In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCQuotes
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, 1954In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!
—Philip Roth, 1969The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
—Mario Puzo, 2001He 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, 1786I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCThe 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, 1939The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.
—Paul Johnson, 1989All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895It’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 family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1919He 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