Fatherly Quotes & Sayings

Men at the close of the dark Ages may have been rude and unlettered and unlearned in everything but wars with heathen tribes, more barbarous than themselves, but they were clean. They were like children; the first beginnings of their rude arts have all the clean pleasure of children. We have to conceive them in Europe as a whole living under little local governments, feudal in so far as they were a survival of fierce wars with the barbarians, often monastic and carrying a far more friendly and fatherly character, still faintly imperial as far as Rome still ruled as a great legend. But in Italy something had survived more typical of the finer spirit of antiquity; the republic, Italy, was dotted with little states, largely democratic in their ideals, and often filled with real citizens. But the city no longer lay open as under the Roman peace, but was pent in high walls for defence against feudal war and all the citizens had to be soldiers. — G.K. Chesterton

Retaliation is not the answer. You're going to have to deal with mean backstabbing girls your whole life, you need to learn to be smart enough to rise above, okay?
Did you kick her ass? Good girl! — Richard Castle

Nothing can burst your fatherly bubble faster than hearing your daughter come home from a date and saying: 'Some nights I don't know why I even bother to wear panties'. — David Henry

John had Julian and I had Zak so we'd try to do the fatherly things. We'd try to do manly things too; we'd go to the pub and bring Maureen and Cynthia a Babycham or something- a real Liverpool attitude — Ringo Starr

[F]or in this queer world of ours, fatherly and motherly hearts often beat warm and wise in the breasts of bachelor uncles and maiden aunts; and it is my private opinion that these worthy creatures are a beautiful provision of nature for the cherishing of other people's children. They certainly get great comfort out of it, and receive much innocent affection that otherwise would be lost. — Louisa May Alcott

Antonia! This is your father speaking. Unless you've swooned onto the floor, I expect you to get yourself out here immediately. — Jane Carter Barrett

We both know dad was my parental trash can, the fatherly receptacle on whom I dumped my emotions. — Anna Banks

Fathers and daughters have a special bond.
She is always daddy's little girl. — Richard L. Ratliff

Just 'cause a body says somethin' don't make it so. You know who you are, and they can't change that no matter what them cacklin' hens is to say." He tapped him on the chest. "What matters is what's in here, son. Not a soul can take that away from you. — Tracy Winegar

It was difficult to understand him. On the one hand he pandered even to the most unimportant things while on the other he was excessive and unfeeling. He might show the most fatherly concern for a female secretary who had stabbed her toe but be utterly ice-cold when issuing orders which set thousands to their deaths. — Heinz Linge

A father never gives up on a son, not really, no matter how poorly he behaves at times or how many stupid decisions he makes. He tries to help that son learn how to become the man he was meant to be. — Aleksandra Layland

A surprising number of American skyjackers were not yet old enough to drink or sometimes even drive. These adolescents were generally inept at planning their crimes, and few of their capers met with any success; most seemed to end within moments of starting, usually after a fatherly pilot convinced the nervous teen to hand over his gun. — Brendan I. Koerner

Holiness is a disposition of the heart that makes us humble and little in the arms of God, aware of our weakness, and confident - in the most audacious way - in His Fatherly goodness. — Therese Of Lisieux

From Sextus, a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner, and the idea of living conformably to nature; and gravity without affectation, and to look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those who form opinions without consideration: — Marcus Aurelius

I am kind; I am humane. I open to you my fatherly arms. Come, all of you; I will receive you all - no less those of the South than those of the West, and of the North, who, gained over by Rigaud, have deserted your firesides, your wives, your children, to place yourselves at his side. — Toussaint Louverture

Could I have everything for which I long, You would not still endure this banishment way from human nature," I replied. "Your image - dear, fatherly, benevolent - Being fixed inside my memory, has imbued My heart: when in the fair world, hour by hour You taught me, patiently, it was you who showed The way man makes himself eternal; therefore, The gratitude I feel toward you makes fit That while I live, I should declare it here. And what you tell me of my future, I write — Dante Alighieri

In a proud fatherly sadomasicisticly way, I am thrilled when I get hit. As every deep purple bruise on my body represented a perfect swing.
If I were to lift my shirt at any time there would be 4-5 bruises on my body ...
As soon as I was able to, I would throw batting practice again from the short distance, and take another shot if necessary to keep the boys in the zone. — JohnA Passaro

