Quotes about father
page 19

Julian of Norwich photo
Bill Hybels photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Eric Trump photo

“My father's simple message - it's not an anti-Muslim message, it's [an] anti-terror message, you know, we have ISIS and they're running in rampant around the world and we have to do something about it.”

Eric Trump (1984) American businessman and philanthropist

Eric Trump weighs in on father's feud with fallen soldier's parents https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eric-trump-weighs-in-on-his-fathers-comments-on-the-khan-family/ (August 2, 2016)

Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: Don't stop on account of me. [Starts singing "Happy Birthday" to Rey's daughter, who is scared]. Rey, you look scared, but I assure you I'm not out here to hurt you, and I'm not out here to hurt your family. In fact, I'm happy that we're all here – my family and yours. And today's a big day, we all need to celebrate the occasion, and it doesn't get any bigger that WrestleMania, Rey, so that's exactly why I wanna challenge you to a match at WrestleMania. I also wanna challenge you to a match tonight. And I don't mean later in the show, Rey. I mean now. I mean, as in, right now!
Rey: Come on Punk. This ain't the time
Punk: Don't be sad. Aaliyah, since it's your birthday, sweet, innocent little Aaliyah, I'll tell you what. As my birthday present to you, I'll let you shut your eyes while I reduce your daddy to tears and make him beg for my mercy. And Dominik. You're such… you're all grown up now, aren't you? We watched you grow up before our very eyes, but I don't think you ever heard your father squeal like a pig from somebody repeatedly stomping his surgically repaired knees, so it's okay if you plug your ears. And beautiful, voluptuous Angie. Now I'm sure you and your loving husband Rey have shared the best of times. But look at me. I promise you, after I do what I'm going to do to your husband, it will be the worst of times. So feel free to cup your hand over your mouth to muffle the screams. What's the matter, Rey? Don't you wanna fight me in front of your family? No? Are you afraid that your family's gonna watch you get hurt? You're a coward! I know it; deep down inside, Dominik knows it; your wife has always known; and now on her 9th birthday, your sweet innocent little Aaliyah knows it. All these people here know it, Rey, you're a coward! What's it gonna take? Huh, Rey? Where's Giant-Killer Rey Mysterio at? [Crowd chants "619"] Where's your 619, huh, Rey? Where's the ultimate underdog, Rey? Rey, where's your machismo? Where's your machismo, Rey?! I'll tell you where, Rey. Your machismo, your courage – you never had it. What's it gonna take, Rey? Huh? Rey, I'll even drop down to your level, Rey. [Gets down on his knees] Come on, Rey! So, you're turning me down? You won't fight me? What's it gonna take, Rey? [Gets up] What's it gonna take, Rey?! Not now?! Not now?! [Slaps Rey across the face] [Rey then walks away very frustrated with his family. ] Come on, Rey! Come on, now! There he is, ladies and gentlemen! There's your superhero!
Striker: He's got no alternative but to protect his family.
Punk: Watch him take his walk of shame! But one more thing, sweet little princess Aaliyah… [Sings "Happy Birthday" to her in a disturbing type way. ]”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

March 12, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Steven Pressfield photo
Walter Scott photo

“A mother's pride, a father's joy.”

Canto III, stanza 15.
Rokeby (1813)

Hemu photo
Koila Nailatikau photo

“For all I know this has come very late in the day and it's a bit too late … Had my father been here, I believe he would have respected and upheld the rule of law.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

7 May 2005
On the government's proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, 7 May, 2005

“My father would take me to the playground, and put me on mood swings.”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

One-liners

Siegfried Sassoon photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“He knelt him down on the new-raised mound,
His face was bowed on the cold damp ground,
He raised his head, his tears were done,
The father had prayed o'er his only son!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Soldier's Funeral from The London Literary Gazette (16th November 1822)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Sigmund Freud photo
Walther von der Vogelweide photo

“For many call Thee Father, who
Will not own me as brother too.”

Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) Middle High German lyric poet

Dich heizet vater maniger vil,
swer mîn ze bruoder niht enwil.
"Swer âne vorhte, hêrre got", line 4; translation by I. G. Colvin, from James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin (eds.) The Portable Medieval Reader (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977) p. 194.

