Family can mean so many things.
It can be a safe place to return to when life gets heavy to find advice and support. But it’s also filled with lots of laughter, love and old inside jokes.
And with people who know you so well (almost too well sometimes).
So in today’s post I want to focus on that and share 125 of the most powerful, relatable and funny family quotes.
I hope you’ll find something here to help you appreciate your family even more, something to use in cards or on social media and to share the love and laughter together with them.
Inspirational Family Quotes to Share the Love and Appreciation
“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”
– Michael J. Fox
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.”
– Anthony Brandt
“Think of your family today and every day thereafter. Don’t let the busy world of today keep you from showing how much you love and appreciate your family.”
– Josiah
“The love of family and the admiration of friends are much more important than wealth and privilege.”
– Charles Kuralt
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”
– Mother Teresa
“Families are the compass that guides us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.”
– Brad Henry
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”
– George Washington Carver
“I sustain myself with the love of family.”
– Maya Angelou
“It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.”
– Peter Buffett
“The most important thing in the world is family and love.”
– John Wooden
“Family is the most important thing in the world.”
– Princess Diana
“Life is beautiful. It’s about giving. It’s about family.”
– Walt Disney
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
– Desmond Tutu
“I’ve always put my family first and that’s just the way it is.”
– Jamie Lee Curtis
“My family is my life, and everything else comes second as far as what’s important to me.”
– Michael Imperioli
“My family’s the most important thing in my life.”
– Joe Namath
“Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.”
– Irina Shayk
“The memories we make with our family is everything.”
– Candace Cameron Bure
“Above all, children need our unconditional love, whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough.”
– Barack Obama
“I am blessed to have so many great things in my life – family, friends, and God. All will be in my thoughts daily.”
– Lil’ Kim
“A man should never neglect his family for business.”
– Walt Disney
“Spend some time this weekend on home improvement; improve your attitude toward your family.”
– Bo Bennett
Funny and Relatable Family Quotes
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
– George Burns
“A family is a bunch of people who keep confusing you with someone you were as a kid.”
– Robert Brault
“Remember, as far as anyone knows, we’re a nice, normal family.”
– Homer Simpson
“The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness.”
– Nancy Mitford
“Families are like fudge – mostly sweet, with a few nuts.”
– Les Dawson
“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the heck she is.”
– Ellen DeGeneres
“I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.”
– Phyllis Diller
“I grew up with six brothers. That’s how I learned to dance – waiting for the bathroom.”
– Bob Hope
“The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.”
– George Carlin
“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”
– Jerry Seinfeld
“When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.”
– Erma Bombeck
“Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.”
– Martin Mull
“Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.”
– Evan Esar
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
– Oscar Wilde
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
– Mary Karr
“Home is where you are loved the most and act the worst.”
– Marjorie Pay Hinckley
“Some family trees bear an enormous crop of nuts.”
– Wayne Huizenga
“A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.”
– Ogden Nash
Family Quotes on Strong Bonds, Trust and Togetherness
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.”
– Richard Bach
“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
“My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn’t a social construct but an instinct.”
– Jodi Picoult
“Families don’t have to match. You don’t have to look like someone else to love them.”
– Leigh Anne Tuohy
“The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.”
– Mario Puzo
“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family.”
– Jim Butcher
“To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.”
– Barbara Bush
“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.”
– Dez Del Rio
“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
“Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
– David Ogden Stiers
“Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.”
– Mitch Albom
“The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.”
– Lee Iacocca
“I think togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life.”
– Barbara Bush
“In family relationships, ‘love’ is really spelled ‘t-i-m-e,’ time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home.”
– Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles.”
– Letty Cottin Pogrebin
“When trouble comes, it’s your family that supports you.”
– Guy Lafleur
“My life is proof that no matter what situation you’re in, as long as you have a supportive family, you can achieve anything.”
– Michaela DePrince
“The foundation of family – that’s where it all begins for me.”
