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In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

— Isaac Watts Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

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Children

More quotes by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Our God, our help in ages past (1719)

Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul;
The mind's the standard of the man.

Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.

Psalm 98 "Joy to the World! (1719)

And he that does one fault at first
And lies to hide it, makes it two.

Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

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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.

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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: Isaac Watts (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.