My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

The 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.

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

If parents would only realize how they bore their children!

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

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

He 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.