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Quotes

God is our father, but even more is God our mother.

—Pope John Paul I, 1978

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, 1886

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

—Homer, c. 750 BC

He 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, 1786

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, 1815

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

—Virgil, c. 25 BC

My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.

—Quentin Crisp, 1968

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.

—Mario Puzo, 2001

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know. 

—Albert Camus, 1942

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

—Pindar, c. 450 BC
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