Great Quotes About Fathers

These quotes about fathers range from humorous to contemplative to nostalgic to touching. They will inspire you to think about all of the various ways your father has influenced your life. Some of the quotes might make you laugh out loud, while others will make you want to shed a tear. This is the role that most of our fathers play in our lives. They are overprotective, loving, angry, fun, and wise at the same time. They have a lot to teach us, yet we’ll probably never fully understand them. Our fathers play a very different role in our lives than our mothers, and it’s time to show them our gratitude and appreciation. When is the last time you thanked him? Use one of these quotes to write a note to your father, a father figure, or send a card to another great dad you know today.

“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…” Phyllis McGinley

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

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

“My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” Clarence Budington Kelland

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.” Abraham Lincoln

“By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.” Author Unknown

“It’s only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home-it’s only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love.” Margaret Truman

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

“A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be.” Author Unknown

“For thousands of years, father and son have stretched wistful hands across the canyon of time, each eager to help the other to his side, but neither quite able to desert the loyalties of his contemporaries. The relationship is always changing and hence always fragile; nothing endures except the sense of difference.” Alan Valentine

“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, describing how to diaper a baby

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

“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

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

“His mother called such people ignorant and superstitious, but his father only shook his head slowly and puffed his pipe and said that sometimes old stories had a grain or two of truth in them and it was best not to take chances. It was why, he said, he crossed himself whenever a black cat crossed his path.” Stephen King

“That is the thankless position of the father in the family-the provider for all, and the enemy of all.” J. August Strindberg

“When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, ‘Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?’ He answered, ‘If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.'” Jerry Lewis

“Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers–and fathering is a very important stage in their development.” David M. Gottesman
It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” Anne Sexton

“Sir Walter, being strangely surprised and put out of his countenance at so great a table, gives his son a damned blow over the face. His son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sat next to him and said, “Box about: twill come to my father anon.” John Aubrey

Small boy’s definition of Father’s Day: It’s just like Mother’s Day only you don’t spend so much.” Author Unknown

Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.” Robert Orben

“People see Archie Bunker everywhere. Particularly girls; poor girls, rich girls, all kinds of girls are always coming up to me and telling me that Archie is just like their dad.” Carroll O’Connor

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

“An angry father is most cruel towards himself.” Publilius Syrus