“You will always love, and you will always be loved.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Quotes For Father
A collection of quotes on the topic of family, for parents, for father, father.
Best quotes for father
“It's easier to build strong children then repair broken men.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman
Variant: It is easier to build strong men, than to repair broken ones.
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
“The pain passes but the beauty remains.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor
As quoted in: Instituto Nacional de Previsión (Spain) (1974). 6.o Congreso Internacional de Medicina Fisica: 2-6 julio 1974. p. 424
Renoir replied to Matisse, who had asked him why he persisted in painting at the expense of such torture.
undated quotes
“To live in the hearts we leave behind is to live forever.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator
Source: Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
“There is another world, but it is in this one.”
Paul Éluard (1895–1952) French poet
Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci...
Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Gallimard, 1968.
“the purpose of life is the life of purpose”
Robin S. Sharma book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“There are no have-to's, just choices”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Quotes For Father
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Variant: Life can only be understood going backward, but must be lived going forward.
“It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States
"The Poet's Story," January 1, 1972 entry
A Small Journal (1974)
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer
Source: In Country Sleep, and Other Poems
“If there is a good will, there is great way.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Not found in Twain's works, this was attributed to him in Reader's Digest (September 1939): no prior attribution known. Mark Twain’s father died when Twain was eleven years old.
Disputed
Variant: 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 the old man had learned in seven years.
“To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.”
Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer
Hallowed Ground (1825)
Variant: To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
“My father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic.”
Spike Milligan (1918–2002) British-Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor
“A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.”
Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
Robert Byrne (1928–2013) American chess player and writer
“I was not, I lived and loved, I am not.”
Eric Rücker Eddison book A Fish Dinner in Memison
A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941)
Context: The black arrowed swoop of the moment swung high into the unceilinged future, ten, fifty, sixty years, may be: then, past seeing, up to that warmthless unconsidered mock-time, when nothing shall be left but the memorial that fits all (except, if there be, the most unhappiest) of human kind: I was not, I lived and loved, I am not.
Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
2010s, 2013, Interview in La Repubblica
Context: I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being.
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer
So when I was working in kitchens, I did good work.
As quoted in the New York Times Magazine (11 September 1994).
“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature. ”
Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist
“Love life more than the meaning of it.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Los hermanos Karamazov
Source: The Brothers Karamazov (Bratři Karamazovi)
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie (1997)
Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird
Pt. 1, ch. 11
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”
Jim Valvano (1946–1993) American basketball player-coach
“Death ends a life, not a relationship”
Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Attributed to Reverend Theodore Hesburgh in Sol Gordon Let's Make Sex a Household Word: A Guide for Parents and Children (John Day Company, 1975), p. 79
Misattributed
“To be as good as our fathers we must be better.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer
1880s, The Scholar in a Republic (1881)
“The important thing is to be nothing.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)
“There are many kinds of success in life worth having.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. IX : Outdoors and Indoors, p. 336; the final statement "quoted by Squire Bill Widener" as well as variants of it, are often misattributed to Roosevelt himself.
Variant: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Attributed to Roosevelt in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason, Nugget # 8 : The Only Place to Start is Where You Are. <!-- The Military Quotation Book, Revised and Expanded: More than 1,200 of the Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory, and Defeat (2002) by James Charlton -->
Context: There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."
“Fatherhood is great because you can ruin someone from scratch.”
Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian
"Late Night with Conan O'Brien," January 29, 2009
“Love is the whole and more than all.”
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
Source: 100 Selected Poems
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
Source: The Woman Destroyed
“The past is the father of the present.”
Agatha Christie book Hallowe'en Party
Source: Hallowe'en Party
“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
“I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God.”
William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying
Source: As I Lay Dying
“it's wrong to be right; it's right to be wrong.”
Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
On his 75th birthday (1947), in reply to a question on whether he was afraid of death, quoted in the N. Y. Times Magazine on November 1, 1964, p. 40 according to Quote It Completely! (1998), Gerhart, Wm. S. Hein Publishing, p. 262 ISBN 1575884003
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Joseph Roux (1834–1905) French poet
Part 9, LIV
Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866)
“Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind.”
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer
Quote as translated in The Encyclopedia of Religion Vol. 11 (1987), by Mircea Eliade, p. 459
The Ash Wednesday Supper (1584)
“The business of business is business.”
Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman
Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
Robert Hayden (1913–1980) American writer and academic
Those Winter Sundays (lines 1-5), from Collected Poems (1985)
“The future was not what it used to be.”
K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 13 (p. 156)
“Everything happens for me, not to me.”
Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)
“Man knows that love is, but not what it is.”
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian
Divine Love and Wisdom #1
“Where there is the will, we can make it.”
Jiang Yi-huah (1960) Taiwanese politician
Jiang Yi-huah (2014) cited in " Jiang seeks to boost tourism numbers to 10 million http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/01/03/2003580395" on Taipei Times, 3 January 2014
“The business of business is business.”
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer
Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer
Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin
Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer
Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin
“What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”
Robert Hayden (1913–1980) American writer and academic
Those Winter Sundays (lines 13-14)
“Nothing’s different, but everything has changed.”
Charles de Lint (1951) author
“The Forever Trees”, p. 331
The Ivory and the Horn (1996)
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
Clive Staples Lewis book A Grief Observed
First line.
A Grief Observed (1961)