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Quotes

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

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

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

—Virgil, c. 25 BC

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

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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

—Rebecca West, 1959

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

—H.L. Mencken, 1919

One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath.

—Pindar, c. 450 BC

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

—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668

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.

—Ernest Hemingway, 1954

Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.  

—Gertrude Stein, 1940

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.

—Robert Frost, 1939
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