Sigmund Freud photo

“The sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense and the father is perceived as an obstacle to the; this gives rise to the Oedipus complex.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

1920s, The Ego and the Id (1923)

Bill Bryson photo
Mukesh Ambani photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Benjamin Franklin photo
Robin Lane Fox photo

“Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, except the Spartans…, as Sparta did not consider it to be her fathers' practice to follow, but to lead.”

Robin Lane Fox (1946) Historian, educator, writer, gardener

Source: Alexander the Great, 1973, p.123

Husayn ibn Ali photo
John Calvin photo
Neil Peart photo
Hans Christian Andersen photo
Charles Kingsley photo
Warren Farrell photo

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

Jim Elliot (1927–1956) Martyred Christian missionary to Ecuador

Journal excerpt from Shadow of the Almighty (1989) by Elisabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot, Summer 1948

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Plutarch photo

“Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. "Yes," said he, "if there were any kings there to run with me."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

41 Alexander
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Charles Dickens photo
Harry Turtledove photo

“A fellow with a great voice shouted, "Hearken now to the words of the President of the Confederate States of America, the honorable Woodrow Wilson." The president turned this way and that, surveying the great swarm of people all around him in the moment of silence the volley had brought. Then, swinging back to face the statue of George Washington- and, incidentally, Reginald Bartlett- he said, "The father of our country warned us against entangling alliances, a warning that served us well when we were yoked to the North, before its arrogance created in our Confederacy what had never existed before- a national consciousness. That was our salvation and our birth as a free and independent country." Silence broke then, with a thunderous outpouring of applause. Wilson raised a bony right hand. Slowly, silence, of a semblance of it, returned. The president went on, "But our birth of national consciousness made the United States jealous, and they tried to beat us down. We found loyal friends in England and France. Can we now stand aside when the German tyrant threatens to grind them under his iron heel?" "No!" Bartlett shouted himself hoarse, along with thousands of his countrymen. Stunned, deafened, he had trouble hearing what Wilson said next: "Jealous still, the United States in their turn also developed a national consciousness, a dark and bitter one, as any so opposed to ours must be." He spoke not like a politician inflaming a crowd but like a professor setting out arguments- he had taken one path before choosing the other. "The German spirit of arrogance and militarism has taken hold in the United States; they see only the gun as the proper arbiter between nations, and their president takes Wilhelm as his model. He struts and swaggers and acts the fool in all regards."”

Now he sounded like a politician; he despised Theodore Roosevelt, and took pleasure in Roosevelt's dislike for him.
Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 32

Charles-François Daubigny photo

“I have bought at Auverse thirty perches of land, all covered with beans, on which I shall plant some legs of mutton when you come to see me. They are building me a studio there, some eight by six meters, with several rooms around it, which will serve me, I hope, next Spring [of 1861]. Father Corot has found Auvers very fine, and has engaged me to fix myself there for a part of the year, wishing to make rustic landscapes with figures. I shall be truly well of there, in the midst of a good farming country, where the ploughs do not yet go by steam.”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878) French painter

Quote in his letter to his friend Frédéric Henriet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric+Henriet&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=dt4h140y68u3oxynlcr55rftr#/media/File:Eaux-fortes._(Frontispiece)_(NYPL_b12616975-1690388).jpg, 1860; as cited in 'Charles-francois Daubigny', by Robert J. Wichenden, in The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 335
Daubigny bought property in Auvers-sur-Oise in 1860; four years later Corot would decorate there his Villa des Vallées, with beautiful murals.
1840s - 1850s

John Updike photo
Lewis Pugh photo

“My own feeling was that witnessing the explosion of an atomic bomb, and having to examine all the dead animals, had a profound effect on my father.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 12
Achieving The Impossible (2010)

David Graeber photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
William Blake photo

“My mother groan'd! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud:
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Infant Sorrow, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Sun Myung Moon photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo

“Our Christian God, the merciful, forgiving God, the personification of eternal love, our father, as Christ has taught us, had absolutely not the slightest thing in common with the vengeful bloodthirsty, angry old Jaweh of the Jews…the old Jew-God Jaweh is…identical with Satan!”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Letter to Eva Chamberlain-Wagner (14 April 1927), quoted in John C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile 1900-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 1236
1920s

Caligula photo

“There is no question as to who her father is then.”

