Keep these family quotes in your back pocket to show how much you care
35 Family Quotes That Hit Close to Home
Updated on Nov. 21, 2024
Family quotes
1. “The family is the heart’s country.” —Giuseppe Mazzini
2. “Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.” —Unknown
3. “One of life’s few really reliable pleasures: to have a family you love, and to leave them for a week.” —Mignon McLaughlin
4. “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” —Richard Bach
5. “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” —Robert Frost
6. “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
7. “The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.” —Dodie Smith
8. “Family: where life begins and love never ends.” —Unknown
9. “Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.” —André Maurois
10. “You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” —Desmond Tutu
11. “In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future.” —Alex Haley
12. “You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges.” —Elizabeth Berg
13. “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
Relatable quotes about family
14. “In the family sandwich, the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are, for a time, the meat.” —Anna Quindlen
15. “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
16. “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.” —George Moore
17. “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.” —Menachem Begin
18. “The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness.” —Nancy Mitford
19. “The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” —George Santayana
20. “Friends are ‘annuals’ that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a ‘perennial’ that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect.” —Erma Bombeck
21. “When we have each other, we have everything.” —Unknown
22. “The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint is not intended.” —Robert Frost
23. “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” —George Burns
Sayings about family
24. “‘Ohana’ means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” —Lilo & Stitch
25. “All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —Leo Tolstoy
26. “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important.” —Barack Obama
27. “A family is a web so delicately woven that it takes almost nothing to set the whole thing shuddering or even to tear it to pieces. Yet the thread it’s woven of is as strong as anything on Earth.” —Frederick Buechner
28. “Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.” —Trenton Lee Stewart
29. “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
30. “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
31. “The love in our family flows strong and deep, leaving us memories to treasure and keep.” —Unknown
32. “When I speak of home, I speak of the place where—in default of a better—those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.” —Charles Dickens
33. “Family. A snug kind of a word.” —Fannie Hurst
34. “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
35. “The task of each family is also the task of all humanity. This is to cherish the living, remember those who have gone before, and prepare for those who are not yet born.” —Margaret Mead
Not all family members are related by blood. For those, you’ll want to read on for our favorite funny friendship quotes.
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece on family quotes, Jenn Sinrich tapped her longtime experience as a reporter and journalist to ensure that all information is accurate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Sharon Boone, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including Glamour, Seventeen, Essence, AARP and more, verify that all quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
