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Children, ay, forsooth,
They bring their own love with them when they come,
But if they come not there is peace and rest;
The pretty lambs! and yet she cries for more:
Why, the world's full of them, and so is heaven—
They are not rare.

— Jean Ingelow

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Children

More quotes by Jean Ingelow

Man dwells apart, though not alone,
He walks among his peers unread;
The best of thoughts which he hath known,
For lack of listeners are not said.

Poems (1863)

Is there never a chink in the world above
Where they listen for words from below?

Poems (1863)

There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer stages of life.

Fated to Be Free: A Novel (1875)

If one cannot have success, the next most agreeable thing is failure.

John Jerome: His Thoughts and Ways (1886)

I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.

Off the Skelligs: A Novel (1872)

All Jean Ingelow quotes →

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Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me.

L. Frank Baum Introduction to The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)

So what if a kid dies? God will take care of him.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds (1916)

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

Thomas Szasz The Second Sin (1973)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jean Ingelow (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.