All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895Quotes
I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCNobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
—Jane Austen, 1815Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCBy and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1955In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCThere is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Family! Thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
—August Strindberg, 1886If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.
—Paul Johnson, 1989Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.
—Albert Camus, 1942The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.
—Robert Frost, 1939