Quotes About Fathers

Father Quotations

"That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel? "
-- Joseph Addison

"The greatest gift I ever had Came from God, and I call him Dad! "
-- Anonymous

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; and the end of the world is evidently approaching."
-- Assyrian clay tablet 2800 B.C.

"The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears."
-- Francis Bacon, Sr.

"A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again. "
-- Enid Bagnold

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"We never know the love of our parents for us till we have become parents."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"He opened the jar of pickles when no one else could. He was the only one in the house who wasn't afraid to into the basement by himself. He cut himself shaving, but no one kissed it or got excited about it. It was understood when it rained, he got the car and brought it around to the door. When anyone was sick, he went out to get the prescription filled. He took lots of pictures ... but he was never in them."
-- Erma Bombeck

"I have always looked at life as a voyage, mostly wonderful, sometimes frightening. In my family and friends I have discovered treasure more valuable than gold."
-- Jimmy Buffet


Silhouette of Father and Child Fishing



"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either."
-- Dick Cavett

"The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children."
-- G. K. Chesterton

"The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself."
-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton

"The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them. "
-- Confucius

"Fatherhood is pretending the present you love the most is soap-on-a-rope."
-- Bill Cosby

"You know, fathers just have a way of putting everything together. "
-- Erika Cosby

"Be kind to thy father, for when thou were young, who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, and joined in thy innocent glee. "
-- Margaret Courtney

"Role modeling is the most basic responsibility of parents. Parents are handing life's scripts to their children, scripts that in all likelihood will be acted out for the rest of the children's lives."
-- Stephen R. Covey

"People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally 'being lived.' They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates, and society."
-- Stephen R. Covey

"What a dreadful thing it must be to have a dull father. "
-- Mary Mapes Dodge


Father and Son Fly Fishing - Deerfiel...



"Those who trust us educate us."
-- T.S. Eliot

"To her the name of father was another name for love. "
-- Fanny Fern

"The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance. "
-- Benjamin Franklin

"Parents can tell but never teach, unless they practice what they preach."
-- Arnold Glasow

"When Charles first saw our child Mary, he said all the proper things for a new father. He looked upon the poor little red thing and blurted, 'She's more beautiful than the Brooklyn Bridge. "
-- Helen Hayes

"To be a successful father...there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years. "
-- Ernest Hemingway

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other."
-- Burton Hillis

"I am not caused by my history--my parents, my childhood and development. These are mirrors in which I may catch glimpses of my image."
-- James Hillman

"There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. "
-- Victor Hugo

"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was."
-- Irish Proverb


Father and Son



"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
-- Proverbs 22:6

"Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"My dear father; my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along the country by-ways."
-- Sarah Orne Jewett

"When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry. "
-- Jewish Proverb

"The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends."
-- Samuel Johnson

"He was all questions. But small boys expect their fathers to be walking lexicons, to do two jobs at once, to give replies as they are working, whether laying stones or building models...digging up a shrub, or planting flower beds...Boys have a right to ask their fathers questions...Fathers are the powers that be, and with their power and might must shelter, guard, and hold and teach and love...All men with sons must learn to do these things...Too soon, too soon, a small son grows and leaves his father's side to test his manhood's wings. "
--Roy Z. Kemp

"I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it."
-- Rose Kennedy

"My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," my dad would reply, "we're raising boys."--Harmon Killebrew

"Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, "This I am today; that I will be tomorrow."
-- Louis L'Amour

"The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is because they share a common enemy."
-- Sam Levenson

"A child's job is to test her boundaries, a parent's is to see that she survives the test."
-- Dr. Roger MacDonald

"A man knows he is growing old because he begins to look like his father."
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez


Father and Son



"The love of a father is one of nature's greatest masterpieces."

"The merry family gatherings-- The old, the very young The strangely lovely way they Harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time-- Traditions that recall The precious memories down the years, The sameness of them all."
-- Helen Lowrie Marshall

"The thing to remember about fathers is, they're men. A girl has to keep it in mind: They are dragon--seekers, bent on improbable rescues. Scratch any father, you find someone chock--full of qualms and romantic terrors, believing change is a threat - like your first shoes with heels on, like your first bicycle I it took such months to get. "
-- Phyllis Mcginley

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush; anxious for greater developments and greater wishes and so on; so that children have very little time for their parents; Parents have very little time for each other; and the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world."
-- Mother Teresa

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family."
-- Mother Teresa

"Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes."
-- Gloria Naylor

"It is much easier to become a father than to be one."
-- Kent Nerburn (Letters to My Son: Reflections on Becoming a Man)

"As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live."
-- Pope John Paul II

"He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care. "
-- William Penn

"The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them. "
-- Bertrand Russell


Untitled - Fishing with Dad



"Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them."
-- Jonas Salk

"Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible--the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family."
-- Virginia Satir

"The commandment to honor parents was given to ensure that the elderly, although they may not feel wanted by family or society, are still given their appropriate reward."
-- Dr. Laura Schlessinger

"I've been very blessed. My parents always told me I could be anything I wanted. When you grow up in a household like that, you learn to believe in yourself."
-- Rick Schroeder

"It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was. "
-- Anne Sexton

"It is a wise father that knows his own child."
-- William Shakespeare

"My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately "
-- George Bernard Shaw

"It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping."
-- John Sinor

"The family--that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to."
-- Dodie Smith


Father and Daughter in Rain



"When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course. "
-- Sir Stephen Spender

"All the feeling which my father could not put into words was in his hand--any dog, child or horse would recognize the kindness of it."
-- Freya Stark

"It's clear that most American children suffer too much mother and too little father."
-- Gloria Steinem

"Children learn to smile from their parents."
-- Shinichi Suzuki

"Cultivate your own capabilities, your own style. Appreciate the members of your family for who they are, even though their outlook or style may be miles different from yours. Rabbits don't fly. Eagles don't swim. Ducks look funny trying to climb. Squirrels don't have feathers. Stop comparing. There's plenty of room in the forest."
-- Chuck Swindoll

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. "
-- Mark Twain

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them . . . work, family, health, friends and spirit, and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls . . . family, health, friends and spirit . . . are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same."
-- Unknown

"A simple friend doesn't know your parents' first names. A real friend has their phone numbers in his address book."
-- Unknown

"My parents really hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio."
-- Unknown