Judgment, then, is not an impersonal, legalistic process. It is a matter of love, and it is something we choose for ourselves. Nor is punishment a vindictive act. God's "curses" are not expressions of hatred, but of fatherly love and discipline. Like medicinal ointment, they hurt in order to heal. They impose suffering that is remedial, restorative, and redemptive. God's wrath is an expression of His love for His wayward children. — Scott Hahn

I'm sorry you grew up without me and that fatherly moments came second hand like clothing and toys from your brothers ... — Stephan Lawrence Theodore Clifford

I recall those beautiful summer mornings with my parents by the sandy beach of Belek. My father used to teach me how to ride waves. I remember him constantly emphasizing the fact that no wave, no matter how big it is should stir enough fear inside me to keep me glued to the shore. He used to repeat those words while glancing at my mother with a smile that could set the whole sea on fire. My mother, sitting on the beach, too afraid of the deep blue sea, contented herself with building sand castles, ones my father would step on trying to drag her hopelessly into water.
Step on your sand castle and dive deep. Dive deep into the unknown. Life is damn too short for building sand castles. — Malak El Halabi

But a faithful believer will in all circumstances mediate on the mercy and fatherly goodness of God. — John Calvin

If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack. — William Shakespeare

Before we receive any knowledge of God's Fatherly good will for us, the blood of Christ must intercede for us and restore us to God's favor. Besides, — John Calvin

Will you please talk to him? Have some sort of man-to-man exchange?" Gabriel cleared his throat and placed a fatherly hand on Zeb's shoulder. "Loving family members do not aim for each other's soft tissues. — Molly Harper

Dad phoned to wish us happy anniversary, and I picked up the phone and I was going to play it cool, but then I started crying when I started talking - I was doing the awful chick talk-cry: mwaha-waah-gwwahh-and-waaa-wa - so I had to tell him what happened, and he told me I should open a bottle of wine and wallow in it for a bit. Dad is always a proponent of a good indulgent sulk. Still, Nick will be angry that I told Rand, and of course Rand will do his fatherly thing, pat Nick on the shoulder and say, "Heard you had some emergency drinking to do on your anniversary, Nicky." And chuckle. So Nick will know, and he will be angry with me because he wants my parents to believe he's perfect - he beams when I tell them stories about what a flawless son-in-law he is. Except for tonight. I know, I know, I'm being a girl. — Gillian Flynn

His first fatherly instinct ripped through his body when he realized with absolute clarity that he would lay down his life without the slightest hesitation if his daughter could just have lived. — Ashley York

I have told you some of his faults, reader: as to his good points, he was one of the most honourable and capable men in Yorkshire; even those who disliked him were forced to respect him. He was much beloved by the poor, because he was thoroughly kind and very fatherly to them. To his workmen he was considerate and cordial. When he dismissed them from an occupation, he would try to set them on to something else, or, if that was impossible, help them to remove with their families to a district where work might possibly be had. — Charlotte Bronte

He's alright. He's fine, Dad says, his usual line whenever Oliver gets hurt. It means: Go away. Don't baby him. Don't show too much compassion. The other dads do this too. It's some kind of group hysteria, based on some fatherly fear that says compassion equals homosexuality. — Deb Caletti

Without warning he had become witness to something that stretched back through the eons, ties both elastic and enduring, surpassing death, surpassing life. She was his child. It was as simple as that and that complex. — Kim Harrison

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived. — Wayne Dyer

There is nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either. — Dean Koontz

looked up at me. Very content with herself, she opened her mouth, showed me the great job she did on me--- by holding all of my cum in her mouth. Once she got a real nasty look at me, only then she finally felt satisfied enough to swallow it, wetting her lips and savoring the after taste. I simply looked at her with my head tilted sideways. You....fucking...slut. If only I could have said that out loud, but as a hell of a compliment. "Knock knock knock..." There goes the door again. "Okay, that's it! Get the fuck up, now!" My fatherly instinct came over me for a moment as I dragged her off her feet and zipped my pants-- a bit of a bulge still relatively visible under my pants. I pulled my shirt down as a last ditch effort. I approached the front door and opened it with curiosity. "Sorry, — Destiny Wild

You know how we tell the good guys from the bad guys? The bad guys shoot at us.
Best lesson my father ever taught me. — Rick Yancey

