Figure 1.--This 1911 study of a boy was used for a post card in 1911. The artist was Philip Boileau. He entitled it as "Youth".

HBC readers will find a wide rang of interesting quotations here. Some famous quotations about boys provide some fascinating insights into boys and childhood over the years. We will list some of our favorite quotations. We will include quotations by boys as well as adult quotations about boys. We will also include quotes from famous people about their boyhood or quotes by other about the boyhood of famous people. We will archive them by author. Some of these quottions are instantly recognizble, but many are lesser know comments that we believe are insightful or of some value to our HBC site

Author

We have listed the quotations alphabetically by the author or person being quoted. Do let us know if you have a favorite quotation. Most of our quotations are American or British, primarily because of our familarity with English-language literature and history. Hopefully our readers will provide some pertinent quottions from their country to include here.

A-L Authors

M-Z Authors

Recitations

A popular activity in the 19th and and early 20th century was reciatations, although that is now seldom done. There was no uniform of course for such reciations, but boys often were dressed up in their finest outfits as mother wanted to ensure a good impression. Most children did these reciations. I think that they were more common for boys than girls who might instead play a piece of music. This requires further research. Some reciataions were also done in school classrooms and chosen children might do them at school asseemblies or presentations for parents. There were also competitions prganized by schools and civic organizations. The quotations here are generally a bit short to be used for these recitations, however, quite a number come from poes that would hve been used.