Quotes & Sayings About Fatherhood

I love it. I hate that word (fatherhood), but I love being a father; it's changed everything in so many ways. — Orlando Bloom

I'm not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it, I don't know when I lost it, I don't really think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job ... and I don't want it! — Bill Cosby

Speaking to the Heart is a great encouragement to men who want to be better husbands and fathers. It is both a practical job description of fatherhood-showing how fathers build strength in their children-and an inspiring call to family leadership. Any father who takes this book to heart and puts its wisdom into action will be known to his children as a great man. — James Stenson

People know that Mr. Ellison had a tough beginning, they are aware of a little boy who strived for acceptance, who wished to be like all the other little boys on the block, but found himself always falling short. Unlike majority of children who are carried in the arms and guidance of a father; that separate the dark skies to let you see the light of encouragement and a future glimpse of what they believe you can be. He rather grew up drawing in the sands his own image of what he thought he should be. People are determined to make him into a motivational speech, but remove the essence that still remains of the tragedy that brought everything into play. — Avra Amar Filion

Christ has given us the most glorious interpretation of life's meaning that man has ever had. The fatherhood of God, the fellowship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteousness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the Kingdom, the eternal hope- there was never an interpretation of life to compare with that. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

The greatest lessons I learned from my father didn't come from lectures or discipline or even time spent together. What has stuck with me is his example. From watching, I chose whether to be or not to be like him. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Fatherhood is helping your children learn English as a foreign language. — Bill Cosby

That's the thing with the young these days, isn't it? They watch too many happy endings. Everything has to be wrapped up, with a smile and a tear and a wave. Everyone has learned, found love, seen the error of their ways, discovered the joys of monogamy, or fatherhood, or filial duty, or life itself. In my day, people got shot at the end of films, after learning only that life is hollow, dismal, brutish, and short. — Nick Hornby

The promises you speak over your children can take on the weight of destiny. — Neil Kennedy

Of Teddy Roosevelt and his siblings, the author writes they were, armed with an innate curiosity and discipline fostered by his remarkable father. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

I've certainly had less practice at fatherhood than I have at acting, but in fatherhood, at least my failures are private! — Rich Sommer

80There is no greater influence in the lives of your children than the words you speak over them. The blessing of the father is incredibly potent and powerful. Your words give your children potential. As their father, you are prophesying their future! — Neil Kennedy

It was a phone call she didn't want to make. She didn't want to hurt him. Whatever words she gave him, it would take being a daddy away from him. — Crissi Langwell

He found his cigar smoldering in an ashtray on the liquor cabinet and he fired it up again. The aroma gave him a sense of robust health. He smelled well-being, long life, even placid fatherhood, somewhere, in the burning leaf. — Don DeLillo

Marriage and fatherhood heighten the disillusion that we all think we are born handy. We confidently believe that we can fix things around the house, as if it's part of the collective brain that was further enhanced by eighth-grade shop class. — Bob Newhart

Be a dad. Don't be "Mom's Assistant" ... Be a man ... Fathers have skills that they never use at home. You run a landscaping business and you can't dress and feed a four-year-old? Take it on. Spend time with your kids ... It won't take away your manhood, it will give it to you. — Louis C.K.

Incidentally, I have also learned a bit about the importance of avoiding feminine embarrassment ('Daddy,' wrote Sophia when she enrolled at the New School where I teach, 'people will ask "why is old Christopher Hitchens kissing that girl?"') and shall now cease and desist. — Christopher Hitchens

Fatherhood means a great deal to me. I love it. To me, there aint nothing better, because your kids keep it real with you. When you think things are bad, you look at them and they show you how things could be all right, and it's all worth it. — Martin Lawrence

What I love most about fatherhood is the opportunity to be a part of the development process of a new life. — Seal

My fatherhood made me understand my parents and to honor them more for the love they gave. My sonhood was revealed to me in its own perfection and I understood the reason the Chinese so value filiality, the responsibility of the son to honor the parents. — Kent Nerburn

An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom. From his own father, he said, he first learned that Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe. [speaking of George MacDonald] — C.S. Lewis

Fatherhood, both times for me, was a choice. — Art Alexakis

Not all Masons are obligated on the Christian Bible. Masonry is universal and men of every creed are eligible for membership so long as they accept the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. Therefore, the candidate should be obligated on the Book of the Sacred Law which he accepts as such since his obligation is a solemn and binding one. — George Washington

Fatherhood changes you completely. If things didn't go my way before, I became withdrawn and didn't want to see or listen to anyone. Now, when I arrive home, I see my son and everything is OK. He's the most important thing to me now. — Lionel Messi

