Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900Quotes
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977He 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, 1786Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCHe that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625It’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, 1966Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.
—Albert Camus, 1942In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968