Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940Quotes
My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580He 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, 1786As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
—Jane Austen, 1815In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.
—André Gide, 1897The 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, 1939Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625