All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy
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You certainly didn’t ask for them, and you can’t trade ’em, but of the billions of human beings on our planet, they’re the ones who know you best. They’re the ones who cherish you, and whom you should cherish in return – whether they’re your biological family or otherwise.
Even though it’s easy to forget at times, family is the most important thing in the world. This could mean your mother, your father, your siblings, your spouse, your grandparents, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your in-laws – but for some, its simply those with whom we share unconditional love.
Of course, families are complicated – these deep relationships can carry lots of baggage and hurt as well. Given their complexity and importance in our loves, it’s no wonder that throughout the course of history, people from all walks of life have pondered the complexities and conundrums of familial love. Check out these quotes on family for musings about the complicated nature of our family ties.
Family Quotes
“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no awe, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.” – Agatha Christie
“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.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” – Frederick Buechner
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain
“Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches.” – Wanda Hope Carter
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” – Desmond Tutu
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The greatest moments in life are not concerned with selfish achievements but rather with the things we do for the people we love and esteem.” – Walt Disney
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” – Anthony Brandt
“Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.” – Lilo & Stitch
“Having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family. Having both is a blessing.” – Unknown
“Family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” – George Santayana
“No man has ever lived that had enough of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.” – William Butler Yeats
“Family is the most important thing in the world.” – Princess Diana
“When she can’t bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt.” – Libba Bray
“At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable.” – Mark V. Olsen
“There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more… secure.” – Jim Butcher
“Siblings: children of the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they got together.” – Sam Levenson
“Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.” – David Ogden Stiers
“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.” – George Moore
“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – – they are your family. ” – Jim Butcher
“The most important thing in the world is family and love.” – John Wooden
“Family: where life begins and love never ends.” – Unknown
“Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of just cause, the triumph of truth.” – Menacheim Begin
“Families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts.” – Unknown
“Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.” – Lisa Weed
“To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.” – Barbara Bush
“Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.” – Irina Shayk
“Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.” – Unknown
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Leo Tolstoy
“Govern a family as you would cook a small fish – very gently.” – Chinese Proverb
“Spare the rod and spoil the child – that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.” – Martin Luther
“One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.” – Jonathan Foer
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” – John Bowring
“Family is not an important thing, it’s everything.” – Michael J. Fox
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” – George Bernard Shaw
“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.” – Jane Howard
“I think togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life.” – Barbara Bush
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” – Richard Bach
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” – Mother Teresa
“A family is one of nature’s solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.” – Pat Conroy
“Families are the compass that guides us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.” – Brad Henry
“Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life.” – J.K. Rowling
“Everyone needs a house to live in, but a supportive family is what builds a home.” – Anthony Liccione
“My greatest pleasure is spending time with my family.” – Siri Hustvedt
“In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future.” – Alex Haley
“Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions yet our roots remain as one.” – Unknown
“Home should be an anchor, a port in a storm, a refuge, a happy place in which to dwell, a place where we are loved and where we can love.” – Marvin J. Ashton
“There’s only one thing more precious than our time and that’s who we spend it on.” – Leo Christopher
“My family comes first. Maybe that’s what makes me different from other guys.” – Bobby Darin
“Being part of a family means smiling for photos.” – Harry Morgan
“The memories we make with our family are everything.” – Candace Cameron Bure
“It’s all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.” – Philip Green
“Family is family.” – Linda Linney
“Family ties mean that no matter how much you might want to run from your family, you can’t!” – Unknown
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” – George Burns
“To understand your parents’ love, you must raise children yourself.” – Chinese Proverb
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. ” – C.S. Lewis
“Is this what family is like: the feeling that everyone’s connected, that with one piece missing, the whole thing’s broken?” – Trenton Lee Stewart
“The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Writers will happen in the best of families.” – Rita Mae Brown
“We must take care of our families wherever we find them.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
“One’s family is the most important thing in life. I look at it this way: One of these days I’ll be over in a hospital somewhere with four walls around me. And the only people who’ll be with me will be my family.” – Robert Byrd
“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.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.” – Jerry Seinfeld
“The family is the first essential cell of human society.” – Pope John XXIII
“Stick to the basics, hold on to your family and friends – they will never go out of fashion.” – Niki Taylor
“We do not develop habits of genuine love automatically. We learn by watching effective role models – most specifically by observing how our parents express love for each other day in and day out.” – Josh McDowell
“Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.” – Evan Esar
“My family is my life, and everything else comes second as far as what’s important to me.” – Michael Imperioli
“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones that would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.” – Unknown
“The family – that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.” – Dodie Smith
“It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.” – Peter Buffett
“I sustain myself with the love of family.” – Maya Angelou
“When trouble comes, it’s your family that supports you.” – Guy Lafleur
“This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.” – Arundhati Roy
“Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.” – Andre Maurois
“A man should never neglect his family for business.” – Walt Disney
“The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.” – Confucius
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” – Mary Karr
“Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.” – John C. Maxwell
“The world, we’d discovered, doesn’t love you like your family loves you.” – Louis Zamperini
“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human, are created, strengthened and maintained.” – Winston Churchill
“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family.” – Peter Pearsall
“In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit.” – Marge Kennedy
“When all the dust is settled and all the crowds are gone, the things that matter are faith, family, and friends.” – Barbara Bush
“So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.” – Haniel Long
“A family doesn’t have to perfect; it just needs to be united.” – Unknown
“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.” – Benjamin Franklin
“That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.” – Deb Caletti
“Home is where you are loved the most and act the worst.” – Marjorie Pay Hinckley
“Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.” – Mitch Albom
“My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn’t a social construct but an instinct.” – Jodi Picoult
“There’s nothing I value more than the closeness of friends and family, a smile as I pass someone on the street.” – Willie Stargell
“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life!” – Albert Einstein
“Cherish your human connections – your relationships with friends and family.” – Barbara Bush
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” – Oscar Wilde
“No one’s family is normal. Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies to make the rest of us feel inferior.”– Calire LaZebnik
“Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.” – Mitch Albom
“You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges.” – Elizabeth Berg
“The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.” – Lee Iacocca
“In time of test, family is best.” – Burmese Proverb
“All families are psychotic. Everybody has basically the same family – it’s just reconfigured slightly different from one to the next.” – Douglas Coupland
“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.” – Robin Hobb
Whether your family lives close-by, or thousands of miles away, they are the ones you can turn to when times get tough. Celebrate your amazing bond and show your appreciation for them today!
Is your favorite family quote missing? Let us know in the comments!
Quincy is an entrepreneur who has invested in online properties since 2009. He acquired KIM in 2018 and is lead editor and content writer. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie and his dog Oban. When not working on KIM, he enjoys traveling, poker, and anything related to crypto.
i love this!!
Wow, that is the article which push me to comment. Best quotes best. keep it up