I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCQuotes
Nobody, 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, 1815As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986The 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, 1939He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCMy father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCIt’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself… it seems unfair. You can’t assume the responsibility for everything you do—or don’t do.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1966The root of the kingdom is in the State. The root of the State is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its Head.
—Mencius, c. 270 BCEvery adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!
—Philip Roth, 1969Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959