"A child is protected by the limit of feebleness against emotions which are too complex. He sees the fact, and little else beside. The difficulty of being satisfied by half-ideas does not exist for him. It is not until later that experience comes, with its brief, to conduct the lawsuit of life. Then he confronts groups of facts which have crossed his path; the understanding, cultivated and enlarged, draws comparisons; the memories of youth reappear under the passions, like the traces of a palimpsest under the erasure; these memories form the bases of logic, and that which was a vision in the child's brain becomes a syllogism in the man's."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs (1869)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Coming_of_age
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Coming of age
15 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Coming of age →
Related Quotes
"Maturity consists in having rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play."
"Everyone who achieves strives for totality, and the value of his achievement lies in that totality—that is, in the fa…"
"Three years ago you were a kid. You didn't have a single feeling worth having—cocky and shallow. Like most kids. Then…"
"When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, w…"
"Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the f…"
"We confound loss of naiveté (a developmental change) with loss of innocence (a spiritual failing). While each person …"
"It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a ph…"
"As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations he…"
"The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are …"
"As long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subje…"