Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on family

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us.

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

The family you come from isn’t as important as the family you’re going to have.

Ring Lardner1885–1933

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap on-a-rope.

Bill Cosbyborn 1937