Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940Quotes
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, 1966In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCFamiliarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900The 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 BCMy 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, 1969Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCIn our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCIf parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910