The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
—Theodore Hesburgh (1917–2015) American Catholic Educator, Clergyman
Certain it is that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as the love of a father to a daughter. He beholds her both with and without regard to her sex.—In love to our wives, there is desire; to our sons, there is ambition; but in that to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular. The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
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 (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
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 (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
When one has not had a good father, one must create one.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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 (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.
—Yiddish Proverb
It is not flesh and blood but the heart, which makes us fathers and sons.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Noble fathers have noble children.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
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
To a father waxing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.—Sons have spirits of higher pitch, but less inclined to sweet, endearing fondness.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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 (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
A father is a banker provided by nature.
—French Proverb
Father…knows exactly what those boys at the mall have in their depraved little minds because he once owned such a depraved little mind himself. In fact, if he thinks enough about the plans that he used to have for young girls, the father not only will support his wife in keeping their daughter home but he might even run over to the mall and have a few of those boys arrested.
—Bill Cosby (b.1937) American Actor, Comedian, Activist, Producer, Author
I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist
It is a wise child that knows his own father
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.
—Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) Italian Catholic Religious Leader, Pope
He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he that has a great deal left him does to his father’s care.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
—Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) American Abolitionist, Writer
Nobody ever asks a father how he manages to combine marriage and a career
—Sam Ewing (b.1949) American Sportsperson
An angry father is most cruel towards himself.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be.
—Unknown
There are fathers who do not love their children, but there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
What harsh judges fathers are to all young men!
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
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.
—Unknown
The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
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 (b.1937) American Actor, Comedian, Activist, Producer, Author
Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher
All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
I could not point to any need in childhood as strong as that for a father’s protection.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
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 (1819–1901) British Royal
It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.
—Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95) French Poet, Short Story Writer
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
One father is enough to govern one hundred sons, but not a hundred sons one father.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
That is the thankless position of the father in the family—the provider for all, and the enemy of all.
—August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish Playwright, Novelist, Essayist
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.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927–2014) Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet