“England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control — that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.
Pt. I, ch. 1
Variant translations: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Variant: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

I considered this. “I think I come from the everybody’s smart category. But they don’t apply their smarts to… larger picture pursuits. That includes me.”
JPod (2006)

Original French: Le Président Jacques Chirac et Madame Chirac entretiennent avec ma famille des relations de très grande affection et d’une réelle proximité
Interview with Le Figaro–September 2001 http://www.maroc.ma/fr/discours-royaux/interview-accord%C3%A9e-par-sa-majest%C3%A9-le-roi-mohammed-vi-au-quotidien-fran%C3%A7ais-%C2%AB-le

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Britain - a caste society?, JohannHari.com, January 29, 2006, 2007-01-26 http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=789,

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 48

2010s, Democratic National Convention speech (2012)
Context: Like so many American families, our families weren't asking for much. They didn't begrudge anyone else's success or care that others had much more than they did, in fact, they admired it. They simply believed in that fundamental American promise that, even if you don't start out with much, if you work hard and do what you're supposed to do, then you should be able to build a decent life for yourself and an even better life for your kids and grandkids. That's how they raised us; that's what we learned from their example.