There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.

The child is father of the man.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.

Every man is his own ancestor, and every man is his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past.

Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name.