Family

“ You see them of all ages and statures in family groups; the aged grandsire, gray-haired and wise, deep in meditation, the father watching the gymnastics of the younger members of the family, as they strengthen their muscles by swinging from the tree-boughs, while the mother nurses her hairy pet upon her knee. ”

“ When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. ”

“ So that we all confess, by calling them wise, how wise it is to help each other. Consider a family, again. In order that a family may be happy and prosperous, all the members of it must bear each other’s burdens. If the father only thought of himself, and the mother of herself, and each of the children did nothing but take care of themselves, would not that family come to misery and ruin? ”

“ Thus the family circular, once a month, goes from each extreme to all the members of a widely-dispersed family, and each member becomes a sharer in the joys, sorrows, plans, and pursuits of all the rest. ”

“ The house must have its head, the family their father; the knowledge of that father's will is the truth which rests upon the family as its support and pillar. Outside of the family that knowledge may be lost, together with the will to obey the father and to love him; but within it is a living tradition, "familiar to the ear as household words." ”

“ Every one of us should think of the family as an institution of dignity, one whose smallest doings have importance, because we belong to a great human family, and because we are bearing on the touch of life to future generations. We are now making history. ”

“ The family that has a large stock of children is like a quiver full of arrows, of different sizes we may suppose, but all of use one time or other; children of different capacities and inclinations may be several ways serviceable to the family. ”

“ The importance of the family, as the divinely instituted social monad, depends manifestly on the happy combination and harmonious blending of authority and love which grow out of its constitution—two elements with the full development and true balance of which the well-being and happiness of all societies is intimately bound up. ”

“ In visiting the middle and higher classes of society, the same family compact is observable, and the mother of the family continues always the mother and the head; her gentle reign lasting with her valued life, and the love and respect of those around her increasing with her years. ”

“ Here is the divine order which every family is called upon to fulfil; a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and, therefore, it matters infinitely that every family should realise the nature and the obligations of the family bond. ”

“ Let the Family, furthermore, be viewed as the home of pure social affections, the school of expanding intelligence, the sphere of unbought art, the scene of joyous employment, and we feel in that single sentiment, a fulness of action, of life, of being, which no scientific social contrivance can ensure, nor selfish accident supply. ”

“ In the child's evening prayer, the famous "Prière pour tous," not only for father and mother, but for the poor, the forsaken, the bad—the idea of the family broadens into the idea of the whole great human family. ”

“ In the relations implied in the names husband and wife, [228] father and mother, parents and children, brothers and sisters, we have the truth of the family. We know the family and can only know the family through these relations. Take the relations away, and you take the family away. There cannot be a husband without a wife, a father without a mother, parents without children, and children without a father and a mother. Abiding in these relations, which make up the truth of the family, wrapt up with them and growing out of them, are the laws of right which the will is to obey. ”

“ The family has been in the past, and is still, the great conserving agency in human society, preserving and transmitting from generation to generation both the material and spiritual possessions of the race. ”

“ The family, which the fiercest blasts of the revolutionary tempest in the last century had left untouched, is, in our day, radically assailed in its two essential foundations, marriage and inheritance. ”

“ The family consists, we will say, of father and mother, and children. Here is a man and a woman, then, bound together by the relation of marriage. The children are related to the parents as offspring. The children are related to one another as brothers and sisters. Altogether they are one and they are many. There is unity and there is difference. ”

“ God has designed the family to be the nurse of what is best and purest in human life, and when this design is crossed then the family institution, which was designed to bring the purest joy, breeds the darkest misery. ”

“ Their presence at the breakfast table seemed, indeed, to heighten the effect of a family at one and at peace; for young children in a happy home have no desires outside it. Their parents, their brothers and sisters, even the servants and dependants who are also part of the family for the time being, are the chief characters in their little world. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII THE FAMILY 259. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FAMILY.—From whatever angle we approach society, the family is the ultimate unit and basis. The whole fabric of civilization, whether considered from an economic, a social, or a political standpoint, depends upon the integrity of the family, and upon the wholesomeness of the home life centering about the father, mother, and children. The home is the nursery of our fundamental institutions: it is the origin of our physical and mental inheritances; it is the center of our training for private and public life ”

“ What are the original forms of the human family? Did man begin by being monogamous or polygamous, but, in either case, the master of his own home and the assured central point of his family relations? ”

“ Many years ago, an English translation of the first part of this charming tale appeared; and few books have obtained such deserved popularity. The gradual progress of the family from utter destitution and misery, to happiness and abundance, arising from their own labour, perseverance, and obedience, together with the effect produced on the different characters of the sons by the stirring adventures they met with, created a deep and absorbing interest. ”

“ Why might not the family circle be a place where "example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth"—our daily domestic intercourse like iron sharpening iron, mutually kindling, and stimulating to noble thoughts and deeds? ”

