My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968Quotes
Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCIf parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977God is our father, but even more is God our mother.
—Pope John Paul I, 1978There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
—Friedrich Schiller, 1781The 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, 1939It’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, 1966In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986