# Family

In the context of human society, a family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship).
Arranged alphabetically by author or source: A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

## A

* He made the people follow the proper path. [...] That fathers should be feared and mothers respected, that sons should pay heed to the words of their fathers, and that mercy, compassion and pity should be shown, that one should provide even one's paternal grandparents with food and drink -- all this he established in Sumer and Akkad.
** About Ishme-Dagan, Anonymous, A praise poem of Ishme-Dagan, First Dynasty of Isin, at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

## B

* Your mother's dead, before long I'll be dead, and you and your brother and your sister and all of her children. All of us dead, all of us rotting in the ground. It's the family name that lives on. It's all that lives on. Not your honor, not your personal glory, family.
** David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, Game of Thrones, Season 1, Episode 7: "You Win or You Die" (aired May 29, 2011) — spoken by Tywin Lannister
* Eine Familie, die keine schwarzen Schafe hat, ist keine charakteristische Familie.
** A family without a black sheep is not a typical family.
** Heinrich Böll, "Die schwarzen Schafe" (1951); cited from 1947 bis 1951 (Köln: F. Middelhauve, 1963) p. 478. Translation: "Black Sheep", in Leila Vennewitz (trans.) The Stories of Heinrich Böll (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1995) p. 408.
* The Court must never forget, and will never forget, first of all, the rights of family life which are sacred.
** Bowen, L.J., In re Agar-Ellis, Agar-Ellis v. Lascelles, (1883), id., L. R. 24 C. D. 337; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 188.
* God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign we and they are his children, one family here.
** Robert Browning, Saul, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).
* Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nibbana is the greatest bliss.
** Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada, (verse 202), translator: Narada Maha Thera

## C

* The family is the original cell of social life. ...Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honour God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society
** Catechism of the Catholic Church §2207
* Heirlooms we don't have in our family. But stories we've got.
** Rose Cherin, as quoted in Family Therapies: A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal (2008) by Mark A. Yarhouse and James N. Sells, InterVarsity Press; and in A message from UTSA Vice President of Student Affairs- Dr. Gage E. Paine (November 2010), utsa.edu
* If... a man had a godless father or son or brother, who became a hindrance to his faith and an obstacle to the life above, let him not live in fellowship or agreement with him, but let him dissolve the fleshly relationship on account of the spiritual antagonism.
** Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Man's Salvation, Translated by G. W. Butterworth (LCL, vol. 92), p. 317

## E

* When success is essential to keeping a family together there is nothing a man won't do. Nothing.
** Kerry Ehrin, Friday Night Lights, Season 3, Episode 8: "New York, New York" (November 19, 2008)
* Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
** Exodus 20:12 (NIV)

## F

* Don Corleone: You spend time with your family? Johnny Fontane: Sure I do. Don Corleone: Good. 'Cause a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.
** Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1972 film)

## G

* I have several friends in their 50s and 60s caring for aging parents in their 80s and 90s. Caregiving is not easy, but my friends do it willingly to honor their parents and the sacrifices they made for them early in life and to make sure that their parents spend their last days being treated with dignity and respect.
** Timothy S. Goeglein, "Everyone Is Better Off When People Make Marriage And Family A Priority", The Federalist (August 23, 2024)
* For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire’s return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
** Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), st. 6

## H

* Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the daily life of most humans ran its course within three ancient frames: the nuclear family, the extended family and the local intimate community. Most people worked in the family business – the family farm or the family workshop, for example – or they worked in their neighbours’ family businesses. The family was also the welfare system, the health system, the education system, the construction industry, the trade union, the pension fund, the insurance company, the radio, the television, the newspapers, the bank and even the police.
** Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
* I rejoice to think that since the days of Queen Elizabeth, our laws have been so far humanized that a bastard child is no longer a mere thing to be shunned by an overseer,—whose existence is unrecognised until it becomes a pauper, and whose only legitimate home is a workhouse, that it is no longer permissible to punish its unfortunate mother with hard labour for a year, nor its father with a whipping at the cart's tail; but that even an illegitimate child may find itself a member of some honest family, and that the sole obligation now cast upon its parents is that each may be compelled to bear his and her own fair share of the maintenance and education of the unfortunate offspring of their common failing.
** Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton, Hardy v. Atherton (1881), L. R. 7 Q. B. 269; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 18
* The merry Homes of England! Around their hearths by night, What gladsome looks of household love Meet in the ruddy light! There woman’s voice flows forth in song, Or childhood’s tale is told, Or lips move tunefully along Some glorious page of old.
** Felicia Hemans, "The Homes of England" (1827), st. 2

## J

* The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have past at home in the bosom of my family.... [P]ublic employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one’s family and affairs.
** Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Willis, Jr., April 18, 1790.—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 16, p. 353 (1961)

## K

* The family consists of those who live under the same roof with the pater familias; those who form (if I may use the expression) his fire-side.
** Lord Kenyon, C.J., R. v. Inhabitants of Darlington (1792), 4 T. R. 800; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 92

## L

* My God! I have often regretted that I was born! I have often wished to fall back even into nothingness, rather than advance through so many falsehoods, so many sufferings, and so many successive losses, towards that loss of ourselves which we call death! Still, even in those moments of terrible faintheartedness, when despair overmasters reason, and when man forgets that life is a task imposed upon him to finish, I have always said to myself: "There are some things which I would regret not to have tasted — a mother's milk, a father's love, that relationship of heart and soul between brothers, household affections, joys, and even cares!" Our family is evidently our second self, more than self, existing before self, and surviving self with the better part of self. It is the image of the holy and loving unity of beings revealed by the small group of creatures who hold to one another, and made visible by feeling!
** Alphonse de Lamartine, Les confidences (1849), trans. Eugène Plunkett, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1857, Book I, Note II, p. 19
* [T]here is grave disquiet when we break away from tested norms, and the tested norm is the family unit. It is the building brick of society. Governments will come, governments will go, but this endures.
** Lee Kuan Yew, as quoted in Fareed Zakaria, "A talk with the man who made Singapore", The Baltimore Sun (12 April 1994)
* Blood is blood, you know? There’s too much shared history and too many cross-connecting bonds to ever totally extract yourself from that half-smothering, half-supporting, muddled net called family.
** Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds (2013), ISBN 978-0-345-53406-4, p. 64

## M

* Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
** Mark 3:35 (ISV)
* Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?
** Where can one be better than in the bosom of one's family?
** J. F. Marmontel, Lucile, sc. 4 (opéra comique in 1 Act, Music by Grétry, 1769). It goes on: Tout est content, le cœur, les yeux, / Vivons, aimons comme nos aieux! Reported in W. F. H. King (ed.) Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), p. 254, no. 2001
* I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors I would rather start a family than finish one blood will tell but often it tells too much
** Don Marquis, "A Roach of the Taverns", Archy and Mehitabel (1927), pp. 156–57
* A friend loves you for your intelligence, a mistress for your charm, but your family's love is unreasoning; you were born into it and are of its flesh and blood. Nevertheless it can irritate you more than any group of people in the world.
** André Maurois, The Art of Family Life (1939), "The Art of Living"
* When harmony, mutual consideration and trust pass out of the home, hell enters in.
** David O. McKay, Pathways To Happiness (1957), p. 296
* For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.
** Micah 7:6 (KJV)
* If I knew something useful to me and harmful to my family, I should put it out of my mind. If I knew something useful to my family and not to my country, I should try to forget it. If I knew something useful to my country and harmful to Europe, or useful to Europe and harmful to the human race, I should consider it a crime.
** Charles de Montesquieu, as quoted by Robert John Loy, Montesquieu (1968), ch. 3, p. 122

## O

* Facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen; qualem decet esse sororum.
** The features were not the same in all, nor yet the difference great: but such as is the case between sisters.
** Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, l. 13. A family likeness. Reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations (1904), p. 98, no. 753

## P

* The family is, so to speak, the domestic church. In it parents should, by their word and example, be the first preachers of the faith to their children.
** Pope Paul VI, Lumen gentium (1964), § 11

## S

* The king ... like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives Just as his father did; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose Between a king and virtue.
** Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Canto III, ll. 97-100
* The thing you can always rely on, your core person, comes from your family's attention and love.
** Martin Short, Parade Magazine (January 23, 2000)
* The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting.
** Gertrude Stein, Paris France (New York: Liveright, 1970), p. 107
* A loving heart maintains a family; a hateful heart destroys a family.
** Instructions of Shuruppak (3rd millennium BCE), at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

## T

* All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
** Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1875–1877), Part I, Chap. i. The Anna Karenina principle

## V

* Spem gregis.
** The hope of the flock.
** Virgil, Eclogues, no. 1, l. 15. The flower of the family. Reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations (1904), p. 333, no. 2608
* Genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum.
** In endless line the fortunes of the race Go back for years, and grandsires’ grandsires trace.
** Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, l. 208
** Motto of Addison's paper (Spectator, 72) on the Everlasting Club of 100 members who relieve each other, one always being in attendance. Borrowed from the above is the Stet fortuna domus ("May the fortunes of the house stand firm"), often given as a toast or sentiment. The motto of Harrow School. Reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations (1904), p. 109, no. 846
* In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.
** On thee repose all the hopes of your family.
** Virgil, Aeneid, bk. 12, l. 59. Speech of Amata to her son Turnus, dissuading him from engaging in single combat with Æneas. Reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations (1904), p. 142, no. 1115

## W

* Our government should not be run like a business; it should be run like a family. A business might rightfully put its short-term profits first, but a functional family puts the well-being of its children first. That's not a relative truth; it's a moral absolute... Our system was designed before women had a voice in the public realm, and raising children was deemed to just be "women's work." But we certainly have a voice now, and we need to raise it on behalf of every mother's child.... In any advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives, a common characteristic is the fierce behavior of the adult female of the species when she senses a threat to her cubs. Ours are threatened now, and we need to get fierce.
** Marianne Williamson, "If We Want a Prosperous America Tomorrow, Take Care of Our Children Today", Newsweek (23 July 2020)
* The family is no artificial creation, arbitrarily called into being and always wearing the same forms. It has assumed different forms in different times and places, and also its present form will not remain the same; they will continue to evolve and adopt new forms, keeping pace with economic and social changes and with the ethical and intellectual needs of the people. To this day, it has been the most significant and influential institution for the individual lives of human beings, and it will undoubtedly remain for a long time. It is probably within the circle of the family, especially in youth, that people receive the deepest impressions, impressions that very often give their later lives a decisive direction. It should therefore be done everything possible to give this narrow circle a character that is as pleasant as possible and mentally appealing, especially one in which the child can experience well-being.
** Milly Witkop, What Does the Syndicalist Women’s Union Want? [Was will der syndikalistische Frauenbund] (Berlin: Verl. Der Syndikalist, Fritz Kater, 1922), Translated by Jesse Cohn

## U

* The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
** Article 16(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 1948)
* Just because they don't love each other doesn't mean that they don't love you. There are all sorts of different families, Katie. Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families. Some children live with their uncle or aunt. Some live with their grandparents, and some children live with foster parents. Some live in separate homes and neighborhoods, in different areas of the country. They may not see each other for days, weeks, months or even years at a time. But if there's love, dear, those are the ties that bind. And you'll have a family in your heart forever.
** Mrs. Doubtfire (1993 film), screenplay by Randi Mayem Singer and Leslie Dixon, performed by Robin Williams

## See also

* Children
* Parents
* Siblings

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Family on Wikipedia
* The dictionary definition of family on Wiktionary