Certain it is that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as the love of a father to a daughter. He beholds her both with and without regard to her sex.—In love to our wives, there is desire; to our sons, there is ambition; but in that to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
The babe at first feeds upon the mother’s bosom, but is always on her heart.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The scholar without good breeding is a nitpicker; the philosopher a cynic; the soldier a brute and everyone else disagreeable.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go by any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
In Biblical times, a man could have as many wives as he could afford. Just like today.
—Pauline Phillips (Abigail van Buren) (b.1918) American Columnist
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Woman knows what Man has too long forgotten, that the ultimate economic and spiritual unit of any civilization is still the family.
—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–87) American Playwright, Diplomat, Journalist, Diplomat, Elected Rep
For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder when they have done that they do not delight in your company.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.
—Unknown
The great virtue of parents is a great dowry.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament, and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
—Unknown
Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.
—Bill Cosby (b.1937) American Actor, Comedian, Activist, Producer, Author
A family without government, says Matthew Henry, “is like a house without a roof, exposed to every wind that blows.”—He might better have said, like a house in flames, a scene of confusion, and commonly too hot to live in.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
There is health in table talk and nursery play. We must wear old shoes and have aunts and cousins.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
A parent’s job is to encourage kids to develop a joy for life and a great urge to follow their own dreams. The best we can do is to help thm develop a personal set of tools for the task.
—Randy Pausch (1960–2008) American Computer Scientist
The family is the nucleus of civilization.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The family is the school of duties. But it has this distinguishing excellency, that among those who are linked together by the strong ties of affection duty is founded on love.
—Felix Adler (1851–1933) German-Born American Philosopher
If minutes were kept of a family gathering, they would show that “Members not Present” and “Subjects Discussed” were one and the same.
—Robert Brault
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondence, an odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noon-tide of our prosperity. He is known by his knock.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
Occasionally we all inherit, or are given, or get something or some things that are too good to use for a variety of seemingly sound but really quite silly reasons-they’re heirlooms or too rare or too expensive or too fragile or too pretty. The result is heirloom linen handed down from generation to generation that falls apart when some benighted heiress decides to air it. While I’m glad that past generations saved some things we now enjoy, we are enjoying them by using them instead of carefully storing them for our kids-in turn to store. Unused beautiful things are a waste.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson