The conversation had been so lacking in quality that it actually made Toddlers and Tiaras look like good entertainment by comparison. — Sorin Suciu

The real Michael Jackson that has not been seen ... with children, one in diapers, the other two toddlers. — Geraldo Rivera

Parents love bathtime because it means that bedtime is near. To prepare your darling for her bath, put on your full-length poncho, because toddlers don't bathe, they splash, motherfucker. When toddlers bathe, they act like they're a junior member of the summer Olympics diving team. Get ready. By the time you're done, your bathroom floor will have a few inches of standing water. The good news is that wiping up all that water counts as mopping the floor. — Bunmi Laditan

she and Ben chattered away to each other in the language of mothers with their toddlers; the two understood every word exchanged, while the rest of the world just listened, smiled, and didn't understand a single word of the happy gibberish. — William R. Forstchen

They talked in the way toddlers might throw playthings around the room. There was seldom any catching of an idea and sharing it. When the lunches were over, individual opinions lay scattered about in a delicious jumble only ever one layer deep. — Jonathan Renshaw

The whole world is sick ... we've all got this pathetic need to be seen. We're a bunch of fucking toddlers trying to get attention. — Jess Walter

The only American soldier convicted in the [My Lai Massacre in Vietnam], Lieutenant William Calley, served three months under house arrest. What the massacre drove home to me was that Oriental life was not terribly valuable. You could extinguish hundreds of Orientals - unarmed villagers, farmers, women, toddlers, infants - and the penalty would be napping and watching television in your apartment for twelve weeks. — Alex Tizon

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable. — Peter M. Senge