"A child has an ingrained fancy for coal, not for the gross materialistic reason that it builds up fires by which we cook and are warmed, but for the infinitely nobler and more abstract reason that it blacks his fingers."

Childhood, Innocence, Fire, Nobility, Nature

2

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"A child has an ingrained fancy for coal, not for the gross materialistic reason that it builds up fires by which we cook and are warmed, but for the infinitely nobler and more abstract reason that it blacks his fingers."

Exlpore more Childhood quotes

"Although he never speaks of how or what or why, I know that his childhood was difficult, that his parents broke his heart. Books and excess poundage are his insulation against pain."

Dean Koontz, American Author

Childhood, Pain, Books, Isolation

"I do not remember asking adults about anything, except as a last resort."

Neil Gaiman, British Author

Childhood, Independence, Curiosity, Life

"Schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children. It's accepted, because all we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics."

Stephen King, American Author

Childhood, Truth, Wisdom, Regret, Power

"A child is child."

Lailah Gifty Akita, Ghanaian Author

Childhood, Child, Nature, Innocence, Life

"It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these."

Neil Gaiman, British Author

Childhood, Children, Imagination, Preparation, Strength

"Granny," said Esk, in the exasperated and remarkably adult voice children use to berate their wayward elders. "I don't think you quite understand. I don't want to hit the ground. It's never done anything to me."

Terry Pratchett, English Author

Childhood, Innocence, Truth, Wisdom, Regret

"Leading up to Christmas, there was talk of Santa. But I'd never even heard of Santa. Bunty, one of the workers who I grew to love, tried to explain, 'He brings little angels like you, presents."

Stephen Richards, British Author

Childhood, Christmas, Santa, Innocence, Love

"A child's best friend is often the one telling bedtime stories."

Eraldo Banovac, Croatian Scientist

Childhood, Friend, Story, Imagination, Trust

"The happiness of childhood, the calming of a child's fears and the healthy development of its self-confidence depend directly upon love."

Auliq Ice, Ugandan Economist

Childhood, Love, Confidence, Development

"I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time."

Hermann Hesse, German Novelist

Childhood, Feelings, Adultery, Story, Absence

Explore more quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

"It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos, for man was always small compared to the nearest tree."

Perspective

"A puddle repeats infinity, and is full of light; nevertheless, if analyzed objectively, a puddle is a piece of dirty water spread very thin on mud."

Nature

"Job is an optimist. He shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens; he lashes the stars, but it is not to silence them; it is to make them speak."

Strength

"A man reading the Dickens novel wished that it might never end. Men read a Dickens story six times because they knew it so well."

Literature

"The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt, they are forbidden to believe."

Philosophy

"And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet."

Politics

"When modern sociologists talk of the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time, they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely of people who will not accommodate themselves to anything. At its worst it consists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there. And that is becoming more and more the situation...Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion."

Society

"Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself."

Self

"The books that influence the world are those that it has not read."

Knowledge

"The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man."

Perspective