125 Early Childhood Quotes

Following is our list of early childhood quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about early education.

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Famous Early Childhood Quotes

The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. — Rachel Carson

The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. — Maria Montessori

Infancy is a vulnerable stage of development, therefore, it's not enough that babies receive good care, the care must be excellent. — Magda Gerber

Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. — Plato

CHILDHOOD IS THAT STATE WHICH ENDS THE MOMENT A PUDDLE IS FIRST VIEWED AS AN OBSTACLE INSTEAD OF AN OPPORTUNITY — Michael K. Williams

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self. — Nathaniel Branden

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. — John Betjeman

Our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement. — Angela Duckworth

If you're going to equalize the academic playing field, you've got to get the kids in early childhood programs. — Paul Vallas

One of the best investments we can make in a child’s life is high-quality early education. — Barack Obama

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child's eye - it is very beautiful. — Kailash Satyarthi

During the earliest stages the child perceives things like a solipsist who is unaware of himself as subject and is familiar only with his own actions. — Jean Piaget

A child... never takes time off as a child; time off does not begin until the principles of order have been accepted. — Heinrich Böll

The first half of life is learning to be an adult-the second half is learning to be a child. — Pablo Picasso

Short Early Childhood Quotes

  • Little children, from the moment in which they are weaned, are making their way toward independence. — Maria Montessori
  • Every generation rediscovers and re-evaluates the meaning of infancy and childhood. — Arnold Gesell
  • The distinctive character of a child is to always live in the tangible present. — John Ruskin
  • The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child's own natural desire to learn. — Maria Montessori
  • Play is the most natural method of self-healing that childhood affords. — Erik Erikson
Early childhood quote Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.
Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.

Early Childhood Education Quotes

The best way to improve the American workforce in the 21st century is to invest in early childhood education, to ensure that even the most disadvantaged children have the opportunity to succeed along side their more advantaged peers — James Heckman

Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read. — Marilyn Jager Adams

If a child lives with approval, he learns to live with himself. — Dorothy Nolte

Early childhood quote It's always too early to quit .
It's always too early to quit .

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words. — Betty Smith

Certainly, young children can begin to practice making letters and numbers and solving problems, but this should be done without workbooks. Young children need to learn initiative, autonomy, industry, and competence before they learn that answers can be right or wrong. — David Elkind

Parents deserve the peace of mind of knowing their children are in good hands. By investing in early childhood educators, we are supporting nurturing child care environments where children can thrive. — Kathleen Wynne

My mother is a professor of early childhood education. When I was two she would say she knew I was going to be an actor. — Matt Damon

The children are now working as if I did not exist. — Maria Montessori

The goal of my philanthropic work has always been to make sure that every child has a chance to live up to his or her potential. That means our work won't be done until every child has access to quality education from early childhood to adulthood. — Shakira

We spend at least $5 for remedial education right now for every dollar we put in early childhood education. All the studies on early childhood education show this is going to pay for itself. — Tim Kaine

Early Education Quotes

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. — Richard P. Feynman

A treatment method or an educational method that will work for one child may not work for another child. The one common denominator for all of the young children is that early intervention does work, and it seems to improve the prognosis. — Temple Grandin

And then you have the responsibility and the duty of being good examples to youngsters, not smoke, training hard, go to bed early, don't drink alcohol, don't take drugs, it's very important to have a policy for educating against doping. — Alberto Juantorena

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them... — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

I was born in Paris in 1950. I had a strict upper-class Catholic education but I never really fitted in the system and revolted against it quite early. — Francois Gautier

One of the many ways of contesting level-zero, and one of the best, is to take photographs, an activity in which one should start becoming adept very early in life, teach it to children since it requires discipline, aesthetic education, a good eye and steady fingers. — Julio Cortazar

I began my education at a very early age; in fact, right after I left college. — Winston Churchill

Now a cholera epidemic was sweeping through Southeast Asia and south Asia in the early 1970s, so I started medical school and I joined a laboratory to work on this. — Peter Agre

Early childhood development has proved to be very beneficial and very cost-effective in societies where this is been tried. So let's not confine ourselves to primary education. Let's think of early childhood development and education as a whole. — Aung San Suu Kyi