Assuming mother's absence is only for a short time, don't be too concerned if you find yourself being more relaxed than she is over what the children eat. It is far better to maintain harmony and let mother cope with the problem later. You can use the excuse "You are only having this because Mummy's in hospital!". — Nursing Mothers' Association Of Australia

May my children follow their own intuition to discover true empowerment - in the answers they seek. — Eleesha

It was not till I experimented with seeds plucked straight from a growing plant that I had my first success ... the first thrill of creation ... the first taste of blood. This, surely, must be akin to the pride of paternity ... indeed, many soured bachelors would wager that it must be almost as wonderful to see the first tiny crinkled leaves of one's first plant as to see the tiny crinkled face of one's first child. — Beverley Nichols

He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell of baby shampoo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry. — Scott Spencer

Fatherhood to us was an act of passion, soon forgot; but not to Orem ap Avonap. Never guessing that the blond and happy farmer was no blood of his, Orem had taken a part of that simple man into himself and saved it for this time. At any time in the Palace he might run by, Youth on this shoulders or, as time went by, toddling along behind. — Orson Scott Card

We're constantly judging and grading other parents, just to make sure that they aren't any better than us. I'm as guilty as anyone. I see some lady hand her kid a Nintendo DS at the supermarket and I instantly downgrade that lady to Shitty Parent status. I feel pressure to live up to a parental ideal that no one probably has ever achieved. I feel pressure to raise a group of human beings that will help America kick the shit out of Finland and South Korea in the world math rankings. I feel pressure to shield my kids from the trillion pages of hentai donkey porn out there on the Internet. I feel pressure to make the insane amounts of money needed for a supposedly 'middle-class' upbringing for the kids, an upbringing that includes a house and college tuition and health care and so many other expenses that you have to be a multimillionaire to afford it. PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE. — Drew Magary

That anyone could father a child, but a real man chooses to be a dad. — J. Sterling

A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence. — Howard W. Hunter

It is a pity that we cannot persuade all ministers to be men, for it is hard to see how other was they can be truly men of God. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It's my responsibility to cultivate the man in my son. I can't be passive about that. — Randy Alcorn

If you do not have a close friendship with your children, I will.--Child Molester warning all parents from the book Type 1 Sociopath — P.A. Speers

I slid down in the seat and began to weep. I wept for her, for me, but mostly because the siren call of my first big story with a yellow border around it was more powerful than the call of fatherhood. — Joe McNally

A father should do more - a father should give more to his children than he takes. — Rick Riordan

But after about a year praying, there was just this clear direction. The leadership team believed that God was leading us to focus on fatherhood. If God is leading, then God will provide. So we begin to get storyline ideas that lined up with the subject of fatherhood that we're working on and fitting, and we were thinking, okay this is good. At the same time, as we are studying scriptures and we're on our journey as fathers, we are learning about fatherhood every day. — Stephen Kendrick

Being a good father to our children requires a few goals:
1. Be an example of personal responsibility
2. Display self-respect
3. Be an example of personal growth, passion, and perseverance
4. Recognize and accept your child's particular gifts and nurture them, not wish they had others
5. Love and respect your wife — Charles F. Glassman

Real Fathers are men of integrity & honour. Their word is their bond. — Fela Durotoye

I'm there for my son 24/7, because I don't want him to take the road we took. I believe if I had a father around, I would've learned plenty things. There was no father there to tell me look here son, this is the wrong way to go. When we were coming up, we learned through trial and error. Anthony 'Ada' Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders street gang. — Drexel Deal

The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get. — Timothy J. Russert

Real Fathers make a positive impact on their generation, and so give the next generation the advantage of a better nation to live in — Fela Durotoye

The task of being right is a task the father perfects over time. — Ben Marcus

It just isn't possible for you to ask me all the questions, or for me to give you all the answers. — Jose Saramago

To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away. — Christopher Hitchens

What is the purpose of Masonry? One of its most basic purposes is to make good men even better. We try to place emphasis on the individual man by strengthening his character, improving his moral and spiritual outlook, and broadening his mental horizons. We try to impress upon the minds of our members the principles of personal responsibility and morality, encouraging each member to practice in his daily life the lessons taught through symbolic ceremonies in the lodge. One of the universal doctrines of Freemasonry is the belief in the "Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God". The importance of this belief is established by each Mason as he practices the three principle tenets of Masonry: Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. — A. Keith Jones

Anyone who tells you fatherhood is the greatest thing that can happen to you, they are understating it. — Mike Myers

If there's a perk to having such a fucked up father, it's that he's in no position to judge. — Jonathan Tropper

