Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCQuotes
The root of the kingdom is in the State. The root of the State is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its Head.
—Mencius, c. 270 BCEvery adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCAs the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860Nobody, 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, 1815Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.
—Albert Camus, 1942