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.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1954Quotes
Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.
—Albert Camus, 1942Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCThe 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 BCMotherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959He 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, 1786It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.
—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1957A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977It’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.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1966Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCAll women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919