130 Happy Childhood Quotes To Connect With Your Inner Child

They may be small, but these childhood quotes show the importance of your own childhood and the children we have in the world today. 

Why Is Having A childhood So Important?

Many people overlook children and the big importance that they play in our world.

As people grow up, it’s easy for us to forget the way our minds worked as a child and the joy that we experienced in the simple things around us.   

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology revealed that personality traits tend to stabilize by the age of 5, indicating that early childhood experiences may have a long-lasting impact on the development of personality.

The study highlights the importance of providing children with supportive environments and positive experiences to foster healthy personality development.

In childhood, the person that we are going to be starts to take form.

The people in our lives at that time made a big difference.

And we have the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of children today. 

Below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and heartwarming childhood quotes and sayings collected from a variety of sources over the years.

Childhood Quotes About Growing Up

Research conducted by the American Psychological Association suggests that children as young as 4 can display empathy, demonstrating that the capacity for compassion is innate in humans from an early age.

The findings underscore the importance of teaching and modeling empathy to children, as it is a key aspect of social and emotional development.

1. “Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

2. “Children are magic because they look for it.” – Christopher Moore

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

4. “Childhoods never last. But everyone deserves one.” – Wendy Dale

5. “Children make your life important.” – Erma Bombeck

6. “The soul is healed by being with children.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

7. “Sometimes you have to grow up before you appreciate how you grew up.” –  Daniel Black

You will also enjoy our article on sibling quotes.

8. “Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.” – C.S. Lewis

You will also enjoy our article on father daughter quotes.

9. “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” –  Chili Davis

You will also enjoy our article on grandchildren quotes.

10. “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E.E. Cummings

See more quotes about growing up

Childhood Quotes On The Importance Of Children

Harvard University researchers found that positive experiences in early childhood, such as responsive caregiving and stimulating environments, can lead to better physical and mental health outcomes in adulthood.

The study highlights the importance of investing in early childhood development programs to promote healthy development and prevent negative outcomes later in life.

11. “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” – Nelson Mandela

12. “Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.” – Lady Bird Johnson

13. “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 (see more quotes from Maria Montessori)

14. “For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.” – John Connolly

You will also enjoy our article on baby smile quotes.

15. “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

16. “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

17. “Age is a necessary but insufficient requirement for growing up. There are immature old people, and there are appropriately mature young people.” –  Henry Cloud

18. “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

19. “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” – Graham Greene

20. “You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.” – John J. Plomp

Childhood Quotes About Family And Friends

21. “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

22. “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” – Angela Schwindt

23. “As I learned from growing up, you don’t mess with your grandmother.” – Prince William

24. “Growing up, my parents were my heroes, in the way they conducted their lives.” –  Chris Hemsworth

25. “Hugs can do great amounts of good, especially for children.” – Diana, Princess of Wales

26. “Children will not remember you for the material things you provided, but for the feeling that you cherished them.” – Richard L. Evans

27. “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

Also read these quotes from The Little Mermaid to relive your childhood.

Fun Childhood Quotes

28. “Cleaning the house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” – Phyllis Diller

29. “Adults are just outdated children.” – Dr. Seuss

30. “A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

31. “There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” – Walt Steightiff

32. “Never have more children than you have car windows.” – Erma Bombeck

33. “One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.” – Jane Goodall

34. “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

35. “If you’ve never been hated by your child, you’ve never been a parent.” – Bette Davis

If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of inspiring Jane Goodall quotes about the environment.

Childhood Quotes About Teaching Children 

36. “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” – Oscar Wilde

37. “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

38. “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” – Kahlil Gibran

39. “Even if people are still very young, they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think.” – Anne Frank

40. “Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.” – Robert A. Heinlein

41. “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” – Margaret Mead

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to check out our collection of inspirational quotes for kids about school, success, and growing up.

