The 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 BCQuotes
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, 1815It’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, 1966A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940He 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, 1786Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!
—Philip Roth, 1969Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1955