Quotes & Sayings About Younger Son

He was a typical specimen of the younger son in avid pursuit of mediocrity with which the Theurgist's teemed: — Zen Cho

When I went back to Iraq again, after the liberation was complete, I was myself engaged on a sort of "dig", and I decided to travel with Paul Wolfowitz. It was in its own way an archaeological and anthropological expedition. Here are some of the things we unearthed or observed. Unnoticed by almost everybody, and unreported by most newspapers, Saddam Hussein's former chief physicist Dr. Mahdi Obeidi had waited until a few weeks after the fall of Baghdad to accost some American soldiers and invite them to excavate his back garden. There he showed them the components of a gas centrifuge
the crown jewels of uranium enrichment
along with a two-foot stack of blueprints. This burial had originally been ordered by Saddam's younger son Qusay, who had himself been in charge of the Ministry of Concealment, and had outlasted many visits by "inspectors". I myself rather doubt that Hans Blix would ever have found the trove on his own. — Christopher Hitchens

The parable that Rembrandt painted might well be called "The Parable of the Lost Sons." Not only did the younger son, who left home to look for freedom and happiness in a distant country, get lost, but the one who stayed home also became a lost man. Exteriorly he did all the things a good son is supposed to do, but, interiorly, he wandered away from his father. He did his duty, worked hard every day, and fulfilled all his obligations but became increasingly unhappy and unfree. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

One time a guy handed me a picture. He said, 'Here's a picture of me when I was younger.' Every picture is of you when you were younger. 'Here's a picture of me when I'm older.' 'You son of bit, how'd you pull that off Let me see that camera. What's it look like' — Mitch Hedberg

My younger son, Cordell, aka Lil Snoop, loves me like a fan loves Snoop Dogg. He's inspired by making me happy. My older son, Corde, aka Spank, does everything I say, with effort and determination - but he does it for himself. He gets his thrill out of seeing his own results on the football field. — Snoop Dogg

The book of Genesis is a window into what cultures were like before the revelation of the Bible. One thing we see early on is the widespread practice of primogeniture - the eldest son inherited all the wealth, which is how they ensured the family kept its status and place in society. So the second or third son got nothing, or very little. Yet all through the Bible, when God chooses someone to work through, he chooses the younger sibling. He chooses Abel over Cain. He chooses Isaac over Ishmael. He chooses Jacob over Esau. He chooses David over all eleven of his older brothers. Time after time he chooses not the oldest, not the one the world expects and rewards. Never the one from Jerusalem, as it were, but always the one from Nazareth. — Timothy Keller

As a father ,supports his sons, so let the eldest support his younger brothers, and let them also in accordance with the law behave towards their eldest brother as sons ,behave. — Guru Nanak

Mom spent the time that she was supposed to be a kid actully raising children, her younger brother and younger sister. She was tough as nails and did not suffer fools at all. And the truth was she could not afford to. She spoke the truth, bluntly, directly, and without much varnish. I am her son. — Chris Christie

You know, times change and the elements change along with it. The elements of success. And my son's very successful. He's doing very well. And I have a younger daughter who sings. — Billy Eckstine

I was the first son and first child. When my sister came along, well, she was two years younger, and I had to go to the golf course because my mother couldn't handle all the action going on. So I came with father to the golf course since I was a year and a half old and I spent the day with him here, and it worked in naturally. And it was fun for me being with my father, and doing things that a kid did it was great. — Arnold Palmer

After resting in the cool, shadowy interior for a while, with feelings of both gratitude and distaste, he set off once more, and as he left, just as one might ruffle the hair of a son or younger brother, he ran his fingers over the marble locks of a dwarfish figure which, at the foot of one of the mighty columns, had been bearing the immense weight of a holy-water font for centuries. — W.G. Sebald

I rode with Genghis when I was younger than you, barely able to stay on a saddle."
"What was he like?" Zhenjin asked.
Kublai opened his eyes to find his son watching him.
"He was a man who loved his children and his people, Zhenjin. He took the Chin foot off the throat of the nation and made us look up from the struggles of tribes. He changed the world."
Zhenjin looked down, playing with a cherry twig in his hands, bending it this way and that.
"I would like to change the world," he said.
Kublai smiled, with just an edge of sadness in his eyes.
"You will, my son, you will. But no one can change it forever. — Conn Iggulden