As long as Nelson was socked into baseball statistics or that guitar or even the rock records that threaded their sound through all the fibers of the house, his occupation of the room down the hall was no more uncomfortable than the persistence of Rabbit's own childhood in an annex of his brain; but when the stuff with hormones and girls and cars and beers began, Harry wanted out of fatherhood. — John Updike

There's so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I've got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father - and how come that's not as newsworthy? — Will Smith

Fatherhood is not an easy assignment, but it ranks among the most imperative ever given, in time or eternity. — Jeffrey R. Holland

I know that not every family is a clean-cut nuclear Mom and Dad at home situation - but I think every father needs to do whatever he can to be present in the lives of his kids. If you are in a situation where you have not been - fight for it. Don't give up till you get it. Don't be a jerk about it - don't "fight" mom - but "fight" whatever things tell you to just give up. Send cards, make phone calls, pay your support, and do whatever you can to be present in the lives of your children. — Josh Hatcher

Let me share my loving care upon those who are not my children - yet, willing to see me as their Father. — Eleesha

I'm very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn't think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that's happening to me. I'm rather surprised at who I am, because I'm actually like my dad!
David Bowie — David Bowie

Oh, fatherhood has a very humanising effect on a bloke like me in the military. As a dad, you become absolutely aware of your own human frailty and a need to be nurturing and compassionate and fatherly — Peter Cosgrove

I'm about to turn 48, and I think that the closer I get to 50, the more I might be interested in fatherhood. But honestly, I'm not grown up yet myself. — John Benjamin Hickey

[Flowy]'d undertaken this mainly because he'd known that going to public school, with girls, would sentence him to fatherhood by age sixteen, and he wanted to evade that pattern, one from which he himself had been born. — Jeff Hobbs

I had no expectations about fatherhood, really, but it's definitely a journey I'm glad to be taking. Number one, it's a great learning experience. When my mother told me it's a 24/7 job, she wasn't kidding. — Christopher Meloni

We are born to soar. We are children of God ... The Fatherhood of God offers a deep spiritual cure for the inferiority complex and lays the firm foundation for a solid spiritual self-esteem. — Robert H. Schuller

Like many men who experience fatherhood relatively late in life, Martin Luther was a devoted parent. Luther wrote his children letters of touching intensity, patiently converting the joys of the Christian life into a language of storytelling fit for the very young. A home with children brought out the best in Luther in a way that theological disputation patently did not. — Andrew Pettegree

My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked. — Franz Kafka

I've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in your life. — Jess Walter

Beautiful is the man who leaves a legacy that of shared love and life. It is he who transfers meaning, assigns significance and conveys in his loving touch the fine art and gentle shaping of a life. This man shall be called, Father. — Stella Payton

A father is a man who fails every day. — Michael Chabon

The criminalization of a non-custodial in not uncommon; such extreme measures of the divorce and post-divorce process can be described as common practice. Stephen Baskerville describes this consequence of no-fault in the article, "Divorced from Reality. — H. Kirk Rainer

The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments
not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools
will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession. — David Blankenhorn

Men, to exist, to become complete and mature, need to feel the joy of fatherhood. When a man does not have this desire, something is missing in this man, it is like an incomplete life: a life that stops half way. The grace of fatherhood; of giving life to others, of pastoral paternity, of spiritual paternity is a gift from God. — Pope Francis

It is not biology that determines fatherhood. It is love. — Kristin Hannah

Defining and celebrating the New Father are by far the most popular ideas in our contemporary discourse on fatherhood. Father as close and nurturing, not distant and authoritarian. Fatherhood as more than bread winning. Fatherhood as new-and-improved masculinity. Fathers unafraid of feelings. Fathers without sexism. Fatherhood as fifty-fifty parenthood, undistorted by arbitrary gender divisions or stifling social roles. — David Blankenhorn

His heart is too full, and no words to release it. — Gabrielle Zevin

Motherhood is a biological fact, while fatherhood is a social invention. — Margaret Mead

When we got to the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue - again Win's full name is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, so you do the math - Dad said, "You want me to just drop you off?" Sometimes my father leaves me awestruck. Fatherhood is about balance, but how can one man do it so well, so effortlessly? Throughout my life he pushed me to excel without ever crossing the line. He reveled in my accomplishments yet never made them seem to be all that important. He loved without condition, yet he still made me want to please him. He knew, like now, when to be there, and when it was time to back off. "I'll be okay." He — Harlan Coben

Akhmed's eight-day-old eyes had held the reflection of ten thousand possible lives. Khassan wasn't an emotive or superstitious man, and nothing like it had ever happened again, but he had found, layered in the infant's half-lidded eyes, innumerable, wanting faces, none of which he had recognized. — Anthony Marra