Caligula (12–41) 3rd Emperor of Ancient Rome, a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

Upon hearing that his daughter, Julia Drusilla had clawed out another child's eyes
Disputed

Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Alain-René Lesage photo
Warren Farrell photo
Simone Weil photo

“Meditation on the chance which led to the meeting of my mother and father is even more salutary than meditation on death.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Chance (1947), p. 277

Ellen G. White photo
Archilochus photo
Albert Einstein photo
Mark Rowlands photo
Bernice King photo

“Our father must be turning in his grave.”

Bernice King (1963) American minister, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Press conference on Nobel Peace Prize and bible sale (2014)

Julian (emperor) photo

“I feel awe of the gods, I love, I revere, I venerate them, and in short have precisely the same feelings towards them as one would have towards kind masters or teachers or fathers or guardians or any beings of that sort.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

"To the Cynic Heracleios" in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1913) edited by W. Heinemann, Vol. II, p. 93
General sources

Nicholas Sparks photo

“No," his father replied, "you ran for you. I just hope you're running toward something, not away from something.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Paul Flanner's father, Chapter 3, p. 24
2000s, Nights in Rodanthe (2002)

John Stuart Mill photo
Bill de Blasio photo

“[about his father] I have a real respect, and a real anger and sadness at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do the math on exactly what it all means.”

Bill de Blasio (1961) American politician and mayor of New York City

quoted by Javier C. Hernandez of The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/nyregion/from-his-fathers-decline-de-blasio-learned-what-not-to-do.html.

Hillary Clinton photo

“I wish [my mother] could have seen the America we’re going to build together. An America, where if you do your part, you reap the rewards. Where we don’t leave anyone out, or anyone behind. An America where a father can tell his daughter: yes, you can be anything you want to be. Even President of the United States.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Campaign kickoff speech (June 13, 2015) https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/campaign-kickoff-speech/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=20150613genius_social#
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Tiffany Trump photo
Ron DeSantis photo
Richard Halliburton photo
Mike Tyson photo

“I'm not a good father. I'm a good man with my kids. I'm very generous with them. I'm very kind to them, but I am not a good father.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

On his family
Source: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2083509&type=story

John Stuart Mill photo
Jane Austen photo
Murray Perahia photo

“In the Bronx, we had three synagogues on one block at 161st Street. My father was Orthodox and we went to the Sephardi one. Further along was the Conservative, the biggest. In between was the Ashkenazi shul. And guess who was their shabbos goy? Colin Powell!”

Murray Perahia (1947) American classical pianist and conductor

Jewish Chronicle interview http://thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m14s150&AId=57994&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=murray%20perahia&srchtxt=1&srchhead=1&srchauthor=1&srchsandp=1&scsrch=999 (8 February 2008)

Emanuel Swedenborg photo
Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton photo
Orson Hyde photo
Elie Wiesel photo
Michelle Obama photo
Sam Harris photo

“This is a common criticism: the idea that the atheist is guilty of a literalist reading of scripture, and that it’s a very naive way of approaching religion, and there’s a far more sophisticated and nuanced view of religion on offer and the atheist is disregarding that. A few problems with this: anyone making that argument is failing to acknowledge just how many people really do approach these texts literally or functionally - whether they’re selective literalists, or literal all the way down the line. There are certain passages in scripture that just cannot be read figuratively. And people really do live by the lights of what is literally laid out in these books. So, the Koran says “hate the infidel” and Muslims hate the infidel because the Koran spells it out ad nauseam. Now, it’s true that you can cherry-pick scripture, and you can look for all the good parts. You can ignore where it says in Leviticus that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night you’re supposed to stone her to death on her father’s doorstep. Most religious people ignore those passages, which really can only be read literally, and say that “they were only appropriate for the time” and “they don’t apply now”. And likewise, Muslims try to have the same reading of passages that advocate holy war. They say “well, these were appropriate to those battles that Mohammed was fighting, but now we don’t have to fight those battles”. This is all a good thing, but we should recognize what’s happening here: people are feeling pressure from a host of all-too-human concerns that have nothing, in principle, to do with God: secularism, and human rights, and democracy, and scientific progress. These have made certain passages in scripture untenable. This is coming from outside religion, and religion is now making a great show of its sophistication in grappling with these pressures. This is an example of religion losing the argument with modernity.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in interview by Big Think (04/07/2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zV3vIXZ-1Y&t=6s
2000s

