The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought / Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day

by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD, MANKIND, GENIUS, ETC.

1. Argument is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has great force, though shot by a child.—Bacon.

2. Childhood often holds a truth in its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, and which it is the pride of utmost age to recover.—Ruskin.

3. Children always turn toward the light.—Hare.

4. Der grösste Mensch bleibt stets ein Menschenkind. [The greatest man always remains a son of man.]—Goethe.

5. Dieu aide á trois sortes de personnes,—aux fous, aux enfants, et aux ivrognes. [God protects three sorts of people,—fools, children, and drunkards.]—French.

6. Enfants et fous sont devins. [Children and fools are soothsayers.]—French.

7. Every child is, to a certain extent, a genius, and every genius is, to a certain extent, a child.—Schopenhauer.

8. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.—Jesus.