Quotes About Father

and their profound effect on our lives...

Find the best quotes about father to express your sentiments … whether he was your hero, absent from your life, a disappointment, or a great teacher.

Find out what famous people are saying about their fathers or about being a father.

There are even special quotes for those men who were like a father to you.

You may even want to send a video tribute to Dad to let him know you are thinking about him.

My father grew up in the Great Depression and that experience affected him down to core of his being. As with any adversity, it can have a seed of equivalent benefit.

My father was a great role model to me on how to manage money. He waited until he could pay cash to purchase a home. He lived on one paycheck and banked another. He never incurred debt. He always planned for a rainy day. He saved and invested his money wisely. He was frugal and diligent in managing his money.

Seeing his great example made it easy for me to have the discipline necessary to live within my means in a culture where TV and media bombards us with messages of “keeping up with the Jones” while leading individuals into a very dangerous trap of incurring too much debt and running the risk of bankruptcy and foreclosure when the smallest bump in the road of life cut you off from your stream of income for even a few weeks.

This past year I was unemployed for 9 months. If it had not been for the father’s example for saving for a rainy day, I would have been homeless.

The following quote is dedicated to my father:

“Fathers teach their best lessons to their children
by the way they handle life when confronted with adversities.”
~ Linda Lovejoy

About Fathers

Love and fear. Everything the father of a family says must inspire one or the other.
~ Joseph Joubert

Fathers are angels sent from heaven.
~ Author Unknown

Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers and fathering is a very important stage in their development.
~ David Gottesman

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.
~ Pope John XXIII

Noble fathers have noble children.
~ Euripides

You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's.
~ Robert Frost

My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
~ Quentin Crisp

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Absent Father

The human father has to be confronted and recognized as human, as man who created a child and then, by his absence, left the child fatherless and then Godless.
~ Anais Nin

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Bad Father

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

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Being a Father

“To the world you may be one person
but to one person you may be the world.”

~ Bill Wilson

One Person

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It is much easier to become a father than to be one.
~ Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son: Reflections on Becoming a Man, 1994

You will find that if you really try to be a father, your child will meet you halfway."
~ Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Any fool can be a Father, but it takes a real man to be a Daddy!!
~ Philip Whitmore Sr

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

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Nothing I've ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a father to my children.
~ Bill Cosby

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.
~ Marlene Dietrich

Becoming a father, I think it inevitably changes your perspective of life. I don't get nearly enough sleep. And the simplest things in life are completely satisfying. I find you don't have to do as much, like you don't go on as many outings.
~ Hugh Jackman

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Being a Good Father

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
~ Clarence Budington Kelland

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

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

A father is someone that holds your hand at the fair makes sure you do what your mother says holds back your hair when you are sick brushes that hair when it is tangled because mother is too busy lets you eat ice cream for breakfast but only when mother is away he walks you down the aisle and tells you everythings gonna be OK.
~ Unknown

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My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
~ Jim Valvano

Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys.
~ Unknown

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

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

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Father as Leader

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
~ Clarence Budington Kelland

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Father as Protector

Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.
~ Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

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

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Father as Teacher

Fathers teach their best lessons to their children by the way they handle life when confronted with adversities.
~ Linda Lovejoy

One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters.
~ George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs, 1640

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.
~ Author Unknown

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

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.
~ Mario Cuomo

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Father's Day

“Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a Dad.”
~ Unknown

Words to Live By,...
Debbie DeWitt
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The greatest gift I ever had came from God;
I call him Dad!"
~ Unknown

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Father's Wisdom

I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.
~ Imelda Marcos

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
~ Lee Iacocca

My father always taught me to appreciate what you're fortunate to have and give back to those who need it. No part of our society is more important than the children, especially the ones who need our help.
~ Dan Marino

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Father-Daughter Relationship

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

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

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself.
~ John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994

Fathers, be good to your daughters. You are the god and the weight of her world.
~ John Mayor

A father is someone that holds your hand at the fair makes sure you do what your mother says holds back your hair when you are sick brushes that hair when it is tangled because mother is too busy lets you eat ice cream for breakfast but only when mother is away he walks you down the aisle and tells you everythings gonna be OK.
~ Unknown

You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic.
~ Stanley T. Banks in the Father of the Bride

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

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Father-Son Relationship

“You don't raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes.”
~ Walter M. Schirra, Sr.

