Faith & Spirit Quote by Addison Mizner

Mizner’s line lands like a cocktail-party benediction: pious on the surface, slyly secular underneath. The first clause borrows the gravity of providence to describe something most people experience less as a gift than as a fact of life - relatives arrive without consent, complete with obligations, history, and the occasional grudge disguised as tradition. Then he flips the script with that neat, double-edged repetition of “thank God,” turning faith into punchline. If God is responsible for your family, human agency gets the more comforting portfolio: friendship.

The intent isn’t just to roast dysfunctional kin (though it certainly has that vintage, drawing-room bite). It’s to elevate chosen relationships as a form of self-authorship. Friends are framed as moral and emotional electives: you curate them, test them, revise them. Family, by contrast, can feel like an inheritance you’re expected to maintain no matter the cost. Mizner’s joke smuggles in a modern idea: loyalty should have some relationship to compatibility, not just blood.

Context matters. Mizner was an architect and bon vivant who built fantasies for America’s wealthy in the 1920s Florida boom - a world obsessed with taste, curation, and reinvention. In that milieu, “choosing” isn’t merely personal; it’s a lifestyle ethic. The line flatters the listener’s discernment while gently absolving them of guilt for outgrowing their origins. It’s less theology than social permission: you don’t have to be trapped by your pedigree when you can design your own circle.