42. “We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open.” – Harry Edwards

43. “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” – Albert Einstein

44. “Children will listen to you after they feel listened to.” – Jane Nelsen

45. “Children learn more from what you are, than what you teach.” – W.E.B. DuBois

46. “Children are one third of our population and all of our future.” – Unknown

47. “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.: – Frederick Douglas

48. “Children need models rather than critics.” – Joseph Joubert

49. “To every child—I dream of a world where you can laugh, dance, sing, learn, live in peace and be happy.” – Malala Yousafzai

50. “A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.” – Robert Brault

Don’t forget to also read these wonderful preschool quotes for kids and kids at heart.

Nostalgic Childhood Quotes

51. “Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.” – Julian Barnes

52. “Childhood is the best of all the seasons of life, and the longer it lasts with happy memories, the stronger the emotional stability in adulthood.” – Venugopal Acharya

53. “Don’t you wish you could take a single childhood memory and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?” – Sarah Addison Allen

54. “Praise the innocence of childhood soon forgotten.” – Will Leamon

55. “If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” – Tom Stoppard

56. “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so.” – C.S. Lewis

57. “We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.” – George Eliot

58. “Every time you miss your childhood, ride on a bicycle! ” – Mehmet Murat İldan

59. “Old age lives minutes slowly, hours quickly; childhood chews hours and swallows minutes.” – Malcolm De Chazal

60. “How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood when I found recollection presents them to view!” – Samuel Woodworth

If you enjoy this article, check out our collection of balloon quotes for the child in you.

Childhood Quotes To Remind You Of Childhood Memories

61. “In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees.” ― Philip Roth

62. “What one loves in childhood stays in their heart forever.” ― Hary Jo Putney

63. “Childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.” ― Ivan Doig

64. “We carry our childhood with us.” ― Gary D. Schmidt

65. “All of us are products of our childhood.” ― Michael Jackson

66. “Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with a child’s eye – it is very beautiful.” ― Kailash Satyarthi

67. “In the happiest of our childhood memories our parents were happy too.” ― Robert Brault

68. “Whoever said that childhood is the happiest time of your life is a liar, or a fool.” ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón

69. “Children still need a childhood with dirt, mud, puddles, tree, sticks, and tadpoles.” ― Brooke Hampton

70. “Childhood dreams are forever stuffed in our souls. Take them out and play sometimes.” ― Angie Wieland-Crosby

Childhood Quotes About Your Irreplaceable Treasures

71. “A child is a beam of sunlight from the Infinite and Eternal, with possibilities of virtue and vice, but as yet unstained.”   — Lyman Abbott

72. “At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.” – Ellen Key

73. “Children really brighten up a household. They never turn the lights off.” – Ralph Bus

74. “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” ― Emilie Buchwald

75. “You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” — Franklin P. Jones

76. “If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” —  Abigail Van Buren

77. “Encourage your child to have muddy, grassy or sandy feet by the end of each day, that’s the childhood they deserve.” — Penny Whitehouse

78. “Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.” ― Garrison Keillor

79. “A child is an uncut diamond.” — Austin O’Malley

80. “At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents.” — Jane D. Hull.

Childhood Quotes To Bring You Childhood Memories

81. “The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness.” ― Jane Smiley

82. “Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.” ― John Betjeman

83. “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” ― Sigmund Freud

84. “What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you’re so wrecked it’s hard to believe you ever were a child?” ― Mitch Albom

85. “A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.” ― Marion C. Garretty

86. “An idyllic childhood is probably illusion.” ― Martha Grimes

87. “When I was a kid, I had two friends, and they were imaginary and they would only play with each other.” ― Rita Rudner

88. “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” ― Tom Robbins

89. “Childhood is the most valuable thing that’s taken away from you in life, if you think about it.” ― Heather O’Neill

90. “Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” ― George R.R. Martin

Childhood Quotes On Beauty And Challenges Of Growing Up

91. “The memories of childhood touch us forever.” ― James Barrie

92. “Childhood is the fiery furnace in which we are melted down to essentials and that essential shaped for good.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

93. “Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in later life the images first presented to it.” ― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

94. “In every child there is a piece of the future.” ― Orhan Pamuk

95. “Childhood is a promise that is never kept.” ― Ken Hill

96. “Childhood is a time of rapidly changing emotions, and the growth process is often painful.” ― Lillian Dickson

97. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay

98. “The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.” ― John Milton

99. “Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write, and count. It is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace that is right for each individual child.” ― Magda Gerber

100. “The best years of a person’s life are the five years between the ages of 10 and 15.” ― H.L. Mencken

Childhood Quotes Nurturing The Magic Of Childhood

101. “I have had a long unabashed love affair with dogs that stretches back to early childhood.” — Caspar Weinberger

102. “Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers.” — Lady Bird Johnson

103. “I’ve had a fairy tale life. I had a perfect family, a beautiful childhood, an incredible upbringing. I lived a lot of life but a lot of good life.” — John Stamos

104. “Genius is childhood recaptured.” — Jean Baudrillard

105. “It sounds ideal, a sort of beach childhood. But it wasn’t really. I didn’t use the beach very much at all.” — Miranda Richardson

106. Childhood decisions do not have to define you.” — Selena Gomez

107. “My earliest childhood memory was watching my parents loosen the wheels on my stroller.” — Joan Rivers

108. “I envy my daughter’s childhood.” — Rene Russo

109. “To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. Your children need your presence more than your presents.” — Jesse Jackson

110. “The prime purpose of being four is to enjoy being four – of secondary importance is to prepare for being five.” — Jim Trelease

Exploring The World Through Childhood Quotes

111. “I’ve lived a fast-paced life, but I had the best childhood. I didn’t miss out on anything by having my daughter at a young age.” — Keisha Castle-Hughes

112. “Choices, more choices than we like afterward to believe, are made far backward in the innocence of childhood.” — Loren Eiseley

113. “Flying fosters fantasies of childhood, of omnipotence, rapid shifts of being, miraculous moments; it stirs our capacity for dreaming.” — Joyce Carol Oates

114. “I have great childhood memories cow-tipping, going off and getting lost in the bog for hours, and coming home covered in dirt.” — Emily Ratajkowski

115. “I didn’t play video games because my parents didn’t allow it. That was banned from my childhood experience.” — Kristin Kreuk

116. “To have your childhood dream realized is a really big deal.” — Maya Rudolph

117. “My childhood was extremely lonely. I was dyslexic and lots of kids make fun of me. That experience made me tough inside, because you learn to quietly accept ridicule.” — Tom Cruise

118. “My mother is a professor of early childhood education. When I was two she would say she knew I was going to be an actor.” — Matt Damon

119. “Do not miss your children’s childhood. Do not be away 200 nights a year as I was. Do not put strains on your marriage or family.” — Joe Scarborough

120. “My childhood dream was to play basketball, actually.” — Godfrey Gao

Childhood Memories Quotes

121. “There is no land like the land of your childhood.” — Michael Powell

122. “There’s something about childhood friends that you just can’t replace.” — Lisa Whelchel

123. “The older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has to give.” — Ellen Glasgow

124. “The older I get, the more I appreciate my rural childhood. I spent a lot of time outdoors, unsupervised, which is a blessing.” — Barbara Kingsolver

125. “One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.” — Agatha Christie

126. “When I look back on my childhood, my fondest memories are those surrounding the dinner table.” — Katie Lee

127. “When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.” — Sam Ewing

128. “Childhood is the light of our life, we must keep it safe within our hearts.” — Marinela Reka

129. “I still love making hamburgers on the grill. I guess whenever I eat them childhood memories come up for me.” — Bobby Flay

130. “The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood.” — Richard Paul Evans

What Have You Learned From These Childhood Quotes?

Growing up is something that happens to all of us, just at different times.

Some of us had great childhoods and were taught the things we needed to know to be successful as adults.

Others didn’t have the same great start and may have struggled with family relationships that impacted how they moved into the future. 

Either way, it’s important to understand where you came from and the impact that your childhood had on you growing up.

But it’s also important to know that as an adult, you don’t have to allow things from your childhood to control your future.

And it’s important to see that you can have a positive impact on future generations by the way you teach children today. 

What’s your biggest takeaway from these childhood quotes and sayings?

Do you have any other favorite quotes to add?

Let us know in the comment section below.