It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.

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.

He 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. 

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

My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

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

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.

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.

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.