The Troubles of Children

Wise words from W.B. Yeats:

We should not make light of the troubles of children. They are worse than ours, because we can see the end of our trouble and they can never see any end.

Of his own childhood:

I know that I am very unhappy and have often said to myself, “when you grow up, never talk as grown-up people do of the happiness of childhood.” I may have already had the night of misery when, having prayed for several days that I might die, I had begun to be afraid that I was dying and prayed that I might live.