Family! Thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
—August Strindberg, 1886Quotes
Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900Nobody, 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, 1815The 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, 1939Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCHe that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.
—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCIn peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BC