PARENTS QUOTES
quotations about parents
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed.
ERMA BOMBECK
attributed, Sower's Seeds of Encouragement
The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them, that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses, are most indulgent towards their children; beholding them as the continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work; and so both children and creatures.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Parents and Children", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
The parents are the first patterns which a child copies after. If they are lazy and worthless, the children are poor and destitute; if careless, they are slovenly; if ignorant, they are so likewise; if windy and pompous, they are conceited and vain.
THOMAS DIBDIN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing.
NEIL GAIMAN
Anansi Boys
Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn't know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you're picking up the pieces -- down to the last glassy splinter.
SAUL BELLOW
letter to Martin Amis, March 13, 1996
The brightest smiles and bitterest tears spring from parents' hearts.
GEORGE SEATON BOWES
Illustrative Gatherings for Preachers and Teachers
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
BIBLE
Exodus 20:12
I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.
SHERMAN ALEXIE
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Right from the start my parents had left me to fend for myself. Apparently unaware that I was a kid, they invariably treated me like an adult, perhaps because they themselves were no spring chickens.
PHYLLIS DILLER
Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse
I think when you become a parent you go from being a star in the movie of your own life to the supporting player in the movie of someone else's.
CRAIG FERGUSON
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
A natural parent has only two things principally to consider, the improvement of his son, and the finances to do it with.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Dr. Boucher, May 13, 1770
We never know the love of our parents for us till we have become parents.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
ROALD DAHL
Matilda
The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them, that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses, are most indulgent towards their children; beholding them as the continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work; and so both children and creatures.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Parents And Children", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The difference in affection, of parents towards their several children, is many times unequal; and sometimes unworthy; especially in the mothers; as Solomon saith, A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the mother. A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons; but in the midst, some that are as it were forgotten, who many times, nevertheless, prove the best. The illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their children, is an harmful error; makes them base; acquaints them with shifts; makes them sort with mean company; and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty. And therefore the proof is best, when men keep their authority towards the children, but not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both parents and schoolmasters and servants) in creating and breeding an emulation between brothers, during childhood, which many times sorteth to discord when they are men, and disturbeth families. The Italians make little difference between children, and nephews or near kinsfolks; but so they be of the lump, they care not though they pass not through their own body. And, to say truth, in nature it is much a like matter; insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle, or a kinsman, more than his own parent; as the blood happens. Let parents choose betimes, the vocations and courses they mean their children should take; for then they are most flexible; and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as thinking they will take best to that, which they have most mind to. It is true, that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it; but generally the precept is good, optimum elige, suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo. Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Parents and Children", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
The superior man, while his parents are alive, reverently nourishes them; and, when they are dead, reverently sacrifices to them. His thought to the end of his life is how not to disgrace them.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
It is our genetic nature as a species to believe as young children that our parents and elders are right. We watch them to see what's what. Later on we can judge for ourselves and rebel if need be, but when we're just months old, or a year or two, and a parent looks at us with impatience, or disgust, or disdain, or just leaves us there to cry and doesn't answer us even though we're longing to be embraced and nurtured, we assume that something must be wrong with us. Unfortunately, at that age it's impossible to think there might be something wrong with them.
JEAN LIEDLOFF
interview with Chris Mercogliano
The duty of Parents to their Children does not terminate in giving them existence.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Parental feeling, as I have experienced it, is very complex. There is, first and foremost, sheer animal affection, and delight in watching what is charming in the ways of the young. Next, there is the sense of inescapable responsibility, providing a purpose for daily activities which skepticism does not easily question. Then there is an egoistic element, which is very dangerous: the hope that one's children may succeed where one has failed, that they may carry on one's work when death or senility puts an end to one's own efforts, and, in any case, that they will supply a biological escape from death, making one's own life part of the whole stream, and not a mere stagnant puddle without any overflow into the future. All this I experienced, and for some years it filled my life with happiness and peace.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Autobiography
If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.
BETTE DAVIS
interview, CBS, May 5, 1985