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.

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

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.

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.

Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them. 

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Men are what their mothers made them.

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

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

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.