Father Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father.... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.

It's not only what we have invited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.

This Library afforded me the Means of Improvement by constant Study, for which I set apart an Hour or two each Day; and thus repair'd in some Degree the Loss of the Learned Education my Father once intended for me. Reading was the only Amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in Taverns, Games, or Frolics of any kind. And my Industry in my Business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary.

Benjamin Franklin

Our father was married twice,' continued Humanist. 'Once to a lady named Epichaerecacia, and afterwards to Euphuia...

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

William Shakespeare

We're leaving Babylon
We're going to our Father's land.

He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets — most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thrice they tried to pile Ossa on Pelion, yes, and roll up leafy Olympus upon Ossa; thrice the Father of Heaven split the mountains apart with his thunderbolt.

In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.

Ernest Hemingway

In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.

Among the values of classical learning I estimate the Luxury of reading the Greek & Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals... I think myself more indebted to my father for this, than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach.

Thomas Jefferson

You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey — our revered father, gentlemen — "Always suspect everybody." That's the maxim to go through life with!

Charles Dickens

May men say, "He is far greater than his father," when he returns from battle.

The architect hands over to the rich man with the keys to his palace all the ease and comfort to be found in it without being able to enjoy any of it himself. Must the artist not in this way gradually become alienated from his art, since his work, like a child that has been provided for and left home, can no longer have any effect upon its father? And how beneficial it must have been for art when it was intended to be concerned almost exclusively with what was public property, and belonged to everybody and therefore also to the artist!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.

Elizabeth I of England

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh — anything but work.

Abraham Lincoln

Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation. They are teachers and coaches. They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and the men who constantly push us toward it.

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home. No father and mother can hope to escape sorrow and anxiety, and there are dreadful moments when death comes very near those we love, even if for the time being it passes by. But life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living.

Theodore Roosevelt

They even say that an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the addition of the name of his father, Laertes, was formerly discovered on the same spot, and that certain monuments and tombs with Greek inscriptions, still exist on the borders of Germany and Rhaetia.

To save a man and thereby to spare a father's agony and a mother's feelings is not to do a noble deed, it is but an act of humanity.

Alexandre Dumas

Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.

Charles Dickens

I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too.

William Shakespeare

He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

William Shakespeare

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

There must have been many who had a relationship to Jesus similar to that of Barabbas (his name was Jesus Barrabas). The Danish "Barrabas" is about the same as "N. N." [Mr. X or John Doe], filius patris, his father's son. — It is too bad, however, that we do not know anything more about Barrabas; it seems to me that in many ways he could have become a counterpart to the Wandering Jew. The rest of his life must have taken a singular turn. God knows whether or not he became a Christian. — It would be a poetic motif to have him, gripped by Christ's divine power, step forward and witness for him.

Søren Kierkegaard