Archive

Quotes

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

—Rebecca West, 1959

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. 

—Benjamin Franklin, 1786

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

—Francis Bacon, 1625

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

—Virgil, c. 25 BC

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

—Ernest Hemingway, 1954

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

—Paul Johnson, 1989

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

—Pope John Paul II, 1986

By 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, 1955

God is our father, but even more is God our mother.

—Pope John Paul I, 1978

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

—Friedrich Schiller, 1781

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

—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668

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

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

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

—Mario Puzo, 2001