quotations and passages on home

Home is not where you live
but where they understand you.

Christian Morgenstern

Every one of us needs a home. The world needs a home. There are so many young people who are homeless. They may have a building to live in, but they are homeless in their hearts. That is why the most important practice of our time is to give each person a home. Thich Nhat Hanh

Home is oneness, home is my original nature. It is right here, simply in what is. There is nowhere else I have to go, and nothing else I have to become. Tony Parsons Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule. Frederick W. Robertson

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right. Maya Angelou

Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy. Mother Teresa

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave,
and grow old wanting to get back to.

John Ed Pearce

It takes hands to build a house,
but only hearts can build a home.

unattributed

They are the happiest, be they king or peasant,
who find peace in their homes.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Home, the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

Robert Montgomery

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician
ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

Charles Dickens

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Jane Austen

My home. . . It is my retreat and resting place from wars,
I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest
outside, as I do another corner in my soul.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

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Where thou art, that is home.

Emily Dickinson

Home -- that blessed word, which opens to the human heart
the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry
it thither, as on an angel's wings.

Lydia M. Child

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say:
the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer,
the house allows one to dream in peace.

Gaston Bachelard

Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that
at this moment, all you have is all you need.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more
importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

Thomas Moore

Home is where the heart is.

Pliny The Elder

Home is the most popular,
and will be the most enduring
of all earthly establishments.

Channing Pollock

"Home" is any four walls
that enclose the right person.

Helen Rowland

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy
to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice
to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of
someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your
home for this is where our love for each other must start.

Mother Teresa

A home where you can feel good is a place where parents and
children can relax and recover from the pressures of the day.
Laughing, singing, and dancing are the quickest ways to change
preoccupations into celebrations. Having fun together strengthens
family ties and encourages honest and harmonious relationships
between family members. As they grow up, your children will
have a much better chance of feeling comfortable
within the family if everyone is having fun.

Judy Ford

My original family home wasn't a very nice place to be in. It was often
a place of tension and conflict. A place where laughter was rarely heard
and where faces rarely seemed happy. I am very aware of what I want
to create in my life. I want to live in a happy home where everyone feels
safe, where everyone can have fun and laugh. I can create this kind of
environment in my own adult life. My family life will serve
to calm my soul and restore my trust.

unattributed
Happiness One Day at a Time

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Most homes are far too serious. Why not let the children dance and play to their heart's content? They will get rubs enough, knocks enough in the world; they will get enough of the hard side of life later. Resolve that they shall at least be just as happy as you can make them while at home, so that if they should have unfortunate experiences later, they can look back upon their home as a sweet, beautiful, charming oasis in their life; the happiest spot on earth.

It is a great thing to encourage fun in the home. There is nothing like a fun-loving home. It keeps children off the streets, it discourages vice and all that is morbid.

The home ought to be a sort of theater for fun and all sorts of sports—a place where the children should take the active parts, although the parents should come in for a share too. You will find that a little fun in the evening, romping, and playing with the children, will make you sleep better. It will clear the physical cobwebs and brain-ash from your mind. You will be fresher and brighter for it the next day. You will be surprised to see how much more work you can do, and how much more readily you can do it if you try to have all the innocent fun you can.

Orison Swett Marden
The Joys of Living (1913)

A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks
immediately after health and a good conscience.

Sydney Smith

Once a reporter stood in front of a fire as it consumed a house
and then he turned to see the homeowners and their little son
watching it burn. The reporter, fishing for a human interest angle,
said to the boy, "Son, it looks like you don't have a home anymore."
The little boy promptly answered, "Oh, yes, we have a home.
We just don't have a house to put it in."

Barbara Johnson

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever
the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a
place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like
bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you
for your entire life, wherever you may go.

Sarah Dessen
What Happened to Goodbye

What is home? My favorite definition is "a safe place," a place where one
is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships
and affirmation. It's a place where people share and understand each other.
Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect;
instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a
common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable.

Gladys Hunt
Honey for a Child's Heart: The
Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where
we can go as we are and not be questioned.

Maya Angelou
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you
always think, "I want to go home." But then you come home, and of
course it’s not the same. You can’t live with it, you can’t live away
from it. And it seems like from then on there’s always this yearning
for some place that doesn’t exist. I felt that. Still do.
I’m never completely at home anywhere.

Danzy Senna

A house is no home unless it contain food and
fire for the mind as well as for the body.

Margaret Fuller

Southern Gumbo Recipe and Cooking at Home:
Gumbo and Other Famous Southern Food Recipes
Recipe to Learn How to Make Gumbo at Home
Home Cooking Staples Like Jambalaya and Gumbo

What is home?
“A roof to keep out the rain? Four walls to keep out the wind?
Floors to keep out the cold? Yes, but home is more than that.
It is the laugh of a baby, the song of a mother, the strength
of a father, warmth of loving hearts, lights from happy eyes,
kindness, loyalty, comradeship. Home is first school and first
church for young ones, where they learn what is right, what
is good, and what is kind, where they go for comfort when
they are hurt or sick; where joy is shared and sorrow eased;
where fathers and mothers are respected and loved, where
children are wanted; where the simplest food is good enough
for kings because it is earned; where money is not as important
as loving-kindness; where even the tea kettle sings
from happiness. That is home. God bless it!”

unattributed

The home is the empire! There is no peace more delightful
than one's own fireplace.

Cicero

Home is not around the hearth. it is within the heart. Any
worthwhile pilgrimage brings us home, and so does any
distant voyage for the sake of love.

Donald Masterson

Your home is where your loved ones live. Your home is the place
where you work together with your fellow human beings to build
a paradise, a realm of peace and prosperity for all. When we are
asked where our home is, we can answer: "My home is the world.
Everywhere in the world where my fellow human beings live,
all of it, is my home."

Daisaku Ikeda
Buddhism Day by Day

I don’t blame children for fleeing those House Beautiful houses, nonshelters,
dehumanized, ostentatious, rarely expressing an individual family’s way of life.
When I was writing a column for Family Circle I had planned one in praise
of shabbiness. A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is
soulless. It all comes back to the fact that we are not asked to be perfect,
only human. What a relief it is to walk into a human house!

May Sarton
Journal of a Solitude