And you can do far more for us from America than you can from here, where you're just another defenseless Christian. So if you really want to help, Inas, then you'll go to the very best school you can get into and earn the best grades you can. — Zack Love

As dad would always say, when in doubt- play for time. — Nick Bantock

In the cross, the Christian has seen the special Providence of God. He has,in forgiving and regenerating grace, experienced Providence in his heart. From this new,positive experience in his own life, he looks out over his entire existence and over the whole world, and sees there the leading of God's fatherly hand. — H. Bavinck

I admit, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler. He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend. — Traudl Junge

I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them. — Gillian Flynn

One may not be able to fulfill a fatherly role with one's own child, but on the other hand, and this goes for me as well, one might still be a "father of choice" to someone else out there in the world. Fatherhood is something that can be shared worldwide. Meaning that in terms of the substance of a father's role, perhaps we are all pseudo-fathers. — Mamoru Hosoda

A human being not only can choose but ... he must choose ... for in this way God retains His honor while at the same time has a fatherly concern for humankind. Though God has lowered Himself to being that which can be chosen, yet each person must on his part choose. God is not mocked. Therefore the matter stands thus: If a person avoids choosing, this is the same as the presumption of choosing the world. — Soren Kierkegaard

God's Fatherly prerogative, is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King's crown is forgotten in the King's face, and His sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy - the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of Him who wields it. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Alright, listen up. I'm supposed to give you some fatherly and wise advice at this time in your life. Listen up, if you're wondering if a boy's thinking about you, he's not. He's thinking about sex, or he's hungry: those are the only two options. — Eric Taylor

Call "piety" that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces. For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him - they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him. — John Calvin

Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. — Jeremiah Burroughs

As far as Martin [Luther] himself is concerned, O good God, what have we overlooked or not done? What fatherly charity have we omitted that we might call him back from such errors? — Pope Leo X

Gratitude consists of a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the multitudes of God's gifts, taken one by one. It fills us with a consciousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life. It is a blessed thought that from our childhood God has been laying his fatherly hands upon us, and always in benediction, and that even the strokes of his hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received. — Henry Edward Manning

Yet, although he could not quite work this out in simple terms in his own mind, the very savour of life, he thought, was itself enhanced if it were not totally taken for granted. Perhaps it was something to do with the whole philosophy of the world into which we were born. If we lived for ever, who would look forward eagerly to tomorrow? If there were no darkness, should we appreciate the sun? Warmth after cold, food after hunger, drink after thirst, sexual love after the absence of sexual love, the fatherly greeting after being away, the comfort and dryness of home after a ride in the rain, the warmth and peace and security of one's fireside after being among enemies. Unless there was contrast there might be satiety. — Winston Graham

Your father says a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountaintop. — Deborah Harkness

This child is not mine as the first was; I cannot sing it to rest; I cannot lift it up fatherly, And bless it upon my breast. Yet it lies in my little one's cradle, And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she 's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. — James Russell Lowell

You should have called us. Desmond would have picked you up.'
'No I wouldn't,' Valkyrie's dad said, stepping into earshot. 'Sorry, Fletcher, but I had important fatherly duties to take care of, which included eating breakfast, showering, and finding my trousers. Of those three, I only managed two. Without looking down, can you guess which one I missed?' ... Fletcher smiled back. 'I just want to borrow Stephanie for a moment.'
'Take our daughter,' Valkryie's dad said, waving a hand airily. 'We have another one now. — Derek Landy

Oleander will kill you quickly. Azaleas, ingested, take a few hours. Vomiting, paralysis, seizures, coma, death. Then there's savin, henbane, foxglove, jimsonweed ... all here in Pico Mundo."
"And we call her Mother Nature."
"There's nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either," Ozzie said. — Dean Koontz

["Manning Up"'s] essays definitely nuance the idea of transitioning into a "shared manhood" (much like feminists of color have complicated the idea of "shared womanhood"). Trans men don't all transition to just become "men," which was one of the projects' cornerstone concepts. They become black men, white men, queer men, straight men, working class men, affluent men, fatherly men, single men, spiritual men, etc. etc. All of these mean different things when filtered through social and intimate, familial lenses.

One major boon of the growth in transgender literature ... is that we get to tease out these complexities in lives that will be popularly portrayed as monolithic unless we provide counter-scripts."

