41+ Best Childhood Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to puberty. Profoundly inspirational childhood quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.

If you’re searching for inspirational family quotes and beautiful aunt quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of beautiful good morning brother quotes, popular new mom quotes and cute step parent quotes.

Famous Childhood Quotes

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. John F. Kennedy 

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. Fred Rogers 

Childhoods never last. But everyone deserves one. Wendy Dale 

Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society. Maria Montessori 
Children make your life important. Erma Bombeck 

I spent my whole childhood wishing I were older and now I’m spending my adulthood wishing I were younger. Ricky Schroder 
The soul is healed by being with children. Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Sometimes you have to grow up before you appreciate how you grew up.  Daniel Black 

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. John Betjeman 
Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind. C.S. Lewis 

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older. Tom Stoppard 
Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. Chili Davis 

Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful. Kailash Satyarthi 
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. E.E. Cummings 

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection. Sigmund Freud 
There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. Nelson Mandela 

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains. Diane Ackerman 
Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them. Lady Bird Johnson 

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. Graham Greene 
Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. Maria Montessori 

When I think back on my childhood and the things that happened to me, there were certain periods of time where I felt like I was being saved for something. I feel like I have a gift, and it would be a sin to waste it. Lonnie Johnson 
For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be. John Connolly 

People ask do you make a conscious effort not to swear? if you’re doing silly stuff you’re not tempted to put swearing in. All the comics from my childhood, who were funny without swearing, were the people that influenced me. What I do is quite traditional anyway. Tim Vine 
Children are not only innocent and curious but also optimistic and joyful and essentially happy. They are, in short, everything adults wish they could be. Carolyn Haywood 

 There’s something about childhood friends that you just can’t replace. Lisa Whelchel 
Contemplating childhood is like contemplating a beautiful region as one rides backwards; one really becomes aware of the beauty at that moment, that very instant, when it begins to vanish. Soren Kierkegaard 

 The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind. E. B. White 
Age is a necessary but insufficient requirement for growing up. There are immature old people, and there are appropriately mature young people. Henry Cloud 

 A chef’s palate is born out of his childhood, and one thing all chefs have in common is a mother who can cook. Marco Pierre White 
When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind. Patrick Rothfuss 

Most of us have fond memories of food from our childhood. Whether it was our mom’s homemade lasagna or a memorable chocolate birthday cake, food has a way of transporting us back to the past. Homaro Cantu 
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. Graham Greene 

Since my childhood, I have always made works with polka dots. Earth, moon, sun and human beings all represent dots; a single particle among billions. Yayoi Kusama 
You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers. John J. Plomp 

My childhood was great, honestly. I have all these incredible memories of my childhood. I was an only child. I always had all my cousins around. I had my grandparents around. I had my parents around. I had my uncles around – whatever. Action Bronson 
One of the great lessons I remember my dad constantly emphasizing in our family while I was growing up was ‘Use your R&I.’That is, use your resourcefulness and initiative. He taught us that we were not victims of the circumstances surrounding us, but rather masters of our own destiny. Stephen Covey 

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age. Margaret Mead 
While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. Angela Schwindt 

 Imagination and invention go hand in hand. Remember how lack of resources was never a problem in childhood games? Shift a few pieces of furniture around the living room, and you have yourself a fort. Alexandra Adornetto 
As I learned from growing up, you don’t mess with your grandmother. Prince William 

Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be. Anthony Bourdain 
Growing up, my parents were my heroes, in the way they conducted their lives. Chris Hemsworth 

I’m not one of these guys who sits around saying, Gee, I mean, the person had a strange childhood and that’s why he’s doing this horrible thing. Poor Jeffrey Dahmer. He’s just had a bad childhood and that’s why he’s eating people.’ Wait a second! This person should be removed from the planet. Clint Eastwood 
Hugs can do great amounts of good, especially for children. Diana, Princess of Wales 

I have a characteristic since my childhood. I don’t like living together with my mother, sister, or friends at my home. I have always preferred to be alone and independent and lived according to that. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk 
Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them. Richard L. Evans 

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book. Marcel Proust 
When I was growing up, I remember my mother saying, “Your friends are like elevators; they will bring you up or down  the choice is yours. David DeNotaris, 

Vaccines don’t cause autism. Vaccines, instead, prevent disease. Vaccines have wiped out a score of formerly deadly childhood diseases. Vaccine skepticism has helped to bring some of those diseases back from near extinction. Alex Pareene 
Adults are just outdated children. Dr. Seuss 

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity. Roberto Benigni 
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic. Ralph Waldo Emerson 

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity. Roberto Benigni 
There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. Walt Steightiff 

As human beings, we all mature physically from childhood to adolescence and then into adulthood, but our emotions lag behind. Bernard Sumner 
Never have more children than you have car windows. Erma Bombeck 

The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn’t have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself. Sonia Sotomayor 
One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun. Jane Goodall 

I used to have Bible studies at my house. I was in the choir. I was mischievous but also a real mama’s boy. It was a pretty happy childhood. Woody Harrelson 
Grown ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. Antoine de Saint Exupery 

Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child’s death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections. Ezekiel Emanuel 
If you’ve never been hated by your child, you’ve never been a parent. Bette Davis 

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what. David Goggins 
The best way to make children good is to make them happy. Oscar Wilde 

My happiest memory of childhood was my first birthday in reform school. This teacher took an interest in me. In fact, he gave me the first birthday presents I ever got: a box of Cracker Jacks and a can of ABC shoe polish. Flip Wilson 
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. Harry S. Truman 

If the childhood obesity epidemic remains unchecked, it will condemn many of our kids to shorter lives, as well as the emotional and financial burdens of poor health. Richard Carmona 
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. Kahlil Gibran 

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty. Narendra Modi 
Even if people are still very young, they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think. Anne Frank 

There is no one on earth who knew you from the day you were born; who knew why you cried, or when you’d had enough food; who knew exactly what to say when you were hurting; and who encouraged you to grow a good heart. When that layer goes, whatever is left of your childhood goes with her. Adriana Trigiani 
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. Robert A. Heinlein 

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up. Hermann Hesse