From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward. — John Pople

Child Development Quotes

To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. — Maria Montessori

The child who has felt a strong love for his surroundings and for all living creatures, who has discovered joy and enthusiasm in work, gives us reason to hope that humanity can develop in a new direction. — Maria Montessori

The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy. — Maria Montessori

There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding. — Erik Erikson

Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write and count. It is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace that is right for each individual child. Earlier is not better. — Magda Gerber

It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self. — Donald Woods Winnicott

Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul. — Friedrich Frobel

In order to develop normally, a child requires progressively more complex joint activity with one or more adults who have an irrational emotional relationship with the child. Somebody's got to be crazy about that kid. That's number one. First, last and always. — Urie Bronfenbrenner

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. — Jerome Bruner

Every baby moves with more ease and efficiency if allowed to do it at his own time and in his own way, without our trying to teach him. A child who has always been allowed to move freely develops not only an agile body but also good judgment about what he can and cannot do. — Magda Gerber

Childhood Quotes

Travel is a caprice in childhood, a passion in youth, a necessity in manhood, and an elegy in old age. — Jose Rizal

I always wanted to be a rock star. That was my childhood dream. That's what I told everybody I was going to be when I grew up. — Chester Bennington

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride! — Hunter S. Thompson

The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood. — Rene Descartes

When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood. — Sam Ewing

Creativity consists in maintaining a key aspect of the experience of childhood throughout one's life: the capacity to create and recreate the world. Creativity is the omnipotence of the child's mind. — Donald Woods Winnicott

Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting. — Richard Paul Evans

You can't learn to act unless you're criticized. If you tie that criticism to your childhood insecurities you'll have a terrible time. Instead, you must take criticism objectively, pertaining it only to the work being done. — Sanford Meisner

I don't think I was awake for much of my childhood. I did a lot of napping. This might have been a defensive measure against encroaching depression. Until about the age of eleven or twelve, I had zero interests other than trying to steal gumballs from supermarket gumball machines. — Michael Ian Black

What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood? - Beatrix Potter

What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood? — Beatrix Potter

Preschool Quotes

Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds, capable of discovery from the preschool age on, throughout life? — Jean Piaget

I was in preschool and a girl actually kissed me on the cheek. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what it meant, so I instantly grabbed her face and kissed her on the lips. And, then I got suspended. — Jensen Ackles

Your preschool child will chatter endlessly to you. If you half-listen and half-reply the whole conversation will seem, and become, tediously meaningless for both of you. but if you really listen and really answer, he will talk more and what he says will make more sense. — Penelope Leach

Whether we're a preschooler or a young teen, a graduating college senior or a retired person, we human beings all want to know that we're acceptable, that our being alive somehow makes a difference in the lives of others. — Fred Rogers

When my kids started preschool, the teachers had to take away all the fake bananas because all the boys would pick them up and pretend that they were guns. Boys find sticks to play swords and anything that looks like a gun to shoot. It's just inside of them. It's who they are. — Dean Norris

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

I went to the 30th reunion of my preschool. I didn't want to go, because I've put on like a hundred pounds. — Wendy Liebman

School is very conformist, and one of the very first conforming that goes on in preschool and kindergarten is gender. — Dan Savage

I feel strongly that we have to have an education system that starts with preschool and goes through college. That's why I want more technical education in high schools and in community colleges, real apprenticeships to prepare young people for the jobs of the future. — Hillary Clinton

Preschoolers have a way of grabbing your attention. Mine help me not to be a baseball player at home. — Dan Quisenberry

Child Care Quotes

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. — Agatha Christie

Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience. — Benedict of Nursia

Just as men must give up economic control when their wives share the responsibility for the family's financial well-being, women must give up exclusive parental control when their husbands assume more responsibility for child care. — Augustus Y. Napier

Humanity owes the child the best it has to give. — Eglantyne Jebb

Just being a woman is God's gift. The origin of a child is a mother, a woman. She shows a man what sharing, caring, and loving is all about. That is the essence of a woman. — Sushmita Sen

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. — Dr. Seuss

Our country is like a sick child, now it's up to all of us to take care of it, we have to suffer a little now, we have to have a little pain, assume our responsibility and all as brothers to bring forward that child. — Nayib Bukele

