George Bernard Shaw had many quotes about families and their relationships. He often seemed mischievous or cynical but deep down he was a firm believer in family values and felt the family unit was a critical part of a community.
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Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.
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When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.
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The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.
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Parentage is a very important profession but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.
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The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.
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When you were quite a little boy, somebody ought to have said “hush” just once.
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I like flowers, I also like children, but I do not chop their heads off and keep them in bowls of water around the house.
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What we want to see is the child in pursuit of the knowledge not the knowledge in pursuit of the child.
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It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.
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Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.
That is the injustice of a woman’s lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks, to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals their affection from her.
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Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.
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Read about George Bernard Shaw’s life and career
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