- from a National Book Critics Circle interview with writer Rigoberto Gonzalez — Mitch Kellaway

How anyone, in view of the protracted sufferings of the race, can invest the laws of the universe with a tender loving fatherly intelligence, watching, guiding and protecting humanity, is to me amazing. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

[I'll teach you] how not to leave the windows of your heart open when it looks like rain and how everyone has a stump where something necessary was amputated. — Steve Toltz

In fact, once when I imprinted on a young lady's lips a chaste and fatherly kiss for about five minutes, I stopped and said, sorrowfully, "Wouldn't you rather be kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy?"
She frowned and said, "Of course not. If you'd ever been kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy you'd know better than to ask."
Remember that. In any direct competition, the old man is bound to win and the young man knows it. — Isaac Asimov

Rolando pursed his lips and sighed. "Just be careful."

"Why, because her father carries a gun?" Isaac said. "Aren't you the one who always said guns don't shoot people?"

"No, it was you who said that." Rolando corrected his son. "I've said fathers with guns and beautiful daughters shoot people. Boys in particular."

"You worry too much, dad."

"One day, when you are a father, you will understand. — Felix Alexander

Get some ice on that." "I will." She turned toward the house, steady enough. "You get nauseated or have blurry vision, tell Greta." Abigail started to nod, then checked the motion. He hoped she wouldn't overdo it. He'd known one too many cowboys to take a fall, keep working, then keel over later. "Lie down and take it easy," Wade called. "Yes, Dad," Abigail said saucily. Wade clamped his lips together. Last thing he wanted was Abigail thinking fatherly thoughts of him. Heaven knew, his own weren't going that direction. — Denise Hunter

Bless, O Lord of the centuries and the millennia, the daily work by which men and women provide bread for themselves and their loved ones. We also offer to your fatherly hands the toil and sacrifices associated with work, in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed human work from the yoke of sin and restored it to its original dignity. — Pope John Paul II

Why do I love the thought of you old? That first twinge of arthiritis in your knee is a thing I imagine with all the tenderness I felt when you showed me your loose tooth. I wish I could help you carry the weight of many years. But the Lord will have that fatherly satisfaction. — Marilynne Robinson

holy despair in ourselves is the basis for true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos. 14:3). If men were more fatherless, they should feel more God's fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15). — Richard Sibbes

Interrupting what promised to be a long spate of fatherly advice, St. Vincent said in a clipped voice, "It's not a love match. It's a marriage of convenience, and there's not enough warmth between us to light a birthday candle. Get on with it, if you please. Neither of us has had a proper sleep in two days."
Silence fell over the scene, with MacPhee and his two daughters appearing shocked by the brusque remarks. Then the blacksmith's heavy brows lowered over his eyes in a scowl. "I don't like ye," he announced.
St. Vincent regarded him with exasperation. "Neither does my bride-to-be. But since that's not going to stop her from marrying me, it shouldn't stop you either. Go on. — Lisa Kleypas

You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human which I devoutly hope you never will have. "The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." There are pleasures to be found where you would never look for them. That's a bit of fatherly wisdom, but it's also the Lord's truth, and a thing I know from my own long experience — Marilynne Robinson

You have to learn what makes this or that Sammy run. For one it's a pat on the back, for another it's eating him out, for still another it's a fatherly talk, or something else. You're a fool if you think as I did as a young coach, that you can treat them all alike. — Bear Bryant

O Lord, give all of us new hearts, open and obedient to you: hearts that love our neighbor and pray to you for our church. Lord, give us a good beginning; open your fatherly heart to us and lead us, one day, home to your kingdom of eternal reconciliation, through Christ the Lord! Amen. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

But the events that transpired on those various dates did not throw the city of Moscow into upheaval. When the page was torn from the calendar, the bedroom windows did not suddenly shine with the light of a million electric lamps; that Fatherly gaze did not suddenly hang over every desk and appear in every dream; nor did the drivers of a hundred Black Marias turn the keys in their ignitions and fan out into the shadowy streets. For the launch of the First Five-Year Plan, Bukharin's fall from grace, and the expansion of the Criminal Code to allow the arrest of anyone even countenancing dissension, these were only tidings, omens, underpinnings. And it would be a decade before their effects were fully felt. No. — Amor Towles

