He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Quotes
In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCIn our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968It’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, 1966The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.
—Robert Frost, 1939I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCFew sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCThe family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1919God is our father, but even more is God our mother.
—Pope John Paul I, 1978If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919