Topic

Birth

Birth in this collection is the occasion for examining what we receive without choosing. Rousseau's man-is-born-free-and-everywhere-he-is-in-chains is the political entry: birth confers natural liberty, and society systematically removes it. Aristotle on educators honoring parents by giving not life but the art of living makes birth the beginning of the project rather than its completion. Shaw's patriotism-as-conviction-of-superiority-because-you-were-born-there is the satirical entry: national pride is an accident of geography elevated into virtue. Voltaire on not-being-more-surprising-to-be-born-twice-than-once is the theological argument: resurrection is no stranger than original birth, which is itself remarkable enough. Yeats's from-our-birthday-until-we-die-is-but-the-winking-of-an-eye is the temporal compression: life is long from inside it and instantaneous from outside. Twain on wanting to be born at eighty and approach youth gradually closes with his characteristic reversal: the direction of the biological process is the source of its particular cruelties.

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Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains

Source: The Social Contract, book 1 (1762)

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end

Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last

Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.

Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility.

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies

Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever-fresh and radiant possibility

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face

Men are born to succeed, not to fail

Consider your origin; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge

Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg

All men were created to busy themselves with labor for the common good

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something