Opening the book…
Opening the book…
Care, independence, and what passes between generations.
“What is one thing about parenting (or being parented) that surprised you — and what did you learn from it?”
Related passages from different traditions. Read them together, or follow a question that interests you.
How adults form children's minds and characters through instruction, habit, example, and well-directed effort.
20 passages · 9 traditions
In order to open their faculties they should be excited to think for themselves; and this can only be done by mixing a number of children together, and making them jointly pursue the same objects.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 12, 1792 ↗
It is easier, I grant, to command than reason; but it does not follow from hence, that children cannot comprehend the reason why they are made to do certain things habitually; for, from a steady adherence to a few simple principles of conduct flows that salutary power, which a judicious parent gradually gains over a child's mind.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 12 (preceding section), 1792 ↗
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Proverbs 22:6, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗
I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 7.8, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
If you do not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse with. If you do not learn the rules of Propriety, your character cannot be established.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 16.13, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
Certainly custom is most perfect, when it beginneth in young years: this we call education; which is, in effect, but an early custom.
— Renaissance humanism · Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Custom And Education, 1625 ↗
The obligations children carry toward parents — reverence, obedience, service, and grief — as a cornerstone of moral life.
13 passages · 4 traditions
He said, 'My father, do what thou art bidden; of the patient, if God please, shalt thou find me.'
— Qur’an · Qur'an, 37:102, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗
The years of parents may by no means not be kept in the memory, as an occasion at once for joy and for fear.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 4.21, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
In serving his parents, a son may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his advice, he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon his purpose; and should they punish him, he does not allow himself to murmur.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 4.18, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if, in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere:-- although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has.
Parents and teachers who nurture without possessing, guiding toward independence rather than control.
9 passages · 6 traditions
"These sons belong to me, and this wealth belongs to me," with such thoughts a fool is tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; how much less sons and wealth?
— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 5.v.62, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗
And kindly lower thy wing over the faithful who follow thee. And if they disobey thee, then say: 'I will not be answerable for your doings.'
Wise people do not call that a strong fetter which is made of iron, wood, or hemp; far stronger is the care for precious stones and rings, for sons and a wife.
— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 24.v.345, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗
A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of another are his own affairs. The State, while it respects the liberty of each in what specially regards himself, is bound to maintain a vigilant control over his exercise of any power which it allows him to possess over others.
When ancestry, poverty, slavery, or unjust custom warps what is handed from one generation to the next.
8 passages · 5 traditions
The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of _the family_, as an institution.
— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter I, 1855 ↗
Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within shall he live,—a Negro and a Negro's son. Holding in that little head—ah, bitterly!—the unbowed pride of a hunted race, clinging with that tiny dimpled hand—ah, wearily!—to a hope not hopeless but unhopeful, and seeing with those bright wondering eyes that peer into my soul a land whose freedom is to us a mockery and whose liberty a lie.
— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Passing of the First-Born, 1903 ↗
They found their fathers erring, and they hastened on in their footsteps.
— ·
The full arc from infancy through old age — stages, milestones, and the acceptance of impermanence at every turn.
10 passages · 8 traditions
'As often as a father kisseth his child, he should say secretly with himself' (said Epictetus,) 'tomorrow perchance shall he die.' But these words be ominous. No words ominous (said he) that signify anything that is natural.
— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.XXX, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗
Make a mother of her, and what have you? Possessed by maternal excitement, she now confronts wakefulness, weariness, and toil without an instant of hesitation or a word of complaint. The inhibitive power of pain over her is extinguished wherever the baby's interests are at stake. The inconveniences which this creature occasions have become, as James Hinton says, the glowing heart of a great joy, and indeed are now the very conditions whereby the joy becomes most deep.
— The turn of the century · William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures XI, XII, XIII — psychological generalities, 1902 ↗
In youth the seeds of every affection should be sown, and the respectful regard, which is felt for a parent, is very different from the social affections that are to constitute the happiness of life as it advances. Of these, equality is the basis.
— ·
The fact is, that men expect from education, what education cannot give. A sagacious parent or tutor may strengthen the body and sharpen the instruments by which the child is to gather knowledge; but the honey must be the reward of the individual's own industry. It is almost as absurd to attempt to make a youth wise by the experience of another, as to expect the body to grow strong by the exercise which is only talked of, or seen.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 5 (pre-Ch.6 section), 1792 ↗
Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.
