Benjamin Spock Quotes
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Every child senses, with all the horse sense that's in him, that any parent is angry inside when children misbehave and they dread more the anger that is rarely or never expressed openly, wondering how awful it might be.
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I agree today that a man has no business trying to tell women what their characteristics are, which ones are inborn, which are more admirable, which will be best utilized by what occupations.
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I was so afraid of being bad and being caught at it.
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Sex education, including its spiritual aspects, should be part of a broad health and moral education from kindergarten through grade twelve, ideally carried out harmoniously by parents and teachers.
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This present system by which industry is motivated exclusively by the quest for maximal profits - though it may have helped a great deal to develop, to industrialize our country so rapidly and so successfully - now it's clearly passed its usefulness. It is keeping us from achieving the ideal society that we should have. We say industry must produce to improve the quality of life for all our people.
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The children who are appreciated for what they are, even if they are homely, or clumsy, or slow, will grow up with confidence in themselves and happy. They will have a spirit that will make the best of all the capacities that they do have and of all the opportunities that come their way.
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...the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are beholden to industry. They always will be. And, the American people are fooled when they think that if you can just get McGovern instead of Humphrey, or if you can get a Democrat instead of a Republican, this will be the end of our problems.
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It's up to each of us to help create a better world for our children.
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Biologically and temperamentally... women were made to be concerned firt and foremost with child care, husband care and home care.
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Parental trust is extremely important in the guidance of adolescent children as they get further and further away from the direct supervision of their parents and teachers. I don't mean that trust without clear guidance is enough, but guidance without trust is worthless.
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I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.
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I love to dance and I'd love to be saying goodbye to my friends while the band was playing and they were dancing...I want them to remember I was a dancing man in my day.
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If I could make only one wish for a child, I'd wish him the quality of lovingness.
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Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.
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Having a good time together is the essence of lovingness and the best means of increasing it.
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What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?
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Don't worry about trying to do a perfect job. There is no perfect job. There is no one way of raising your children.
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It's an ideal existence. Out in the open. Berating the president of he United States... I'm free to thwart and torment the authorities - that is to say, I can get out my hostilities - because I'm protected in my conscience by the knowledge that what I'm doing is morally right. I've never been so relaxed. I've never been so happy.
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Physical punishment teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way, whether or not he is in the right, and they may resent this in the parent-for life.
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I wanted to be supportive of parents rather than to scold them. The book set out very deliberately to counteract some of the rigidities of pediatric tradition, particularly in infant feeding. It emphasized the importance of great differences between individual babies, of the need for flexibility and of the lack of necessity to worry constantly about spoiling.
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All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.
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Grandparents have the freedom to see their grandchildren uncritically.
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A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a cause outside his own individual, selfish satisfaction.
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Democracy appears to me potentially a higher form of political organization than any kind of dictatorship. But if it turns out that in America, which could afford a decent living for everyone, the comfortable majority is willing to condone the misery and abuse of a minority for an indefinite period, the exploitation by the majority becomes as repugnant as exploitation by an oligarchy, and democracy loses half its supposed superiority.
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Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.
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How to fold a diaper depends on the size of the baby and the diaper.
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I'm not a pacifist. I was very much for the war against Hitler and I also supported the intervention in Korea, but in this war we went in there to steal Vietnam.
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Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.
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The loving person makes other people feel good, and he is usually a happy person himself. He is able to form strong, long-lasting friendships.
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Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts - there is just too much misery and cruelty for that.
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