Skip to content

Benjamin Spock Quotes

1903–1998 United States

Benjamin McLane Spock (2 May 1903 – 15 March 1998) was an American pediatrician and author.

United States
Memoirists
Physicians

Also known as: Dr. Spock, Spock, Benjamin

Random Benjamin Spock quote

12 quotes

Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.

Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970)

I really learned it all from mothers.

Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

As parents and teachers we need to bring up more of our children with generosity of spirit.

Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970)

This solution has great superficial appeal--all the excitement of secret, forbidden, romantic sexuality without family responsibility and family grubbiness.

Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970)

I've come to the realization that a lot of our problems are because of a dearth of spiritual values.

Associated Press interview (1992)

In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

There are only two things a child will share willingly—communicable diseases and his mother's age.

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children.

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.

Older & Wiser Edited by G. B. Dianda and B. J. Hofmayer (1995)

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God.

Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970)

You know more than you think you do.

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Benjamin Spock (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.