I've always read a lot of sci-fi. When my son was younger, I actually went to a 'Star Trek' convention. — Blair Brown

The younger son's return takes place in the very moment that he reclaims his sonship, even though he has lost all the dignity that belongs to it. In fact, it was the loss of everything that brought him to the bottom line of his identity. He hit the bedrock of his sonship. In retrospect, it seems that the prodigal had to lose everything to come into touch with the ground of his being. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

No philosophy, my son; it is of no use to an emperor. — Agrippina The Younger

Shiva embraced his younger son. 'Give them hell, Kartik! — Amish Tripathi

The journey of the younger son cannot be separated from that of his elder brother. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Halt regarded him. He loved Horace like a younger brother. Even like a second son, after Will. He admired his skill with a sword and his courage in battle. But sometimes, just sometimes, he felt an overwhelming desire to ram the young warrior's head against a convenient tree.
"You have no sense of drama or symbolism, do you?" he asked.
"Huh?" replied Horace, not quite understanding. Halt looked around for a convenient tree. Luckily for Horace, there were none in sight. — John Flanagan

Long ago, returning from some turbulent sequence of misdeeds, the younger, beloved son of the house of Culter would rap at the door of his mother's chamber, and be admitted, and closing the door, would bend upon her the grave, sweet gaze, made of mischief and love, that melted the bones in her body. Then, sinking to one knee, he would kiss her hand, in obedience and humility.

Now he rapped, and she heard his voice speak her name and, rising, she faced him as the door opened and shut and he stood, his bearing and looks unlike anything she had ever seen in him before, in any extremity. He said, 'I have to find Philippa.' And then, walking into the room, he dropped on one knee and said, 'I will promise anything you wish, to the end of my life, if you will tell me the name of the house that you know of. — Dorothy Dunnett

I worked with my son when he was much younger; we did L.A. Law together, where I played his father and he played a kid who was suing his father for alienation of affection or something. It was great. — Rene Auberjonois

A wonderful, warm, positive individual who exhibits the values that are prerequisite to a significant faculty post in higher education, I think that it is an absolutely extraordinary and bold career move that Darwin has made in leaving the Orchestra and embarking on the trajectory of a solo performer/educator. And what a marvelous thing it is for Detroit to be able to welcome home a successful native son - one in whom the community can take pride, and one who will serve as an inspiration to a younger generation of aspiring performers eager to make their mark in the world. — David Cerone

He had never expected a title, never expected lands of his own or a household to go with them. His father had been a younger son of a younger son; God only knew how many Dunfords had had to die to put him in line for this inheritance. — Julia Quinn

When my younger son was 13 years old, he asked me to read 'Swallows and Amazons' to him while he made models. He liked it so much that I ended up reading all thirteen of Ransome's books, including the ones that I missed out on. This led my son to 'Treasure Island,' 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Coral Island.' — Michelle Magorian

The money was tobacco money, not from the growing end but the manufacturing; they were from Winston-Salem, and there was plenty of it. Even Jeff who was a younger son (as Amy's father had been, in the days before the increased popularity of cigarettes boosted the fortune) could look forward to something over a million in his own name after three brothers by his father's first wife had got theirs. — Shelby Foote

Almost no two experiences are exactly alike, not even of two children in the same household. The older son never does have the experience of being the younger. And therefore, until we are able to discount the difference in nurture, we must withhold judgment about differences of nature. As well as judge the productivity of two soils by comparing their yield before you know which is in Labrador and which in Iowa, whether they have been cultivated and enriched, exhausted, or allowed to run wild. — Walter Lippmann

Mizzy has wandered into the garden. Carole looks contemplatively at him, says, "Lovely boy."
"My wife's insanely younger brother. He's one of those kids with too much potential, if you know what I mean."
"I know exactly what you mean."
Further details would be redundant. Peter knows the Potters' story: the pretty, unstoppable daughter who's tearing through her Harvard doctorate versus the older child, the son, who has, it seems, been undone by his good fortune; who at thirty-eight is still surfing and getting stoned by way of occupations, currently in Australia. — Michael Cunningham

