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Inspirational Readings for Families

Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh…. Genesis 2:23

With all beings and all things we shall be as relatives. - Sioux Indian

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family. - George Bernard Shaw

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. - Mark Twain

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. - Kahill Gibran

Peace, like charity, begins at home. - Source Unknown

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. - Irish Proverb

God, please help me not to be so busy helping other people's children that I neglect my own. - Marian Wright Edelman

Where love is, God is. - Leo Tolstoy

A joyful heart filled with love is everywhere at home. - Meister Eckhart

To have parents who love each other is the best gift that children can have. - Damaris Parker-Rhodes

We can't form our children in our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us. - Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

Dear God: Thank you for my baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy. - Joyce, (age 8) from Children's Letters to God, 1991

Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them. - Richard L. Evans

It is a long baptism into the sea of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched. - Tillie Olsen

I do not know my daddy. Mamma says I have his eyes and grin and something else she doesn't want to talk about. - Child, age 8, to counselor, 1987

The family….that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to. - Dodie Smith

I will love you no matter what. I will love you if you are stupid, if you slip and fall on your face, if you do the wrong thing, if you make mistakes, if you behave like a human being, I will love you no matter what. - Leo Buscaglia

Where two or three are gathering in my name, there I am in the midst of them. - Matt 18: 20

Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - it doesn't matter who it is - and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other. - Mother Teresa

Children do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care. - Source Unknown Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. - Ursula K. Leguin

Home is the place you go to where they have to take you in. - From Death of the Hired Hand, By Robert Frost

Our lives are shaped by those who love us, and by those who refuse to love us. - Anonymous

Our Lord, we are grateful for this family, who hand in hand form one unbroken circle. Help us to do thy will, as caring individuals and as a loving family. Amen. - Christian Retreat Center, Silverton, Oregon

Who loves the rain,/And loves his home,/And looks on life with quiet eyes./Him will I follow through the storm,/And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;/Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise who loves the rain,/And loves his home,/And looks on life with quiet eyes. - Francis Shaw

Now I lay me down to sleep and pray to God my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake I pray to God my toys to take, so none of the other kids will get them. - Shel Silverstein

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

He who raises a child is to be called its father, not the man who only gave it berth. - Midrash, Exodus Rabbah, 46:5

Once his brother asked Ryoken to visit his house and speak with his delinquent son. Ryoken came but did not say a word of admonition to the boy. He stayed overnight and prepared to leave the next morning. As the wayward nephew was lacing up Ryoken's sandals, he felt a drop of warm water. Glancing up, he saw Ryoken looking down on him, his eyes full of tears. Ryoken then returned home, and the nephew changed for the better. - John Stevens, One Rose, One Bowl

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of the parents. - Carl Jung

What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. - Source Unknown

Please continue to look at your children as valuable treasures. Honor them and yourself. - Bernie Siegel

Your children are always your babies, even if they have gray hair. - Janet Leigh

(All Selections compiled by Kevin Lee)