“ One of the most lovely and beautiful features in a family circle is the aged father or mother sympathizing in the joys and sorrows of the young, and watching for occasions to please and serve all around. ”

“ The family stands a practically unchanging factor of personal qualities at the center of our civilization; the family rather than the home determines the character of the coming days. In its social relationships are rooted the things that are best in all our lives. ”

“ Forthwith came into the family-circle a tall, well-dressed young person, grave, unobtrusive, self-respecting, yet not in the least presuming, who sat at the family table and observed all its decorums with the modest self-possession of a lady. ”

“ The family, with the delineation of which he occupies himself, stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural and civil course of things ”

“ Think of a large family of noble children, of all ages, from the little child to the young man beginning his business career, returning after long severance to spend a season together in the old ancestral home, situated in its far-reaching grounds, and you can form some idea of what it will be, when the whole Family of the Redeemed gather in the Father's house. ”

“ "Of course you do, child," said mother. "Families were made to cling together, and stand by each other in every circumstance of life—joy or sorrow. Of course you need your family." ”

“ The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than could be done by the most elaborate dissertation. ”

“ For the family only represents one aspect, however important an aspect, of a human being's functions and activities. He cannot, she cannot, be divorced from the life of the social group, and a life is beautiful and ideal, or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship. ”

“ The family circle is intimate, and in it the keenest human loves prevail. As the family develops so will society, as a whole, develop. By children comes complete family life. Without children, family life is incomplete. ”

“ Remember then my advice, my children, carry it home to your people, and tell them that from the day that they have become all of the same family, from the day that we became father to them all, we wish, as a true father should do, that we may all live together as one household, and that before they strike one another, they should go to their father and let him endeavor to make up the quarrel. ”

“ We have seen that, just as on the biological side the family is an essential factor in the development and preservation of the human race, so too on the psychological side, the thoughts, feelings and impulses that centre round the [242] family belong to the most intimate and fundamental part of Man's spiritual nature. ”

“ When sons encourage father, the family seems to be prosperous,
And it likely to be accomplish’d, when the youngers strengthen elders.
153. While two ploughs set up, family is harmoniz’d,
When a household is to be ruin’d, keeping two wives. ”

“ For you are fully aware, Venerable Brothers, that the governing principle of family life has, in accordance with the requirements of natural law, its basis in the indissoluble union of husband and wife, and its superstructure in the duties and rights of parents and children, and of masters and servants towards each other. ”

“ In a true family circle a father and a mother first clasp each other's hands, liking well to be thus clasped; then they stretch out a hand on either side, and these are speedily grasped by children, who hold one another firmly, and complete the ring. ”

“ But in the backboned family it exists from the very first as the tender love of mother for child, of the father for his mate and her young ones, and so upwards to the defence of the tender ones of the herd by the strong and well-armed elders, till it has found its highest development in man himself. ”

“ Have you not known instances where a man comes into, and settles down with, a family, till by and by he becomes a member of the family and has a recognised place in the household and he says with a smile, "Cut off from you, where can I go even inspite of occasional differences and superficial disturbances?" ”

“ The new conditions of a happy family circle led me away from my researches into the meaning of life. My whole mind became concentrated on the family—on the mother, the children, and the anxiety to provide due means of subsistence. ”

“ All these families were made up of persons who preserved a high tradition of courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, with a family pride, and a squeamish sense of noblesse oblige which suited well with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled with occupations which become contemptible so soon as they cease to be accessories and take the chief place in existence. ”

“ On the death of his father the eldest son becomes the head of the family, responsible for all the duties of a father towards his brothers and sisters, who receive no share in the patrimony, but merely dowries and donations on marriage, &c. Between the various members of a family, even after they have separated from the domestic hearth, there remains the greatest intimacy and affection ”

“ Family education. No doubt the folkways about kinship are produced in connection with views about interests, and in connection with faiths about procreation, and impressions produced by experience. The mother and children live in constant contact and intimacy. The family grows into an institution which takes its nature from the traditional and habitual behavior of its members to each other in daily life. ”

“ The family is a worthy, well-meaning family, that, in all probability, will eat and drink, and go to bed, and get up regularly, from one end of my work to the other; and the squire is so kind-hearted an old gentleman, that I see no likelihood of his throwing any kind of distress in the way of the approaching nuptials. ”

“ Whole families have come. One whole family we see clearly, of three generations: the father picking, the mother shovelling, the young ones wheeling assiduous; old grandfather, hoary with ninety-three years, holds in his arms the youngest of all: [297] frisky, not helpful this one ”

“ Because a child's family life has such a powerful influence on the development of his or her personality and character, and because the family provides a model after which all other human relationships are fashioned, those of us who are parents and grandparents must ensure that the examples we set are positive ones. ”

“ In our own country, families are usually small, parents and their immediate offspring, with the attendants and belongings which naturally gather to a household, and, let it not be forgotten, form part of the family. ”