Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.”
- Source
- The Crown of Wild Olive
- Date
- 1866
Meaning of “Give a little love to a child, and…”
Ruskin presents affection toward children as relational rather than one-way: care given to a child can be met with trust, warmth and generosity in return.
Where does it come from?
The Crown of Wild Olive, Lecture I, “Work,” Project Gutenberg #26716, printed page 41. Ruskin places the sentence inside a Victorian Christian discussion of what he calls the loving and generous character of “right childhood”; this collection preserves that historical moral framework rather than treating every surrounding prescription as modern child-development evidence.