I have a daughter, Catherine, aged 30. I have a 9-year-old son, Nathaniel, a 7-year-old son, Ridley, and a 6-year-old daughter, Truma. I'm 68. The age gap between the younger kids and me is not something I think about much because I feel physically about like I did when I was 40, or at least, I think I do. — Clyde Edgerton

It is the first visit in many years for your son, finally a citizen of his new country and free to travel, and you try to suppress your undercurrent of resentment at his decision to absent himself from your presence in so devastatingly severe a manner. You feel a love you know you will never be able to adequately explain or express to him, a love that flows one way down the generations, not in reverse, and is understood and reciprocated only when time has made of a younger generation an older one. — Mohsin Hamid

The first American ancestor of our name was a younger son of these old Devonshire people, and came to the Virginia colony in the reign of Charles the First. — John Sergeant Wise

The elder brother compares himself with the younger one and becomes jealous. But the father loves them both so much that it didn't even occur to him to delay the party in order to prevent the elder son from feeling rejected. I am convinced that many of my emotional problems would melt as snow in the sun if I could let the truth of God's motherly non-comparing love permeate my heart. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Some fathers and sons don't get along that well when they're younger because they can't find a way to reach each other, ... A father loves you dearly but you don't see it and so you're always trying to please your father, but your father doesn't let you know how he feels, which is, you don't have to please him because he already loves you. — Braylon Edwards

In that most burdensome moment of all human history, with blood appearing at every pore and an anguished cry upon His lips, Christ sought Him whom He had always sought - His Father. "Abba," He cried, "Papa," or from the lips of a younger child, "Daddy."
This is such a personal moment it almost seems a sacrilege to cite it. A Son in unrelieved pain, a Father His only true source of strength, both of them staying the course, making it through the night - together. — Jeffrey R. Holland

The joy at the dramatic return of the younger son in no way means that the elder son was less loved, less appreciated, less favored. The father does not compare the two sons. He loves them both with a complete love and expresses that love according to their individual journeys. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Years later, when I asked my father, I said 'Pop, why were you so much harder on me than my younger brothers?' he said, son, you plum wore me out. — Charles Koch

Her younger son, twenty, was assigned to a factory that made railroad equipment, but since it provided no salary he was actually paying his workplace three dollars per month so he could stay home to help his mother with the pigs and moonshine. — Barbara Demick

But what a painful difference between the two! The father bends over his returning son. The elder son stands stiffly erect, a posture accentuated by the long staff reaching from his hand to the floor. The father's mantle is wide and welcoming; the son's hangs flat over his body. The father's hands are spread out and touch the homecomer in a gesture of blessing; the son's are clasped together and held close to his chest. There is light on both faces, but the light from the father's face flows through his whole body - especially his hands - and engulfs the younger son in a great halo of luminous warmth; whereas the light on the face of the elder son is cold and constricted. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

One example is the familiar parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), which in some ways might be better called the parable of the elder brother. For the point of the parable as a whole - a point frequently overlooked by Christian interpreters, in their eagerness to stress the uniqueness and particularity of the church as the prodigal younger son who has been restored to the father's favor - is in the closing words of the father to the elder brother, who stands for the people of Israel: 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.' The historic covenant between God and Israel was permanent, and it was into this covenant that other peoples too, were now being introduced. This parable of Jesus affirmed both the tradition of God's continuing relation with Israel and the innovation of God's new relation with the church - a twofold covenant. — Jaroslav Pelikan

We've also evolved the ability to simply 'pay it forward': I help you, somebody else will help me. I remember hearing a parable when I was younger, about a father who lifts his young son onto his back to carry him across a flooding river. 'When I am older,' said the boy to his father, 'I will carry you across this river as you now do for me.' 'No, you won't,' said the father stoically. 'When you are older you will have your own concerns. All I expect is that one day you will carry your own son across this river as I no do for you.' Cultivating this attitude is an important part of Humanism
to realize that life without God can be much more than a series of strict tit-for-tat transactions where you pay me and I pay you back. Learning to pay it forward can add a tremendous sense of meaning and dignity to our lives. Simply put, it feels good to give to others, whether we get back or not. — Greg M. Epstein

