Great Throughts Treasury

"We are not asking our children to do their own best but to be the best. Education is in danger of becoming a religion based on fear; its doctrine is to compete. The majority of our children are being led to believe that they are doomed to failure in a world which has room only for those at the top."

"We have kept our children so busy with “useful” and “improving” activities that we are in danger of raising a generation of young people who are terrified of silence, of being alone with their own thoughts."

"Becoming responsible adults is no longer a matter of whether children hang up there pajamas or put dirty towels in the hamper, but whether they care about themselves and others -- and whether they see everyday chores as related to how we treat this planet."

"When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death - ourselves."

"When we truly care for ourselves, it becomes possible to care far more profoundly about other people. The more alert and sensitive we are to our own needs, the more loving and generaous we can be toward others"

"A new baby is like the beginning of all things-wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities."

"In all our efforts to provide ''advantages'' we have actually produced the busiest, most competitive, highly pressured, and over-organized generation of youngsters in our history."

"Babies are necessary to grown-ups. A new baby is like the beginning of all things --wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. In a world that is cutting down its trees to build highways, losing its earth to concrete... babies are almost the only remaining link with nature, with the natural world of living things from which we spring."