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

If you can't do what you really want to do, then do the next best thing! — Stacey Culpepper

She wanted the man who held his infant daughter in his arms with fatherly affection, the man who could talk to her for hours and hours on a blanket in the grass,laid out under the trees.that man for some reason was out of reach. — Julianne MacLean

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl the fatherhood of God lies behind everything. This apparent chaotic world is not chaotic at all; if we step back and take it all in with the right perspective, we see that it is an intricately designed carnival ride. There is a fatherly purpose in it: it turns out that we thought we were being born into a world full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but what was happening is that our Father was taking us to a particularly spectacular fair with some really gnarly rides. In — Douglas Wilson

To deny the force of divine judgment, then, is to make God less than God, and to make us less than His children. For every father must discipline His children, and paternal discipline is itself a mercy, a fatherly expression of love. — Scott Hahn

He chuckles. "I won't pry, but I should probably get some discipline in here somewhere. Or some fatherly advice. What's your poison?"
See? Cool Dad. I stand up, shakin' my head. "Just tell me how one girl can make me act like a psycho, then I'll be on my way."
"You know, I'm still tryin' to figure that out. — Becca Ann

The Road is not a record of fatherly fidelity; it is a testament to the abyss of a parent's greatest fears. The fear of leaving your child alone, of dying before your child has reached adulthood and learned to work the mechanisms and face the dangers of the world, or found a new partner to face them with. The fear of one day being obliged for your child's own good, for his peace and comfort, to do violence to him or even end his life. And, above all, the fear of knowing - as every parent fears - that you have left your children a world more damaged, more poisoned, more base and violent and cheerless and toxic, more doomed, than the one you inherited. It is in the audacity and single-mindedness with which The Road extends the metaphor of a father's guilt and heartbreak over abandoning his son to shift for himself in a ruined, friendless world that The Road finds its great power to move and horrify the reader. — Michael Chabon

The flowers, the candles, the easy swing of the music, his daughter's perfectly made-up face, her artfully arranged hair, the swell of her pregnancy - it all cried out for love, for pride, for fatherly tenderness, even if Daphne would not look at him, even if she had walled herself up with her happiness and left him outside. He did not know how to make her forgive him. He would have to wait. — Maggie Shipstead

HAVE YOU EVER REALLY EMBARRASSED YOURSELF? Don't answer that, stupid. It's a rhetorical question. Of course you've embarrassed yourself. Everybody has. I bet the pope has. If you were to say to the pope: "Your Holy Worshipfulness, I bet you've pulled some blockheaded boners in your day, huh?" he'd smile that warm, knowing, fatherly smile he has, and then he'd wave. He can't hear a word you're saying, up on that balcony. — Dave Barry

That's all kids want to know - that you love them. — Kim Harrison

Standing in the beam of refrigerator light, Malcolm squirted ketchup into his mouth.
"He's ... visiting," I said.
Vincent narrowed his eyes and his voice took on a fatherly tone. "Why's he here at midnight?"
Malcolm licked the inside of a mustard lid, then said, "I'm here at midnight because I'm fulfilling Katrina's desire. — Suzanne Selfors

In accusing me of being a damnable sinner, you are cutting your own throat, Satan. You are reminding me of God's fatherly goodness toward me, that He so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In calling me a sinner, Satan, you really comfort me above measure. — Martin Luther

Some will be always strong, and some will be always weak; and though, if there is no God, no divine and fatherly source of order, there will be, trust me, no aristocracies, there will still be tyrannies. There will still be rich and poor; and that will then mean happy and miserable; and the poor will be--as I sometimes think they are already--but a mass of groaning machinery, without even the semblance of rationality; and the rich, with only the semblance of it, but a set of gaudy, dancing marionettes, which is the machinery's one work to keep in motion. — William Hurrell Mallock

We know, then, what human father-hood ought to look like on the basis of how our Father God behaves toward us. But the reverse is also true. We see something of the way our God is fatherly toward us through our relationships with human fathers. — Russell D. Moore

What is this thing called a kiss? French, tongue, soul, chaste, motherly, fatherly, brotherly, sisterly, ass, genital, Judas, trembling, rough, hesitant, sweet, soft, wet, dying, fevered, good-night, farewell, burning, and chocolate. — Gilbert Sorrentino