Reason no. 32:...
Shawnda Eva
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Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.
~ Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

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

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

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
~ Aldous Huxley

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A man's desire for a son is usually nothing but the wish to duplicate himself in order that such a remarkable pattern may not be lost to the world.
~ Helen Rowland

The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.
~ Austin O'Malley

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
~ Charles Wasworth

Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys.
~ Unknown

There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.
~ Samuel Johnson

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Funny

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“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” ― Victor Borge

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A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.
~ Unknown

Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.
~ Red Buttons

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

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
~ Charles Wasworth

You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic.
~ Stanley T. Banks in the Father of the Bride

4 years: My Daddy can do anything!
7 years: My Dad knows a lot…a whole lot.
8 years: My father does not know quite everything.
12 years: Oh well, naturally Father does not know that either.
14 years: Oh, Father? He is hopelessly old-fashioned.
21 years: Oh, that man-he is out of date!
25 years: He knows a little bit about it, but not much.
30 years: I must find out what Dad thinks about it.
35 years: Before we decide, we will get Dad's idea first.
50 years: What would Dad have thought about that?
60 years: My Dad knew literally everything!
65 years: I wish I could talk it over with Dad once more.
~ Unknown

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Two little girls, on their way home from Sunday school, were solemnly discussing the lesson. 'Do you believe there is a devil?' asked one. 'No,' said the other promptly. 'It's like Santa Claus: it's your father.'
~ Ladies' Home Journal, quoted in 2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs by Edward F. Murphy

Why are men reluctant to become fathers? They aren't through being children.
~ Cindy Garner

There are three stages of a man's life: He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn't believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus.
~ Unknown

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.
~ Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968

A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he's in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.
~ Bill Cosby

I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.
~ Rodney Dangerfield

My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with
his wallet.
~ Rodney Dangerfield

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“A father carries pictures where his money used to be.”
~ Unknown

"Your allowance...
Mick Stevens
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Importance of Family

There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.
~ Gerald Ford

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Inspirational

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.
~ Ruth E. Renkel

The greatest gift I ever had came from God;
I call him Dad!
~ Unknown

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.
~ M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.
~ Knights of Pythagoras

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

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Jaded

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

Don't make a baby if you can't be a father.
~ National Urban League Slogan

It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.
~ Phyllis Diller

The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.
~ Austin O'Malley

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
~ Bertrand Russell

My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
~ Quentin Crisp

My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.
~ Spike Milligan

There's sometimes a weird benefit to having an alcoholic, violent father. He really motivated me in that I never wanted to be anything like him.
~ Dean Koontz

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Like a Father

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
~ Johann Schiller

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

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New Father

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.
~ Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968

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

When a child is born, a father is born. A mother is born, too of course, but at least for her it's a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what's happening. She becomes what's happening. But for even the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. On the other side of a plate-glass window, a nurse is holding up something roughly the size of a loaf of bread for him to see for the first time.
~ Frederick Buechner, Whisling in the Dark

Watching your husband become a father is really sexy and wonderful.
~ Cindy Crawford

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Proverbs

“A father teaches wisdom, so you will run in the right direction.”
~ Proverb

Home Run
Denise Sullivan
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When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.
~ Jewish Proverb

If a son is uneducated, his dad is to blame.
~ Chinese Proverb

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

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

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Quotes by Famous People

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

A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he's in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.
~ Bill Cosby

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

Nothing I've ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a father to my children.
~ Bill Cosby

Watching your husband become a father is really sexy and wonderful.
~ Cindy Crawford

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My father always taught me to appreciate what you're fortunate to have and give back to those who need it. No part of our society is more important than the children, especially the ones who need our help.
~ Dan Marino

It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life.
~ Dawn French

There's sometimes a weird benefit to having an alcoholic, violent father. He really motivated me in that I never wanted to be anything like him.
~ Dean Koontz

Noble fathers have noble children.
~ Euripides

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

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There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.
~ Gerald Ford

I am not ashamed to say that no man I ever met was my father's equal, and I never loved any other man as much.
~ Hedy Lamarr

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

My mother and father, Joe and Theresa Montana brought me along and taught me to never quit, and to strive to be the best.
~ Joe Montana

My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.
~ Johnny Cash

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

It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.
~ Phyllis Diller

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.
~ Pope John XXIII

You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's.
~ Robert Frost

I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.
~ Rodney Dangerfield

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"y father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
~ Rodney Dangerfield

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

My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the death of his son

Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.
~ Red Buttons

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

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Raising Children

It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.
~ Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

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Sentimental

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,' Dad would reply. 'We're raising boys.'
~ Harmon Killebrew

I am not ashamed to say that no man I ever met was my father's equal, and I never loved any other man as much.
~ Hedy Lamarr

I love my father as the stars - he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart.
~ Terri Guillemets

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
~ Jim Valvano

My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.
~ Johnny Cash

It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life.
~ Dawn French

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TV/Movies

You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic.
~ Stanley T. Banks in the Father of the Bride

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.
~ M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

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