Motivational Quotes

Family

Love, by reason of its passion, destroys the in-between which relates us to and separates us from others. As long as its spell lasts, the only in-between which can insert itself between two lovers is the child, love's own product. The child, this in-between to which the lovers now are related and which they hold in common, is representative of the world in that it also separates them; it is an indication that they will insert a new world into the existing world. Through the child, it is as though the lovers return to the world from which their love had expelled them. But this new worldliness, the possible result and the only possibly happy ending of a love affair, is, in a sense, the end of love, which must either overcome the partners anew or be transformed into another mode of belonging together.

- Arendt, Hannah

Best Quotes about Family

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

Mencken, H. L.

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.

Rossetti, Christina

Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances... in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy.

Dickens, Charles

The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.

Beecher, Henry Ward

They say that blood is thicker than water. Maybe that's why we battle our own with more energy and gusto than we would ever expend on strangers.

David Assael

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.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.

Groening, Matt

My family begins with me, your family ends with you.

Iphicrates

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.

Proverb, Jewish

10.

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

Johnson, Paul

11.

When I do something in my family because I really enjoy it, then my duty has become my pleasure. And it is a pleasure for all the people around me.

Lair, Dr. Jess

12.

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.

Lamb, Charles

13.

He didn't dare to, because his father had a weak heart and habitually threatened to drop dead if anybody hurt his feelings. You may have noticed that people with weak hearts are the tyrants of English married life.

Shaw, George Bernard

14.

None but a mule denies his family.

Proverb, Arabian

15.

No matter where you live, brothers are brothers and sisters are sisters. The bonds that keep family close are the same no matter where you are.

Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata

16.

I think the ideal situation for a family is to be completely incestuous.

Burroughs, William S.

17.

Caregiver: that word should weigh more than others on a page, sag it down a bit and wrinkle it, because the simple-sounding job frazzles as it consumes and depletes. Not that it's only gloomy. Caregiving offers many fringe benefits, including the sheer sensory delight of nourishing and grooming, sharing, and playing. There's something uniquely fulfilling about being a lodestar, feeling so deeply needed, and it's fun finding creative ways to gladden a loved one's life. But caregiving does buttonhole you; you're stitched in one place.

Diane Ackerman

18.

You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.

Baker, Anita

19.

Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

Haley, Alex

20.

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

Lardner, Ring

21.

Parents: persons who spend half their time worrying how a child will turn out, and the rest of the time wondering when a child will turn in.

Cook, Ted

22.

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

Howard, Jane

23.

Never did I think that I became family entertainment.

Buffett, Jimmy

24.

Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof.

Bach, Richard

25.

Family isn't about whose blood you have. It's about who you care about.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone

26.

One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world.

Proverb, Jewish

27.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to 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.

28.

Absence is one of the most useful ingredients of family life, and to dose it rightly is an art like any other.

Stark, Freya

29.

A friend who is near and dear may in time become as useless as a relative.

Ade, George

30.

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another.

Buddha

31.

Cruel is the strife of brothers.

Aristotle

32.

Family... the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.

Strindberg, J. August

33.

The Family is the Country of the heart. There is an angel in the Family who, by the mysterious influence of grace, of sweetness, and of love, renders the fulfillment of duties less wearisome, sorrows less bitter. The only pure joys unmixed with sadness which it is given to man to taste upon earth are, thanks to this angel, the joys of the Family.

Mazzini, Giuseppe

34.

Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.

Niebuhr, Reinhold

35.

Govern a family as you would cook a small fish -- very gently.

Proverb, Chinese

36.

I would rather start a family than finish one.

Marquis, Don

37.

Our relatives are ours by chance, but we can choose our friends.

Delille, Jacques

38.

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.

Franklin, Benjamin

39.

A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him. Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after one, to pick up the bundle and break it. They all tried, but in vain. Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease. Then said the father, Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone.

Aesop

40.

The proliferation of support groups suggests to me that too many Americans are growing up in homes that do not contain a grandmother. A home without a grandmother is like an egg without salt and Helpists know it. They have jumped into the void left by the disappearance of morbid old ladies from the bosom of the American family.

King, Florence

41.

Look for the good, not the evil, in the conduct of members of the family.

Proverb, Jewish

42.

A man ought to live so that everybody knows he is a Christian... and most of all, his family ought to know.

Moody, Dwight L.

43.

Man is the head of the family, woman the neck that turns the head.

Proverb, Chinese

44.

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

John Paul II

45.

One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fiber of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardily.

Raban, Jonathan

46.

I think people that have a brother or sister don't realize how lucky they are. Sure, they fight a lot, but to know that there's always somebody there, somebody that's family.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone

47.

Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

Twain, Mark

48.

Arendt, Hannah

49.

A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. [Proverbs 18:19]

Bible

50.

The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society's most basic values.

Colton, Charles Caleb