Relationships and Family

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children—and what an inhuman world, without the aged.

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children—and what an inhuman world, without the aged.

The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned, pricks most deeply and draws more blood.

Mothers are the most instinctive philosophers.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

He that has no fools, knaves nor beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning.

No matter how many communes anybody invents, the family always creeps back.

When one loves somebody, everything is clear—where to go, what to do—it all takes care of itself and one doesn’t have to ask anybody about anything.

Never close your lips to those to whom you have opened your heart.

If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

Friends are relatives you make for yourself.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you.

Yes, there is a nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

For a man to become a poet he must be in love, or miserable.