To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

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

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

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

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

If parents would only realize how they bore their children!

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.

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

A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.

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.

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