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Quotations about family
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Absence is one of the most useful ingredients of family life, and to do it rightly is an art like any other.
Freya Stark (1893-1993) Franco-British explorer, travel writer [Freya Madeline Stark]
The Freya Stark Story (1953)
(Source)
Fond as we are of our loved ones, there comes at times during their absence an unexplained peace.
Other Authors and Sources
Anne Shaw, But Such Is Life (1931)
Rupert had never forgiven his mother for continuing to have children once she had achieved the heights of human creation by giving birth to Rupert.
Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Death at Victoria Dock, ch. 8 (1992)
(Source)
Alcoholism isn’t a spectator sport. Eventually the whole family gets to play.
Joyce Rebeta-Burditt (contemp.) American writer, television producer
The Cracker Factory (1977)
Man has three friends on whose company he relies. First, wealth — which goes with him only while good fortune lasts. Second, his relatives — they go only as far as the grave and leave him there. The third friend, his good deeds, go with him beyond the grave.
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
(Attributed)
I could not find an actual citation for this quotation, but the story (the explanation of a parable, in which a man is summoned before a king, and while his dearest friend will not go with him, and his second best friend will only go to the palace gates, his least-loved friend goes with him before the throne) shows up with different translation in multiple sources:
- The Talmud: Selections, Part 5 "Civil and Criminal Laws -- the Holy Days" - "The Day of Atonement" [tr. Polano (1876)].
- Isaac Aboav, Lamp of Light [Menorat Hamoar] [14th C], Fifth Lamp "Teshuvah," Sec. 2 [ch. 3] in Leonard Kravitz and Kerry Olitzky, <i>Journey of the Soul: Traditional Sources on the</i> Teshuvah (1995).
- Talmudic and Other Legends [tr., comp. Weiss (1888 ed.), "Man's Three Friends" (Pirke R. Eliezer).
Anyone who has not known that inestimable privilege can possibly realize what good fortune it is to grow up in a home where there are grandparents.
Suzanne La Follette (1893-1983) American journalist, author, feminist
(Attributed)
Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.
Jacques Delille (1738-1813) French poet, translator
“Malheur et Pitié,” Canto 1 (1803)
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) American lawyer
(Attributed)
In America there are two classes of travel — first class, and with children. Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third class in Bulgaria.
Robert Benchley (1889-1945) American humorist
Pluck and Luck (1925)
For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
The grandest of heroic deeds are those which are performed within four walls and in domestic privacy.
Jean-Paul Richter (1763-1825) German novelist, art historian, aesthetician [pseud. Jean-Paul]
(Attributed)
In Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a woman in Little Rock is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.
Mario Cuomo (1932-2015) American politician
Keynote Address, Democratic National Convention (16 Jul 1984)
(Source)
SIMON: Captain, why did you come back for us?
MAL: You’re on my crew.
SIMON: Yeah, but you don’t even like me. Why’d you come back?
MAL: You’re on my crew. Why’re we still talking about this?
Drew Z. Greenberg (contemp.) TV producer and writer
Firefly, 1×05 “Safe” (8 Nov 2002)
MAL: Cut her down!
PATRON: The girl is a witch.
MAL: Yeah, but she’s our witch. [Cocks his gun] So cut her the hell down.
Drew Z. Greenberg (contemp.) TV producer and writer
Firefly, 1×05 “Safe” (8 Nov 2002)
The superstition in which we grew up,
Though we may recognize it, does not lose
Its power over us — Not all are free
Who make mock of their chains.Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) German playwright, philosopher, dramiturg, writer
Nathan the Wise (1779) [tr. Morgan (1955)]
Alt. trans.: "The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it." [In J. K. Hoyt & Anna L. Ward (eds.), The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1881)]
I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Proven Guilty (2006)
The school is an invaluable adjunct to the home, but it is a wretched substitute for it.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Lansing, Michigan (31 May 1907)
(Source)
This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, “I, if I am lifted up, will draw …” Did he say, “I will draw some”? “I will draw some, and tough luck for the others”? He said, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all.” All! All! All! — Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bush — all! All! All are to be held in this incredible embrace. Gay, lesbian, so-called “straight;” all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won’t let us go.
Desmond Tutu (b. 1931) South African cleric, Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Laureate
“And God Smiles,” Sermon, All Saints Church, Pasadena, California (6 Nov 2005)
The Bible passage referenced is John 12:32.
It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child’s arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“What Must We Do to Be Saved?” Sec. 2 (1880)
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there.
Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) American dramatist, diplomat, politician
“Problem of Pornography,” McCall’s (Oct 1966)