Lord Emsworth was a man with little of the aggressor in his spiritual make-up. He believed in living and letting live. Except for his sister Constance, his secretary Lavender Briggs, the Duke of Dunstable and his younger son Frederick, now fortunately residing in America, few things were able to ruffle him. Placid is the word that springs to the lips. But the Church Lads had pierced his armour, and he found resentment growing within him like some shrub that has been treated with a patent fertilizer. He brooded bleakly on the injuries he had suffered at the hands of these juvenile delinquents. The — P.G. Wodehouse

The second evening, the daughters got him drunk again and Gaia, the youngest, slept with him and got pregnant as well. The fruit of their incestuous intercourse would one day prove to be a thorn in the side of Abraham's seed to come. The firstborn bore a son and called him Moab. The younger one bore a son and called him Ben-ammi. These two would be the fathers of the Moabites and the Ammonites. — Brian Godawa

And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.
And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.' -Alma the Younger (Alme 7:10-12) — Joseph Smith Jr.

When the younger son was no longer considered a human being by the people around him, he felt the profundity of his isolation, the deepest loneliness one can experience. He was truly lost, and it was this complete lostness that brought him to his senses. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

There could be no eldest son for her, and younger sons were indelicate things, necessary, but not to be much spoken of. Younger sons had none of the privileges of obscurity; it was their plain duty to remain hidden until some disaster perchance promoted them to their brother's places, and, since this was their function, it was desirable that they should keep themselves wholly suitable for succession. — Evelyn Waugh

Son, can you play me a memory. I'm not really sure how it goes. It was sad and it was sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man's clothes. — Billy Joel

A large part of the father's life had been spent waiting. He could not force his younger son to come home or his older son to let go of his resentments. Only they themselves could take the initiative to return. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

When I was younger, my mom loved to garden. But the flowers would never grow. She just kept trying.'
'I don't understand.'
'Because you can't.'
'What does this have to do with anything?'
I don't fiddle with my fingers and there's no apology on the tip of my tongue when I say, 'I am my mother's son. — Ellie Lieberman

In the early days of the December that my father was to die, my younger brother brought me the news that I was a Jew. I was then a transplanted Englishman in America, married, with one son and, though unconsoled by any religion, a nonbelieving member of two Christian churches. On hearing the tidings, I was pleased to find that I was pleased. — Christopher Hitchens

Mami had no choice but to tell Carlito and me the real story that same night.

In a way, I always knew something like that had happened. It was the only way to explain why my older brother got such special treatment his whole life - everyone scared to demand that he go to school, that he study, that he have better manners, that he stop pushing me around.

El Pobrecito is what everyone called him, and I always wondered why.

I was two years younger and nobody, and I mean nadie, paid me any mind, which is why, when our mother told me the story of our father trying to kill his son like we were people out of the Bible, part of me wished our papi had thrown me off that bridge instead. — Patricia Engel

To my way of thinking, the concept drawings that Rembrandt did, the drawings he made that he used to model his artists, to work out the compositions of his paintings: those are cartoons. Look at his sketch for the return of the prodigal son. The expression on the angry younger brother's face. The head is down; the eyebrow is just one curved line over the eyes. It communicates in a very shorthand way. It's beautiful, expressive, and, in a peculiar way, it's more powerful than the kind of stilted, formalized expression in the final painting. — Jim Woodring

My godfather was a man named Justin Dart. Some of you may remember Justin Dart. My younger son's name is Justin, named after Justin Dart. I was executor of his estate, and he was my godfather. I first really got time to spend with Ronald Reagan with Justin Dart personally, one-on-one. — Arthur Laffer

Niepokalanow is a home like Nazareth. The Father is God the Father, the mother and mistress of the home is the Immaculata, the firstborn son and our brother is Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the altar. All the younger brothers try to imitate the elder Brother in love and honor towards God and the Immaculata, our common parents, and from the Immaculata they try to love the divine elder Brother, the ideal of sanctity who deigned to come down from heaven to be incarnated in her and to live with us in the tabernacle ... — Maximilian Kolbe

Billie turned back to Geroge. "He's an idiot."
He held up his hands. "You will find no argument here."
"The plight of the younger son," Andrew said with a sigh.
Billie rolled her eyes, tipping he read toward Andrew as she said to George, "Don't encourage him."
"To be ganged up upon," Andrew went on, "never respected..."
George crane his neck, trying to read the title of Billie's book. "What are you reading?"
"And," Andrew continued, "apparently ignored as well. — Julia Quinn

