Manners are like zero in arithmetic. They may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal of value to everything else.
Freya StarkRead
Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Parenthood teaches children the importance of safe love, preparing them for future emotional connections.
In this thoughtful quote, Freya Stark reflects on the essential role of parenthood in nurturing a child's ability to love freely and safely. She emphasizes that the ability to love is fundamental to human happiness and well-being, and that inhibiting this instinct ultimately leads to sorrow. Stark warns against the dangers of disapproval and condemnation, which can stifle the soul's capacity for love and emotional growth, suggesting that the true essence of divinity is found in the love we cultivate.
Themes
ParenthoodLoveEmotionSorrowNurturing
In practice
Example use cases
During a family gathering, when discussing the challenges of raising children, this quote can highlight the importance of fostering safe emotional connections.
More from Freya Stark
All quotes →All the feeling which my father could not put into words was in his hand-any dog, child or horse would recognize the kindness of it.
Freya StarkRead
The unexpectedness of life, waiting round every corner, catches even wise women unawares (...) To avoid corners altogether is, after all, to refuse to live.
Freya StarkRead
The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own traveling brotherhood.
Freya StarkRead
One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one's own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism.
Freya StarkRead
The portion we see of human beings is very small: their formats and faces, voices and words.... beyond these, like an immense dark continent, lies all that has made them.
Freya StarkRead
Similar quotes
Home should be an oratorio of the memory, singing to all our after life melodies and harmonies of old-remembered joy.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
It is in the home that we form our attitudes, our deeply held beliefs. It is in the home that hope is fostered or destroyed. Our homes are to be more than sanctuaries; they should also be places where God’s Spirit can dwell, where the storm stops at the door, where love reigns and peace dwells
Thomas S. MonsonRead
Mothers are the rocks of our families and a foundation in our communities. In gratitude for their generous love, patient counsel, and lifelong support, let us pay respect to the women who carry out the hard work of motherhood with skill and grace, and let us remember those mothers who, though no longer with us, inspire us still.
Barack ObamaRead
My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God - I thank God every time I think of it - I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.
Maya AngelouRead
All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo TolstoyRead
A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship - and you know what, a father does, too. It's time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a 'Mad Men' episode.
Barack ObamaRead