Nobody, 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, 1815Quotes
The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
—Mario Puzo, 2001God is our father, but even more is God our mother.
—Pope John Paul I, 1978In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968He 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, 1786He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625The 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 BCEvery man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCIf parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910