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Quotes

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

—Pope John Paul I, 1978

Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.

—Mark Twain, c. 1900

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

My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.

—Tecumseh, 1810

A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.

—Susan Sontag, 1977

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

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

—V.S. Pritchett, 1968

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

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

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

—Herodotus, 440 BC

I cannot bear a parent’s tears.

—Virgil, c. 25 BC
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