Every dad, if he takes time out of his busy life to reflect upon his fatherhood, can learn ways to become an even better dad. — Jack Baker

I love fatherhood. I could bang on about kids forever. — Guy Ritchie

The transparency men have enjoyed for generations, about their ability to frankly work while also reveling in fatherhood, is still complicated for women. Which is not to say that anyone can have everything. — Mona Simpson

As a father, we need to actively listen. — Asa Don Brown

I can speak of our baby like this to no one else. Who but his father would linger over the exact width of his gummy little smile or the blueness of his eyes, or the sweetness of his little lick of tawny hair on his forehead? — Philippa Gregory

He tried to disguise how tired and ill he was, how depressing the thought of death was to him and how he spent his days and nights thinking up schemes of living beyond what the prognosis said. His hope, if not his heart, would find a way. — Noorilhuda

Motherhood goes back in history to a time when a father had no way of knowing his children. Fatherhood only became known when class patriarchal society had established itself and imposed monogamous marriage on women. Motherhood is like sun and rain and plants, a quality and product of nature which does not require laws or systems in order to exist. — Nawal El Saadawi

Fathers are no longer men, most are only boys who pretend. — Delano Johnson

He needed me to do what sons do for their fathers: bear witness that they're substantial, that they're not hollow, not ringing absences. That they count for something when little else seems to. — Richard Ford

Being a father is a choice. Staying true to fatherhood is a duty. — Joan Ambu

Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil's fools. — Martin Luther

A faraway-father is distant from his children; not necessarily in geography, but socially - either by choice or by force. Our country has many fathers who are figuratively-forced far and away from their families. Legal force brings to bear disparate dads through such innovations as no-fault divorce, legal precedence, and post-divorce incrimination. I am one of these parents - portrayed or profiled as 'perpetrator'. — H. Kirk Rainer

They slept huddled together in the rank quilts in the dark and the cold. He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. — Cormac McCarthy

Father to teenage son: My relationship with you is more important than anything I've got to say to you. — Randy Alcorn

The most urgent domestic challenge facing the United States at the close of the 20th century is the re-creation of fatherhood as a social role for men. — David Blankenhorn

Never go for someone that represents something that is more of a fantasy than reality in this crazy world of lonely people, unless it is for the shortest time possible, and unless you have clearly figured out an exit strategy. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Today is not the real Father's Day.
It is the man made version.
The real Father's Day are the other 364 other days of the year that I get to see my boys grow into men and my girls grow into ladies and feel I had a slight part of the people that they turned out to be.
Not a better feeling in the world.
With every life lesson taught, half of which are understood at the time, and the other half that are understood after I am told to stop being ridiculous - EVERYDAY is Father's Day.
And I wouldn't trade it for the world. Good and bad.
I can honestly say there is no feeling on earth, like being a father and a dad. — JohnA Passaro

You can't say you love man as an individual if you have not dealt with the person's complex personality, his or her unfamiliar habits, disturbing impulses and biological makeup. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Maintaining marriage seems to be tougher than fatherhood: apparently it's the most difficult thing in the world. — Kelly Slater

The U.S. is becoming an increasingly fatherless society. A generation ago, an American child could reasonably expect to grow up with his or her father. Today an American child can reasonably expect not to. Fatherlessness is now approaching a rough parity with fatherhood as a defining feature of American childhood. — David Blankenhorn

I am a face in a trance, evoking duende. My face imbues breath and stuns you with star-spirit. I am grove-face, story-teller face, and dawn-bringer face. A face as common as carrots and celery, called upon as a father to be cook, waiter, servant, and maid. — Jimmy Santiago Baca

I walked into the wrong examination room. I'm bad enough at facial recognition ... I saw more that day than I cared to. Fortunately, I didn't recognize her from that angle, whoever it was, and I didn't ask. I'm off to a rocky start on the road to fatherhood, but I got a free view. — Simon Helberg

Listen, there is no way any true man is going to let children live around him in his home and not discipline and teach, fight and mold them until they know all he knows. His goal is to make them better than he is. Being their friend is a distant second to this. — Victor Devlin

An enlightened society is one where all people - the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, the black and the white, men and women - live happily as children of the same Lord. Thus experiencing the brotherhood of men under the fatherhood of God. — Pandurang Shastri Athavale

The sword of the Spirit has been muffled up and decked out with flowers and ribbons, author writes, conveying the sentiments of a Congregationist minister on men's ceding of moral and religious instruction and correction as women's work. — Nancy Pearcey

He says that we must protect our families no matter what. No matter what we got to do to protect them. — Andrew Galasetti