There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Quotes
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.
—August Strindberg, 1886In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.
—André Gide, 1897He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.
—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668He 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, 1786If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910Nobody, 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, 1815It 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, 1939The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
—Mario Puzo, 2001