Precocious Quotes

• I've noticed that the children of other nations always seem precocious. That's because the strange manners of their elders have caught our attention most and the children echo those manners enough to seem like their parents.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Children, Echoes, Parent

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• What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.

  Pablo Picasso

  Time, Zero, Children

  Pablo Picasso (1972). “Picasso on art: a selection of views”, Viking Adult

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• The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.

  Lester B. Pearson

  Peace, Clever, War

  Speech, Toronto, Canada, 14 Mar. 1955

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• I basically was a precocious little kid.

  Michael Ironside

  Kids, Littles, Little Kid

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• Precocious talents mature slowly if at all.

  Gore Vidal

  Talent, Mature, Ifs

  Gore Vidal (1982). “The second American revolution and other essays (1976-1982)”, Random House Inc

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• Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.

  Albert Einstein

  Happiness, Ambition, Pigs

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• When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Futility Of Life, Young

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• When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Thinking, Covered Up

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• One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.

  W. H. Auden

  Character, Thinking, Personality

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• Wines are like people. Some are perfect but boring, some are precocious but fail to live up to their promise, and some may be flawed, but the way they may develop is endlessly fascinating.

  Michael Broadbent

  Wine, People, Perfect

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• They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Eye, Memorable, Sky

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.147, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's... it was just luck really that she happened to the film.

  Ben Affleck

  Character, Mean, Ideas

  "Talking with the guy who gets Jersey Girl". Interview with Steve Head, ca.ign.com. March 24, 2004.

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• I was very precocious when I was young. I went to college at 16, and I graduated at 20. I wanted to be a writer, but I was more interested in experience than in applying myself intellectually.

  Rachel Kushner

  College, Young, Wanted

  "Rachel Kushner: 'I know what it feels like to crash a motorcycle at 140mph'". Interview with Rachel Cooke, www.theguardian.com. June 8, 2013.

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• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
  Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious!
  If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious.
  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

  Julie Andrews

  Sound, Enough, Loud

  Song: Super-Cali-Fragil-Istic-Expi-Ali-Docious

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• An extraordinarily precocious mind, a political free thinker, who towered above his political contemporaries in Germany.

  Franz Mehring

  Political, Mind, Germany

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• Brian Laws has lifted his team out of precocious waters

  Alvin Martin

  Team, Law, Water

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• In writing lyrics - well, for me, anyway - it's about getting into character, you know? 'Who is writing this?' In the case of the original 'Thick As A Brick,' supposedly a precocious, very young child who's fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.

  Ian Anderson

  Children, Writing, School

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• I've been around so long that I might be in record books for being the longest, weirdest, most pathetic great player ever. Look t how precocious I am at 33.

  Vince Spadea

  Book, Player, Long

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• Though not a remarkably precocious child in other respects, she seemed to have very clear and correct views on almost every subject connected with her duty to God and her neighbor; was very truthful both in word and deed, very strict in her observance of the Sabbath - though the rest of the family were by no means particular in that respect - very diligent in her studies, respectful to superiors, and kind to inferiors and equals; and she was gentle, sweet-tempered, patient, and forgiving to a remarkable degree.

  Martha Finley

  Sweet, Children, Mean

  "Elsie Dinsmore".

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• I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family. When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives. Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.

  Albert Einstein

  Happiness, Country, Ambition

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• Children of course are monstrously conventional, repelled at once by whatever is off-center, out of whack, unmanageable. And being an only child I had been coddled a good deal (also scolded). I was awkward, precocious, timid, full of my private rituals and aversions.

  Alice Munro

  Children, Awkward, Only Child

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• The American civil space program is growing to maturity. It has passed through the joys and crises of precocious childhood and now is being called upon to do grown-up things, like earn a living and establish permanent roots in space.

  John Noble Wilford

  Maturity, Roots, Space

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• I just feel "One More Try" is better lyrically. "Careless Whisper" was written when I was 17 years old, and I had not really experienced anything that strong in my life, so it was a bit precocious.

  George Michael

  Strong, Years, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• School success is not predicted by a child's fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.

  Daniel Goleman

  Teacher, Children, School

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• A decline in supervision is not the entire story. Even in the fifties there were undersupervised children . . . who nevertheless did not become pregnant at thirteen . . . and who did not smoke anything stronger than an occasional Camel or Lucky Strike. . . . It took a combination of unsupervised children and a permissive, highly charged sexual atmosphere and an influx of easily acquired drugs and the wherewithal to buy them to bring about precocious experimentation by young and younger children. This occurred in the mid-seventies.

  Marie Winn

  Children, Drug, Atmosphere

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