The younger man sitting next to her, her son perhaps, who looked to be in his forties, had a bar code tattooed on the back of his tanned neck, as if he were a supermarket product. — Liane Moriarty

I'm thinking when I meet the right person - and I do believe that I will - he's going to be younger. Not cougar territory, though. I won't go out with someone who could be my son! — Gayle King

In Eudora Welty's masterful story "Why I Live at the P.O." (1941), the narrator is engaged in a sibling rivalry with her younger sister, who has come home after leaving under suspicious if not actually disgraceful circumstances. The narrator, Sister, is outraged at having to cook two chickens to feed five people and a small child just because her "spoiled" sister has come home. What Sister can't see, but we can, is that those two fowl are really a fatted calf. It may not be a grand feast by traditional standards, but it is a feast, as called for upon the return of the Prodigal Son, even if the son turns out to be a daughter. Like the brothers in the parable, Sister is irritated and envious that the child who left, and ostensibly used up her "share" of familial goodwill, is instantly welcomed, her sins so quickly forgiven. Then — Thomas C. Foster

it. But I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, — Oscar Wilde

(Refresher course I just completed twenty minutes ago: In the Koran, it is Ismail, Abraham's elder son by Sarah's maidservant Hagar, whom Sarah gave to Abraham as concubine to bear them a child, that Abraham takes up the mountain with plans to sacrifice. In the Old Testament it's Isaac, Abraham's younger son by Sarah herself, Abraham takes up the mountain. In this version Sarah sees Ismail playing with Isaac long before the trip up the mountain, becomes jealous about her own son's inheritance - even though the whole Hagar-Abraham thing was her idea to begin with - and forces Abraham to send Hagar and Ismail away.) — Claire Sydenham

Whether I am the younger son or the elder son, God's only desire is to bring me home. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

On the one hand the younger son realizes that he has lost the dignity of his sonship, but at the same time that sense of lost dignity makes him also aware that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose, (pp. 49). — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza's daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad's infirm state of health would permit. — Horace Walpole

Royal relationships across the generations have often been strained and distant, rather than close and affectionate. Most eldest sons, interminably waiting to become king, have not been on the best of terms with the sovereign to whose death they look forward with a debilitating combination of guilt-ridden anxiety and eager anticipation. And younger sons (and daughters, too) have often found their lives empty of purpose: cut off by their royal statius, but unable to find anything rewarding with which to fill the time. — David Cannadine

Darona's face bore the pinched, taut look and shadowed eyes of someone constantly in pain, but the lack of lines suggested she was younger than Jesral had first thought; middle-aged, fifty at the very most.
'You make an uncommonly fine looking noblewoman, for a Mhrydaineg commoner.'
'Thank you.' Jesral was careful to keep all tone out of her voice. Darona gave her a shrewd stare, then a slight smile.
'Self-control. Good. You must ignore me when I offend you unintentionally. They say that pain can make one waspish, but my brothers and son tell me there's been no change in my manner. I was acid-tongued long before this set in,' she held up a knotted hand, 'and taking devil's claw root has no effect on that. Rest assured, young woman, when I intend offence people are in no doubt about it. — Helen Bell

When I was younger, I didn't understand how a mother could put her son on a plane and just say, you know, 'Here you go, I'll see you later.' And she never followed, she never came. — Jose Antonio Vargas

He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice or arms illustrates his extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Sophroniscus, but for his son, Socrates; nor of Ariosto and Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato. — Seneca The Younger

Go on and increase in valor, O boy! this is the path to immortality. — Seneca The Younger

I was born in 1957 as the second son of the late Sat Paul and Lalita Mittal. My father was a politician and, at one point of time, an MP. A gap of two years separates me from both my elder brother Rakesh and younger sibling Rajan. — Sunil Mittal

The idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, "And pray, what is the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds." He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said: — Jane Austen

The continuing, direct operation of the Holy Ghost on those who are called to be God's children implies, in fact, a broadening process of incarnation. Christ, the son begotten by God, is the first-born who is succeeded by an ever-increasing number of younger brothers and sisters. There are, however, neither begotten by the Holy Ghost nor born of a virgin ... Their lowly origin (possibly from the mammals) does not prevent them from entering into a close kinship with God as their father and Christ as their brother. — Carl Jung