Archive

Quotes

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

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668

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

—Tecumseh, 1810

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.

—Rebecca West, 1959

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

—Friedrich Schiller, 1781

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.

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1966

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.

—Mario Puzo, 2001

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

—Mark Twain, c. 1900

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

—Albert Camus, 1942

He 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, 1786

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

—Paul Johnson, 1989
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