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

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

It’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.

The 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.

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them. 

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

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

If parents would only realize how they bore their children!

Men are what their mothers made them.

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

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.