quotations and passages on growingup

You grow up the day you have
your first real laugh at yourself.

Ethel Barrymore

If growing up is the process of creating ideas and dreams about
what life should be, then maturity is letting go again.

Mary Beth Danielson

To exist is to change, to change is to mature,
to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

Henri Berson

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain artists once they grow up.

Pablo Picasso

When children learn that giving is more rewarding than taking; when they learn that they can't control everything, but they are masters of their own souls; when they learn to accept people whose difference they fear, and that pleasure is found in the power in helping others; when they learn that the value of one's life is best measured not by possession acquired, but by wisdom shared, hope inspired, tears wiped, and hearts touched; when they learn that happiness and lasting contentment are not to be found in what a person has, but in what he or she is; when they learn to withhold judgment of people, knowing that everyone is blessed with good and bad qualities; when they learn that every person has been given the gift of a unique self and the purpose of life is to share the very best of that gift with the world. . . . When children learn these ideals, they will no longer be children--they will be blessings to those who know them, and worthy models for all the world's children.

David L. Weatherford

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

e.e. cummings

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take
total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the day we truly grow up.

John Maxwell

When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

Joseph Heller

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which
are too small, your vision which is muddled?
You are the one who must grow up.

Dag Hammarskjold

Get this in mind early: We never grow up.

Richard Bach

I was wise enough to never grow up while
fooling most people into believing I had.

Margaret Mead

When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing.

Tom Robbins

Too many people grow up. That's
the real trouble with the world,
too many people grow up.
They forget. They don't remember
what it's like to be 12 years old.
They patronize, they treat children
as inferiors. Well I won't do that.

Walt Disney

A grownup is a child with layers on.

Woody Harrelson

Growing up is never easy to do. Some days you feel happy and carefree,
and others you feel sad. Some days you feel confident and self-assured,
and other days you feel unsure. Life can seem upside down, because you're
changing so quickly, but your life is made up of what you believe about yourself.
Believe in your ability to succeed, and you will. Believe in your ability
to meet every difficult challenge, and you will. Believe in your ability
to give and receive love, and you will. Believe in yourself. You are
a wonderful, unique person who is beginning to find out what the world is
about and searching your place in it. Have patience with yourself
and love yourself. Growing up isn't easy, but you'll make it.

Donna Levine

When we were children, we used to think that when we were
grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is
to accept vulnerability. . . . To be alive is to be vulnerable.

Madeleine L'Engle

Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about.
The trick is to grow up without getting old.

Frank Lloyd Wright

If you haven't grown up by age forty,
you don't have to.

unattributed

HOME - contents - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - advertising - aging - ambition - anger - anticipation
apathy - appreciation - arrogance - art - attitude - authenticity - awakening - awareness - awe - balance - beauty - being yourself
beliefs - body - brooding - busyness - celebration - challenges - change - character - children - choices - Christianity - coincidence
commitment - common sense - community - comparison - compassion - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence
conformity - conscience - contentment - control - courage - covetousness - creativity - criticism - cruelty - death - desire - determination
discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth - education - ego - encouragement - enlightenment - enthusiasm - envy - eternity
experience - failure - faith - family - fathers - fault-finding - fear - finances - flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - fun
gardening - generosity - gentleness - giving - goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greed - grief - growing up - guilt - happiness
hatred - healing - health - helpfulness - home - honesty - hope - hospitality - humility - ideals -idleness - idolatry - ignorance - imagination
impatience - individuality - inspiration - integrity - introspection - intuition - jealousy - joy - judgment - kindness - knowledge - laughter
laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness - love - lying - marriage - materialism - meanness - mindfulness
miracles - mistakes - mistrust - mothers - mystery - nature - negative attitude - now - oneness - open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism
pain - patience - peace - perfectionism - perseverance - perspective - pessimism - play - positive thoughts - possessions - potential - prayer
prejudice - pride - principle - purpose - relationships - religion - resentment - respect - responsibility - rest - revenge - risk - role models - sadness
safety - self - self-love - self-pity - self-respect - serving others - shame - silence - simplicity - solitude - spirit - stress - stupidity - success
suffering - thoughts - time - today - trust - truth - unfulfilled dreams - values - vanity - war - weight issues - wisdom - wonder - work - worship
youth - spring - summer - fall - winter - worry - Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - America - zen sayings - Native American wisdom
The Law of Attraction - obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents - our most recent e-zine - articles

When you're growing up your mother says, "Wear rubbers or you'll catch cold."
When you become an adult you discover that you have the right not to
wear rubbers and to see if you catch cold or not. It's something like that.

Diane Arbus

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

unattributed

Part of me is still waiting to grow up, to be an adult,
and the other part knows there is no such thing.

Richard Dreyfuss

Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up.

Peter Drucker

Two great Kindle books from our site! First, the daily meditations from the first year are gathered together in a single volume at just $3.99 for the entire year, and second, almost 4,000 of our most motivating and inspiring quotations are gathered in one volume for just 99 cents-- you can have thousands of quotations that took over a decade to pull together, all on your own PC, Mac, or Kindle, to take with you wherever you go, to read whenever you feel the need for inspiring thoughts.