– Faith Hill
“Stick to the basics, hold on to your family and friends – they will never go out of fashion.”
– Niki Taylor
“The world, we’d discovered, doesn’t love you like your family loves you.”
– Louis Zamperini
“You need a rock-solid foundation of friends and family to keep you where you need to be.”
– Lilly Singh
“Families are the tie that reminds us of yesterday, provide strength and support today, and give us hope for tomorrow.”
– Bill Owens
Deep Family Quotes That Will Make You Think
“Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.”
– Sarah Dessen
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
– James Baldwin
“The greatest 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.”
– Kendall Hailey
“Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you’re offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone’s feelings.”
– David Sedaris
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
– Khalil Gibran
“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
“I know for sure: Family should be the place where you can be your most complete self.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”
– Honore de Balzac
“The family – that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.”
– Dodie Smith
“Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.”
– Gail Lumet Buckley
“So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.”
– Haniel Long
“Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.”
– Reinhold Niebuhr
“The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton
“Parents are like God because you wanna know they’re out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.”
– Chuck Palahniuk
“Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.”
– Ann Brashares
“One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.”
– Jonathan Safran Foer
“You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges.”
– Elizabeth Berg
“With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.”
– Michelle Obama
“At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable.”
– Mark V. Olsen
“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
“I don’t think it matters how many parents you’ve got, as long as those who are around make their presence a good one.”
– Elizabeth Wurtzel
Short and Cute Family Quotes
“Friends are the family you choose.”
– Jess C. Scott
“Family is not defined by our genes, it is built and maintained through love.”
– Amalia G.
“I don’t think quantity time is as special as quality time with your family.”
– Reba McEntire
“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”
– Albert Einstein
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.”
– George Santayana
“Home is where they want you to stay longer.”
– Stephen King
“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.”
– Walt Whitman
“Family is family.”
– Linda Linney
“Being part of a family means smiling for photos.”
– Harry Morgan
“In time of test, family is best.”
– Burmese Proverb
“Having a place to go is a home. Having someone to love is a family. Having both is a blessing.”
– Donna Hedges
“You go through life wondering what is it all about, but at the end of the day it’s all about family.”
– Rod Stewart
“Time together as a family is a gift.”
– Joanna Gaines
“I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family.”
– José Carreras
“My greatest pleasure is spending time with my family.”
– Siri Hustvedt
“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family.”
– Paul Pearsall
“The love of a family is life’s greatest blessing.”
– Eva Burrows
“Dignity is not negotiable. Dignity is the honor of the family.”
– Vartan Gregorian
“Your ancestors are rooting for you.”
– Eleanor Brown
Powerful Family Quotes for a Positive Future
“In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future.”
– Alex Haley
“A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living.”
– Charles R. Swindoll
“May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.”
– Leonard Cohen
“I carry my roots with me all the time rolled up, I use them as my pillow.”
– Francisco S. Alarcón
“The family is the first essential cell of human society.”
– Pope John XXIII
“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
“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, and whose respect we need.”
– Walt Disney
“The love that feels the most is often the quietest act – a mother’s hand on your forehead, a father’s nod from across the room.”
– Joy Stevens
“No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?”
– Lee Iacocca
“I believe the world is one big family, and we need to help each other.”
– Jet Li
“The family you come from isn’t as important as the family you’re going to have.”
– Ring Lardner
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
“The family is where we are formed as people. Every family is a brick in the building of society.”
– Pope Francis
“I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.”
– Amos Oz
“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.”
– Tia Walker
“You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.”
– Anita Baker
“Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.”
– John C. Maxwell
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career.”
– C.S. Lewis
“Everyone needs a house to live in, but a supportive family is what builds a home.”
– Anthony Liccione
“Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.”
– Pierce Brown
Want more positive sayings about family and friendship? Then check out these short family quotes, the funny friendship quotes here and also this post that’s full of family isn’t always blood quotes.