Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCQuotes
In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCTo 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, 1954As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.
—André Gide, 1897I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCGod 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, 1580Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919A 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 thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1957He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900