37 Growing Up Quotes And Sayings About Life

What do you remember of your thoughts as a child?

And do you ever ask children what they think about growing up, about whom they look up to, or about who they want to be?

That's the aim of the growing up quotes you'll read in this article.

Read them to remind yourself of what growing up was like for you and what it is for the children of today.

And read them to better understand what it all means.

37 Growing Up Quotes

1. “Doing all the little tricky things it takes to grow up, step by step, into an anxious and unsettling world.” — Sylvia Plath

2. “For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

3. “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

4. “Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.” — Chili Davis

5. “Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers; the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.” — The Wonder Years

6. “I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.” — Louisa May Alcott

7. “The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.” — Henry Miller

8. “Who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” — Harold Wilson

9. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” — Viktor Frankl

10. “What can we take on trust in this uncertain life? Happiness, greatness, pride — nothing is secure, nothing keeps.” — Euripides, Hecuba

11. “There were no violins or warning bells… no sense that my little life was about to change. But we never know, do we? Life turns on a dime.” — Stephen King

12. “Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril.” — Laurens van der Post

13. “Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.” — Marcel Proust

14. “The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down.” — Jawaharlal Nehru

15. “What you have become is the price you paid to get what you want.” — Mignon McLaughlin

16. “The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.” — Dante Alighieri

17. “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” — J.D. Salinger

18. “Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience… and pimples.” — J.M. Barrie

19. “No one loses their innocence. It is either taken or given away willingly.” — Tiffany Madison

20. “You don't stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” — George Bernard Shaw

21. “Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.” — Margaret Atwood

22. “I think she is growing up and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.” — Louisa May Alcott

23. “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” — Lou Holtz

24. “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.” — William James

25. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them—that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” — Lao Tzu

26. “The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.” — Lev Grossman

27. “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw

28. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” — John F. Kennedy

29. “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” — Dalai Lama

30. “As you get older, you're always maturing, you're always learning something new about yourself.” — Troy Vincent

31. “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” –Abraham Lincoln

32. “It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.” — Mark Twain

33. “As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.” — Ray Kroc

34. “When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing.” — Tom Robbins

35. “Growing up is losing some illusions in order to acquire others.” — Virginia Woolf

36. “Growing up, we are told many things; one being, you can do anything. But somewhere between child and adult, things change.” — Julie Hebert

37. “We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” — Stacia Tauscher

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How Will You Use These Growing Up Quotes?

I hope you enjoyed these quotes about children growing up. Which ones stood out for you the most? And what advice do you have for children growing up today?

What is the point, after all, in having experience and having gained wisdom if we can't share it with as much kindness and respect as we want to see in others?

It's not a competition. Every single one of us can step up and show each other what real kindness is. No generation is off the hook when it comes to showing others respect.

We can all be grateful for what we've learned. Because not a single one of us has learned everything.

And it's never wrong to show love.