— Transcendentalism · Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Footnote 669, 1844 ↗
The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects. Never suffer him to value himself upon trivial accomplishments. But do not always discourage his pretensions to those that are of real importance. He would not pretend to them if he did not earnestly desire to possess them. Encourage this desire; afford him every means to facilitate the acquisition; and do not take too much offence, although he should sometimes assume the air of having attained it a little before the time.
— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section III (On Education), 1759 ↗
Its precepts, when thus dressed and adorned, are capable of producing upon the flexibility of youth, the noblest and most lasting impressions, and as they fall in with the natural magnanimity of that generous age, they are able to inspire, for a time at least, the most heroic resolutions, and thus tend both to establish and confirm the best and most useful habits of which the mind of man is susceptible.
— The Enlightenment · Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Section I, 1759 ↗
The sage and the man of perfect virtue;-- how dare I rank myself with them? It may simply be said of me, that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others without weariness.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 7.33, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
If a man make himself as he teaches others to be, then, being himself well subdued, he may subdue (others); one's own self is indeed difficult to subdue.
— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 12.v.159, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗
It is one of the most sublime virtues of maturity that leads us to be severe with respect to ourselves, and forbearing to others; but children should only be taught the simple virtues, for if they begin too early to make allowance for human passions and manners, they wear off the fine edge of the criterion by which they should regulate their own, and become unjust in the same proportion as they grow indulgent.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 12 (preceding section), 1792 ↗
Whoever causes the multitudes to be righteous, sin will not occur on his account; And whoever causes the multitudes to sin, they do not give him the ability to repent.
— Rabbinic Judaism · Pirkei Avot, 5:18, tr. Joshua Kulp, Mishnah Yomit (Sefaria, CC-BY) ↗
If you wish to make your son rich, pursue one course --if you are only anxious to make him virtuous, you must take another; but do not imagine that you can bound from one road to the other without losing your way.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 5 (pre-Ch.6 section), 1792 ↗
What the wise choose The unwise people take; what best men do The multitude will follow.
— Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita, 3, tr. Edwin Arnold, 1885 ↗
Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors, is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 12.19, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
The superior man seeks to perfect the admirable qualities of men, and does not seek to perfect their bad qualities. The mean man does the opposite of this.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 12.16, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
the chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
— The turn of the century · W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Of the Black Belt, 1903 ↗
I very much doubt whether any knowledge can be attained without labour and sorrow; and those who wish to spare their children both, should not complain if they are neither wise nor virtuous. They only aimed at making them prudent; and prudence, early in life, is but the cautious craft of ignorant self-love.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 5 (pre-Ch.6 section), 1792 ↗
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 1.7, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
And mercifulness from Ourself, and purity; and pious was he, and duteous to his parents; and not proud, rebellious.
— Qur’an · Qur'an, 19:13, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗
Thy Lord hath ordained that ye worship none but him; and, kindness to your parents, whether one or both of them attain to old age with thee: and say not to them, 'Fie!' neither reproach them; but speak to them both with respectful speech; And defer humbly to them out of tenderness; and say, 'Lord, have compassion on them both, even as they reared me when I was little.'
— Qur’an · Qur'an, 17:23-24, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗
The filial piety of now-a-days means the support of one's parents. But dogs and horses likewise are able to do something in the way of support;-- without reverence, what is there to distinguish the one support given from the other?
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 2.7, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
He who always greets and constantly reveres the aged, four things will increase to him, viz. life, beauty, happiness, power.
— Buddhism · Dhammapada, 8.v.109, tr. F. Max Müller, 1881 ↗
He used himself coarse food and drink, but displayed the utmost filial piety towards the spirits. His ordinary garments were poor, but he displayed the utmost elegance in his sacrificial cap and apron. He lived in a low mean house, but expended all his strength on the ditches and water-channels.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 8.21, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion. From the fame and memory of him that begot me I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.
— Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1.I, tr. Meric Casaubon (1634/1635) ↗
A superior man, during the whole period of mourning, does not enjoy pleasant food which he may eat, nor derive pleasure from music which he may hear. He also does not feel at ease, if he is comfortably lodged.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 17.21, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
It is not till a child is three years old that it is allowed to leave the arms of its parents. And the three years' mourning is universally observed throughout the empire. Did Yu enjoy the three years' love of his parents?
