In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that's okay, there are a lot more coming along.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.

Home is the place where boys and girls first learn how to limit their wishes, abide by rules, and consider the rights and needs of others.

I know why families were created with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.

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.

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.

Good family life is never an accident but always an achievement by those who share it.

It is my view that our society can be no more stable than the foundation of individual family units upon which it rests. Our government, our institutions, our schools...indeed, our way of life are dependent on healthy marriages and loyalty to the vulnerable little children around our feet.

Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted.

If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct.

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.

The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.

We must restore the sacredness of the family as a bedrock of humane values everywhere, in peace as well as in war.

..though our family life was simple, I wasn't aware that we were poor. Maybe we didn't have many possessions, but we never went hungry, were cold, or lacked love.

Always reward your long hours of labor and toil in the very best way, surrounded by your family. Nurture their love carefully, remembering that your children need models, not critics, and your own progress will hasten when you constantly strive to present your best side to your children. And even if you have failed at all else in the eyes of the world, if you have a loving family, you are a success.

What the family lacked in money and material things, they more than made up for in love and family unity.

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.

Of course if you like your kids, if you love them from the moment they begin, you yourself begin all over again, in them, with them, and so there is something more to the world again.

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults.

Children make you want to start life over.

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.

The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

My mom used to say it doesn't matter how many kids you have... because one kid'll take up 100% of your time so more kids can't possibly take up more than 100% of your time.

A child enters your home and for the next twenty years makes so much noise you can hardly stand it. The child departs, leaving the house so silent you think you are going mad.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present.

I believe there is a price tag on everything worthwhile, but it is seldom a monetary one. The price is more often one of dedication, extra effort, loneliness. Each person decides whether he or she wants to pay the price. If you do, you achieve beyond other people.

Bad is never good until worse happens.

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

Better bread with water than cake with trouble.

How many times do we miss blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?

Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority.

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.