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

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.

Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know. 

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

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

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

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

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.

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.

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.