My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810Quotes
Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940The 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, 1939Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCNobody, 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, 1815He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910The root of the kingdom is in the State. The root of the State is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its Head.
—Mencius, c. 270 BC