Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.
—Albert Camus, 1942Quotes
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895The 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 BCIt is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.
—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCA Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!
—Philip Roth, 1969One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath.
—Pindar, c. 450 BCHe 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, 1786To 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, 1954In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCThe most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.
—Paul Johnson, 1989