What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate. — Chris Voss

In accordance with my conception of life, I have chosen not to bring children into the world. A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung out into the cosmic brutality without hesitation. — Peter Wessel Zapffe

Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective. — P. J. O'Rourke

People Writing About Early Childhood

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori
quotes on education, peace and kindness

374 17541
Read quotes by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson
quotes on environment, pesticides and sea

124 2785
Read quotes by Magda Gerber

Magda Gerber
quotes on play

33 1119
Read quotes by Plato

Plato
quotes on life, love and reality

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Read quotes by Michael K. Williams

Michael K. Williams
quotes on leadership, education and michael k williams

57 194
Read quotes by Nathaniel Branden

Nathaniel Branden
quotes on love, education and relationships

140 1322

More Early Childhood Quotes

The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. — Bell Hooks

My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin, I was the first person in my family to complete high school, let alone go to college. — Philip Zimbardo

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself. — Rita Dove

The way we interact with people is influenced by our attachment style, which is deeply rooted in our early experiences. — Amir Levine

I don't remember the very first animation I saw, but the one that stays deepest in my memory is definitely 'Astro Boy.' — Akira Toriyama

Your memories from your early childhood seem to have such purchase on your emotions. They are so concrete. — Dana Spiotta

Over time we are able to undermine habitual modes of thinking formed by our self-made self in early childhood, which tries to squeeze happiness from the gratification of our desires for the symbols in our culture of survival and security, power and control, and affection and esteem. — Thomas Keating

The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. Today I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early. — Garry Kasparov

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older. — Tom Stoppard

My early childhood memories center around this typical American country store and life in a small American town, including 4th of July celebrations marked by fireworks and patriotic music played from a pavilion bandstand. — Frederick Reines

Love is the supreme form of communication. In the hierarchy of needs, love stands as the supreme developing agent of the humanity of the person. As such, the teaching of love should be the central core of all early childhood curriculum with all other subjects growing naturally out of such teaching. — Ashley Montagu

Obviously from childhood to my teenage years, I really came into my own. I left the house early; I was on the streets when I was, like, 15. I've been holdin' my own since that age. — Nipsey Hussle

Mythology, science and space exploration are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write. — Vangelis

I'm very comfortable with the nature of life and death, and that we come to an end. What's most difficult to imagine is that those dreams and early yearnings and desires of childhood and adolescence will also disappear. But who knows? Maybe you become part of the eternal whatever. — Hugh Hefner

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days. — Andrew Wiles

Behavior runs in deep channels that were cut during early childhood, and it is very difficult to alter them. In order to change a deeply ingrained pattern, you have to build a sturdy dam, dig another canal and reroute the river in the new direction. That effort is rarely successful over the long haul. — James Dobson

The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at anearly age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now. — David Elkind

Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood. — Unknown

Exploration of the natural world begins in early childhood, flourishes in middle childhood, and continues in adolescence as a pleasure and a source of strength for social action. — David Sobel

Middle-class kids get to play, develop their thinking ability. Poor kids are much more likely to get regimentation under the guise of socialization. On top of it, we have huge segregation in early childhood programs. I don't see these patterns changing anytime soon, and that's a big obstacle. — Pedro Noguera

When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together. — John Berger

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

Values are most important. Democratic values have to be instilled from childhood and the child sees at an early stage in life in every situation in society. — Ela Bhatt

Very early in my childhood I associated poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, jail with large families. — Margaret Sanger

New York rushed to get students into early childhood programs, but the research is clear that it has to be high quality. What we are giving poor kids now in early childhood is nothing like what we are giving middle-class kids in most places. — Pedro Noguera

My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was allowed to read whatever I wanted. — Poppy Z. Brite

Mice: What is the best early training for a writer? Y.C.: An unhappy childhood. — Ernest Hemingway

How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood. — Harold Ramis

A poor child who receives high-quality early childhood development is 40 percent less likely to need special education, twice as likely to attend college and dramatically more likely to survive childhood. — Shakira

As a kid who wasn't into sports, at school I felt almost alienated at times, whereas in the theatre community there was this amazing sense of camaraderie. Early on, we would go to rehearsals with my dad and I was like the mascot for the backstage crew. That was a big part of my childhood, so I dreamed of one day doing a play in London. — Zach Braff

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