Top 80 Fatherhood Quotes

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Fatherhood is the greatest job a man can have. However, it is also one of the hardest ones that you can have. With that in mind, check out the top 80 fatherhood quotes.

#80 – 70. Fatherhood Quotes

80. “One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” George Herbert

79. “A child enters your home and for the next twenty years makes so much noise you can hardly stand it. The child departs, leaving the house so silent you think you are going mad.” John Andrew Holmes

78. “Every son’s first superhero is his father, and it was the same for me. For me, he was Superman and Batman combined.” Tiger Shroff

77. “To her, the name of father was another name for love.” Fanny Fern

76. “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” Emilie Buchwald

75. “Noble fathers have noble children.” Euripides

74. “His values embraced family, reveled in the social mingling of the kitchen, and above all, welcomed the loving disorder of children.” John Cole

73. “To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.” Euripides

72. “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” Theodore Hesburgh

71. “A family needs a father to anchor it.” L. Tom Perry

70. “Every parent is at some point the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.” John Ciardi

#69 – 60. Fatherhood Quotes

69. “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

68. “It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.” Pope John XXIII

67. “A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.” Unknown

66. “I cannot think of any need in children as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” Sigmund Freud

65. “If there is any immortality to be had among us human beings, it is certainly only in the love that we leave behind. Fathers like mine don’t ever die.” Leo Buscaglia

64. “By profession I am a soldier and take great pride in that fact, but I am also prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys.” General Douglas MacArthur

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

62. “The lone father is not a strong father. Fathering is a difficult and perilous journey and is done well with the help of other men.” John L. Hart

61. “Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, and singers of song.” Pam Brown

60. “‘Father’ is the noblest title a man can be given. It is more than a biological role. It signifies a patriarch, a leader, an exemplar, a confidant, a teacher, a hero, a friend.” Robert L. Backman

#59 – 50. Fatherhood Quotes

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

58. “Father! To God Himself we cannot give a holier name.” William Wordsworth

57. “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” Sigmund Freud

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

55. “The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you’re unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.” John Green

54. “Never fret for an only son. The idea of failure will never occur to him.” George Bernard Shaw

53. “One of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” Howard W. Hunter

52. “Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.” Charles Kettering

51. “Parenthood remains the single greatest preserve of the amateur.” Alvin Toffler

50. “Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.” John Wilmot

#49 – 40. Fatherhood Quotes

49. “Of all the titles I’ve been privileged to have, ‘Dad’ has always been the best.” Ken Norton

48. “The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family.” Reed Markham

47. “Some dads liken the impending birth of a child to the beginning of a great journey.” Marcus Jacob Goldman

46. “Mostly you just have to keep plugging and keep lovingand hoping that your child forgives you according to how you loved him, judged him, forgave him, and stood watching over him as he slept, year after year.” Ben Stein

45. “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.

44. “Children of the new millennium when change is likely to continue and stress will be inevitable, are going to need, more than ever, the mentoring of an available father.” Ian Grant

43. “The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be seen never doing that of which you would admonish them.” Plato

42. “He adopted a role called being a father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a protector.” Tom Wolfe

41. “Until you have a son of your own… you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son.” Kent Nerburn

40. “No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, what anything means, until he has a child and loves it.” Lafcadio Hearn

#39 – 30. Fatherhood Quotes

39. “The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams, and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family.” Reed Markham

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

37. “Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow.” Reed Markham

36. “His father watched him across the gulf of years and pathos which always divide a father from his son.” John Marquand

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

34. “A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be.” Frank A. Clark

33. “Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.” Friedrich Nietzsche

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

31. “When I looked at you first I saw not your mother and me, but your two grandfathers . . . and, as my father, whom I loved a great deal, had died the year before, I was moved to see that here, in you, he was alive.” Peter Carey

30. “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.” Wade Boggs

#29 – 20. Fatherhood Quotes

29. “My father always said there are four things a child needs: plenty of love, nourishing food, regular sleep, and lots of soap and water. After that, what he needs most is some intelligent neglect.” Ivy Baker Priest

28. “When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.” William Shakespeare

27. “Son, there are times a man has to do things he doesn’t like to, in order to protect his family.” Ralph Moody

26. “Words have an awesome impact. The impression made by a father’s voice can set in motion an entire trend of life.” Gordon MacDonald

25. “Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.” Frank Pittman

24. “When you’re a dad, there’s no one above you. If I don’t do something that has to be done, who is going to do it?” Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

23. “Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.” Plato

22. “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” Anne Frank

21. “We think our Fathers Fools, so wise we grow; Our wiser Sons, no doubt, will think us so.” Alexander Pope

20. “Like so much between fathers and sons, playing catch was tender and tense at the same time.” Donald Hall

#19 – 10. Fatherhood Quotes

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

18. “Children need models rather than critics.” Joseph Joubert

17. “Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” Robert Fulghum

16. “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” Umberto Eco

15. “If the past cannot teach the present, and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.” Russell Hoban

14. “Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.” Joseph Addison

13. “Life doesn’t come with an instruction book  that’s why we have fathers.” H. Jackson Browne

12. “A real man loves his wife, and places his family as the most important thing in life. Nothing has brought me more peace and content in life than simply being a good husband and father.” Frank Abagnale

11. “Children are a poor man’s riches.” English proverb

10. “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

#9 – 1. Fatherhood Quotes

9. “When my son looks up at me and breaks into his wonderful toothless smile, my eyes fill up and I know that having him is the best thing I will ever do.” Dan Greenberg

8. “A girl’s father is the first man in her life, and probably the most influential.” David Jeremiah

7. “A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.” Billy Graham

6. “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass

5. “When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.” The Talmud

4. “You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s.” Robert Frost

3. “A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.” Billy Graham

2. “It’s only when you grow up and step back from himor leave him for your own homeit’s only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it.” Margaret Truman

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

Ideas for the top 80 fatherhood quotes come from the following sources.^[1]Success – 13 Loving Quotes About Fatherhood^[2]artofmanliness – The Best Quotes on Fatherhood^[3]The Good Men Project – 50 Quotes on What it Means to Be a Father