Infant Quotes - Page 13

• Lord knows what incommunicable small terrors infants go through, unknown to all.

  Margaret Drabble

  Lord, Terror, Knows

  The Millstone (1965)

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• No slave system has ever been able to continue to function on the slaves provided by its own biological reproduction because the rate of human reproduction is too slow and the expense from infant mortality and years of unproductive upkeep of the young make this prohibitively expensive. This relationship is one of the basic causes of the American Civil War, and was even more significant in destroying ancient Rome.

  Carroll Quigley

  War, Years, Rome

  Carroll Quigley (1979). “The evolution of civilizations: an introduction to historical analysis”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• It seems to me obvious that infants and many animals that do not in any ordinary sense have a language or perform speech acts nonetheless have Intentional states. Only someone in the grip of a philosophical theory would deny that small babies can literally be said to want milk and that dogs want to be let out or believe that their master is at the door.

  John Searle

  Dog, Baby, Believe

  "Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind". Book by John Searle, 1983.

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• Sacred Infant, all divine, What a tender love was Thine, Thus to come from highest bliss Down to such a world as this.

  Edward Caswall

  World, Sacred, Bliss

  Edward Caswall (1873). “Hymns and Poems, Original and Translated”, p.281

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• Rationally considered, nothing can be more absurd than the baptism of infants under any circumstances. No statement, no matter by whom it may be said to have been uttered, can make that true which is radically false. If an innocent child, unconscious of good or evil, irresponsible to God and man, incapable of thought or action, is not already, in accordance with Christian theology, a member of Christ, then no vicarious promise or priestly ablution can make him one. For if this were so, a similar ceremony under devil worship could make him a member of Satan.

  Tennessee Celeste Claflin

  Christian, Children, Men

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• As South Korea shows, active participation in international trade does not require free trade. Indeed, had South Korea pursued free trade and not promoted infant industries, it would not have become a major trading nation. It would still be exporting raw materials (e.g., tungsten ore, fish, seaweed) or low-technology, low-price products (e.g., textiles, garments, wigs made with human hair) that used to be its main export items in the 1960s.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Technology, Hair, Korea

  Ha-Joon Chang (2007). “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism”, Bloomsbury Press

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• When the air balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The doctor answered this question by asking another: "What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a man."

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Doctors, Air

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.177

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• Only idiots and infants need things. The language of needs is the native tongue of socialists, therapists, and paternalists of all sorts and is addressed to needy dependents. The language of wants is spoken by self-respecting adults and is addressed to other self-respecting adults.

  Thomas Szasz

  Self, Tongue, Adults

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• Enough of acting the infant who has been told so often how he was found under a cabbage that in the end he remembers the exact spot in the garden and the kind of life he led there before joining the family circle.

  Samuel Beckett

  Garden, Circles, Atheism

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Unnamable”, p.33, Faber & Faber

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• The newborn infant is now seen to be wired with awesome precision... This marvelous robot will be launched into the world under the care of its parents... But to what extent does the wiring of the neurons, so undeniably encoded in the genes, preordain the directions that social development will follow?

  E. O. Wilson

  Parent, Robots, Doe

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• In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven.

  Robert M. Price

  Jesus, Kings, Children

  Opening Statement on Mars Hill Forum at Unitarian Church, Monclair, New Jersey, www.mars-hill-forum.com. January 11, 1997.

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• The mother is really a more immediate parent than the father because one is born from the mother, and the first experience of any infant is the mother.

  Havelock Ellis

  Mother, Father, Parent

  Source: articles.latimes.com

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• I took little interest in fleshly infants; it being my private opinion that their attractions did not justify the fuss that was made about them. I had, for instance, early discovered that, if you gave a baby a finger to hold, it held it. This was perhaps interesting, but it wanted greatly in the dear element of surprise.

  Dorothy Cottrell

  Baby, Interesting, Elements

  Dorothy Cottrell (1929). “The Singing Gold”

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• I'm an infant with Shakespeare; I'm kind of learning how to walk. I am trying to decipher the code, you know? I do my research. And I get a clear understanding of what the language is. It is a tremendous process I have to go through as I am sure all actors do, finding the gems hidden in his language.

  Ruben Santiago-Hudson

  Understanding, Trying, Actors

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• Behaviorism proposes to study human behavior according to the methods developed by animal and infant psychology. It seeks to investigate reflexes and instincts, automatisms and unconscious reactions. But it has told us nothing about the reflexes that have built cathedrals, railroads, and fortresses, the instincts that have produced philosophies, poems, and legal systems, the automatisms that have resulted in the growth and decline of empires, the unconscious reactions that are splitting atoms.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Philosophy, Animal, Psychology

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• Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.

  Marquis de Sade

  Men, Thinking, Animal

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• The wailing of the newborn infant is mingled with the dirge for the dead.

  Lucretius

  Newborn, Wailing

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• T is the work of many a dark hour, many a prayer, to bring the heart back from an infant gone.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Prayer, Heart, Dark

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• Those who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. Their other children grow up to manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality; but this one alone is rendered an immortal child; for death has arrested it with his kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.

  Leigh Hunt

  Growing Up, Children, Blessed

  Leigh Hunt (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt (Illustrated)”, p.1782, Delphi Classics

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• In an underdeveloped society, the first anxiety is of infant mortality. In an advanced one it is to keep alive the aged.

  Indira Gandhi

  Anxiety, Alive, Firsts

  Indira Gandhi (1984). “Selected speeches and writings of Indira Gandhi, September 1972-October 30, 1984”

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• Why did Americans smile so often? Was it out of politeness or because of a gay disposition? Whatever it was, I for one had never been spoiled with smiles. I found it very pleasant! ... I was beginning to understand that with Americans smiling was, as with healthy infants, a natural need. And my reaction was to respond in the same way.

  Svetlana Alliluyeva

  Gay, Healthy, United States

  SVETLANA ALLILUYEVA (1969). “ONLY ONE YEAR”

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• Infants are interesting only to their parents.

  Marya Mannes

  Interesting, Parent

  Marya Mannes (1971). “Out of my time”

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• To every class we have a school assign'd,
  Rules for all ranks, and food for every mind:
  Yet one there is, that small regard to rule
  Or study pays, and still is deem'd a school;
  That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits,
  And awes some thirty infants as she knits;
  Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay
  Some trifling price for freedom through the day.
  At this good matron's hut the children meet,
  Who thus becomes the mother of the street.

  George Crabbe

  Mother, Children, Humble

  George Crabbe (1858). “The Poetical Works of George Crabbe: With a Life of the Author”, p.239

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• It is a spiritually impoverished nation that permits infants and children to be the poorest Americans.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Children, United States, Poverty

  Marian Wright Edelman (2013). “The Measure of our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours”, p.74, Beacon Press

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• Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religiosu wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man?

  Thomas Paine

  War, Men, Blood

  Thomas Paine (1824). “The Theological Works of Thomas Paine”, p.151

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