Quotes about fathers

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

— Joseph Addison

Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

— Bible

Fathers do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. [Ephesians 6:4]

— Bible

Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life.

— Samuel Butler

As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.

— Lord Chesterfield

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

— Confucius

If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right.

— 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

I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.

— Mario Cuomo

What a dreadful thing it must be to have a dull father.

— Mary Mapes Dodge

Noble fathers have noble children.

— Euripides

To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.

— Euripides

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 most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

— Theodore M. Hesburgh

There are fathers who do not love their children, but there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.

— Victor Hugo

By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder -- infinitely prouder -- to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

— Douglas Macarthur

Don't make a baby if you can't be a father.

— National Urban League Slogan

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.

— Anais Nin

The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.

— Austin O'Malley

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

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

— William Penn

A father is a banker provided by nature.

— French Proverb

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

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Anne Sexton

My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately

— George Bernard Shaw

An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance!

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

That is the thankless position of the father in the family -- the provider for all, and the enemy of all.

— J. August Strindberg

An angry father is most cruel toward himself.

— Publilius Syrus

What harsh judges fathers are to all young men!

— Terence

One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.

— Source Unknown

None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of SUCH a Father who has not his equal in this world -- so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don't be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal.

— Queen Victoria

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

— Alice Walker

The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.

— Oscar Wilde

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.

— Oscar Wilde

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

— William Shakespeare

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

— George Herbert

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

— Enid Bagnold

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!

— Lydia M. Child

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

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.

— Sigmund Freud

A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez