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Philippe Aries Quotes

It is as if, to every period of history, there corresponded a privileged age and a particular division of human life: youth is the privileged age of the seventeenth century, childhood of the nineteenth, adolescence of

It is as if, to every period of history, there corresponded a privileged age and a particular division of human life: "youth" is the privileged age of the seventeenth century, childhood of the nineteenth, adolescence of the twentieth.

Philippe Aries
Childhood, Age, Division
Philippe Ariès (1962). “Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life”, Vintage

Death must simply become the discreet but dignified exit of a peaceful person from a helpful society that is not torn, not even overly upset by the idea of a biological transition without significance, without pain or suffering, and ultimately without fear.

Philippe Aries
Death, Pain, Ideas

In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults. . . . Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play.

Philippe Aries
Children, Games, Play
Philippe Ariès (1962). “Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life”, Vintage

The denial of death is openly acknowledged as a significant trait of our culture. The tears of the bereaved have become comparable to the excretions of the diseased

Philippe Aries
Grieving, Tears, Culture

Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever--whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman--a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge.

Philippe Aries
Boys, Order, Soldier
Philippe Ariès (1962). “Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life”, Vintage

The first typical adolescent of modern times was Wagner's Siegfried. : the music of Siegfried expressed for the first time that combination of (provisional) purity, physical strength, naturism, spontaneity and joie de vivre which was to make the adolescent the hero of our twentieth century, the century of adolescence.

Philippe Aries
Strength, Music, Hero
Philippe Ariès (1962). “Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life”, Vintage

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