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Quotes about family

84 quotes from 64 people

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It is a wise father that knows his own child.
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Merchant of Venice (1596–7), Act II, scene ii.In context
- Children
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
William Shakespeare1564–1616King Lear (1605–6), Act I, scene iv.In context
- Children
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
William Shakespeare1564–1616King Lear (c. 1606), Act I, Scene I, spoken by CordeliaIn context
- Love
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!
William Shakespeare1564–1616King Lear (c. 1606), Act I, Scene IV, spoken by LearIn context
- Children
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton. You may as well make it dance.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950
I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living his life, and who had good friends, a fine family. I don’t think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.
Frank Sinatra1915–1998In a 1965 interview with Walter Cronkite, as quoted in “Just A Couple Of Legends” CBS News.com (20 May 1998)
- Friendship
- Life & Death
Ah, son, may you prove luckier than your father, but in all else like him. Then you would not prove base.
Sophocles496–406 BCAjax, Lines 550–551 (tr. R. C. Jebb, 1896)
- Luck
There ain’t a note that I play on stage that can’t be traced back directly to my mother and father.
Bruce Springsteenborn 1949Bruce Springsteen Talking (2004)
- Music
The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting.
Gertrude Stein1874–1946Paris France (1940), p. 107
Yes, if a man’s character is to be abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relation to do the business.
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863Vanity Fair (1848), Chapter XIXIn context
- Clever Jabs
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863Vanity Fair (1848), Chapter XXXVIIIn context
- Children
- God
All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878), Pt. I, ch. 1
- Happiness
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910Anna Karenina (1878), Part One, Chapter 1In context
- Happiness
You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
Desmond Tutu1931–2021Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)
- God
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.
?UnattributedOften credited to Mark Twain
- Youth