There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

Family! Thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

He that raises a large family, does indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand…a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too. 

If parents would only realize how they bore their children!

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.

The 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.

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.