Archive

Quotes

It’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, 1966

Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.

—André Gide, 1897

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

—Mark Twain, c. 1900

One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath.

—Pindar, c. 450 BC

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, 1954

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 BC

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.

—August Strindberg, 1886

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1955

Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them. 

—Homer, c. 750 BC

God is our father, but even more is God our mother.

—Pope John Paul I, 1978

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

—Tecumseh, 1810

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

—Paul Johnson, 1989

Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.  

—Gertrude Stein, 1940