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 17.21, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
Then smiled Solomon, laughing at her words, and he said, 'Stir me up, O Lord, to be thankful for thy favour which thou hast shewed upon me and upon my parents, and to do righteousness that shall be well pleasing to thee, and bring me in, by thy mercy, among thy servants the righteous.'
— Qur’an · Qur'an, 27:19, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗
— Nineteenth-century philosophy · John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter IV, 1859 ↗
(The Tao) produces (all things) and nourishes them; it produces them and does not claim them as its own; it does all, and yet does not boast of it; it presides over all, and yet does not control them.
It produces them and makes no claim to the possession of them; it carries them through their processes and does not vaunt its ability in doing so; it brings them to maturity and exercises no control over them;--this is called its mysterious operation.
A right always includes a duty, and I think it may, likewise fairly be inferred, that they forfeit the right, who do not fulfil the duty.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 12 (preceding section), 1792 ↗
Our nature is obscured by work done by the compulsion of want or fear. The mother reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true freedom is not the freedom from action but freedom in action, which can only be attained in the work of love.
— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, Chapter 4 (The Problem of Self), 1913 ↗
It is not that thou lovest thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son because thou desirest thine own soul. The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love, in him we find our own soul in the highest sense.
— The turn of the century · Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, II, 1913 ↗
Many poor women maintain their children by the sweat of their brow, and keep together families that the vices of the fathers would have scattered abroad; but gentlewomen are too indolent to be actively virtuous, and are softened rather than refined by civilization.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 4, 1792 ↗
It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have preferably and most constantly done. It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his constitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary.
— Nineteenth-century philosophy · Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 264, tr. Helen Zimmern, 1907 ↗
Educated in the enervating style recommended by the writers on whom I have been animadverting; and not having a chance, from their subordinate state in society, to recover their lost ground, is it surprising that women every where appear a defect in nature? Is it surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their understandings, and turn all their attention to their persons?
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 6, 1792 ↗
To bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society.
— Nineteenth-century philosophy · John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter IV, 1859 ↗
The weakness of the mother will be visited on the children! And whilst women are educated to rely on their husbands for judgment, this must ever be the consequence.
— The Enlightenment · Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 12 (on national education), 1792 ↗
At five years of age the study of Scripture; At ten the study of Mishnah; At thirteen subject to the commandments; At fifteen the study of Talmud; At eighteen the bridal canopy; At twenty for pursuit [of livelihood]; At thirty the peak of strength; At forty wisdom; At fifty able to give counsel; At sixty old age; At seventy fullness of years; At eighty the age of "strength"; At ninety a bent body; At one hundred, as good as dead and gone completely out of the world.
— Rabbinic Judaism · Pirkei Avot, 5:21, tr. Joshua Kulp, Mishnah Yomit (Sefaria, CC-BY) ↗
A time indeed there was, will they say, when we were full of care as to the future lot of our families; But kind hath God been to us, and from the pestilential torment hath he preserved us; For, heretofore we called upon Him—and He is the Beneficent, the Merciful.
— Qur’an · Qur'an, 52:26-28, tr. J. M. Rodwell, 1861 ↗
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present? If he reach the age of forty or fifty, and has not made himself heard of, then indeed he will not be worth being regarded with respect.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 9.22, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗
Beauty, strength, riches, honor, wisdom, [old age], gray hair, and children are becoming to the righteous, and becoming to the world.
— Rabbinic Judaism · Pirkei Avot, 6:8, tr. Joshua Kulp, Mishnah Yomit (Sefaria, CC-BY) ↗
Children have their sorrows as well as men and women; and it would be well to remember this in our dealings with them.
— Transcendentalism · Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, Chapter I, 1855 ↗
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.
— Hebrew & Christian Bible · Bible, Psalms 27:10, tr. King James Version (1611/1769) ↗
They are, in regard to the aged, to give them rest; in regard to friends, to show them sincerity; in regard to the young, to treat them tenderly.
— Confucianism · Confucius, Analects, 5.25, tr. James Legge, 1893 ↗