Willa Cather photo
Maurice de Vlaminck photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Jerzy Vetulani photo

“My father taught me that in scientific work even the most brilliant intelligence won't be useful if it won't be supported by a long, hard work.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Adam Vetulani. 1901–1976. Kraków: Polish Acadcemy of Learning, 2005, p. 77.

Kodo Sawaki photo
John Ashcroft photo
Pauline Kael photo
Julia Gillard photo
Gene Wolfe photo
William Cobbett photo
John Aubrey photo
James Russell Lowell photo
Simon Soloveychik photo

“A son is not a judge of his father, but the conscience of the father is in his son.”

Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) Russia writer and philosopher

Book 1, part 1, ch. 5
Pedagogika dlya vseh (Parenting For Everyone) (1977–1986)

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo

“Ziegler said, “You know the story in the Bible, the story of Abraham and Isaac?”
“Of course.”
“God instructs Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice. Isaac makes it as far as the chopping block before God changes his mind.”
Yes. Jacob had always imagined God a little appalled at Abraham’s willingness to cooperate.
Ziegler said, “What’s the moral of the story?”
“Faith.”
“Hardly,” Ziegler said. “Faith has nothing to do with it. Abraham never doubted the existence of God—how could he? The evidence was ample. His virtue wasn’t faith, it was fealty. He was so simplemindedly loyal that he would commit even this awful, terrible act. He was the perfect foot soldier. The ideal pawn. Abraham’s lesson: fealty is rewarded. Not morality. The fable makes morality contingent. Don’t go around killing innocent people, that is, unless you're absolutely certain God want you to. It’s a lunatic’s credo.
“Isaac, on the other hand, learns something much more interesting. He learns that neither God nor his own father can be trusted. Maybe it makes him a better man than Abraham. Suppose Isaac grows up and fathers a child of his own, and God approaches him and makes the same demand. One imagines Isaac saying, ’No. You can take him if you must, but I won’t slaughter my son for you.’ He’s not the good and faithful servant his father was. But he is, perhaps, a more wholesome human being.””

Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author

The Fields of Abraham (pp. 21-22)
The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)

Victor Villaseñor photo
Mike Tyson photo

“Manuel Mercado Acosta is an indio from the mountains of Durango. His father operated a mescal distillery before the revolutionaries drove him out. He met my mother while riding a motorcycle in El Paso. Juana Fierro Acosta is my mother. She could have been a singer in a Juarez cantina but instead decided to be Manuel’s wife because he had a slick mustache, a fast bike and promised to take her out of the slums across from the Rio Grande. She had only one demand in return for the two sons and three daughters she would bear him: “No handouts. No relief. I never want to be on welfare.” I doubt he really promised her anything in a very loud, clear voice. My father was a horsetrader even though he got rid of both the mustache and the bike when FDR drafted him, a wetback, into the U. S. Navy on June 22, 1943. He tried to get into the Marines, but when they found out he was a good swimmer and a non-citizen they put him in a sailor suit and made him drive a barge in Okinawa. We lived in a two-room shack without a floor. We had to pump our water and use kerosene if we wanted to read at night. But we never went hungry. My old man always bought the pinto beans and the white flour for the tortillas in 100-pound sacks which my mother used to make dresses, sheets and curtains. We had two acres of land which we planted every year with corn, tomatoes and yellow chiles for the hot sauce. Even before my father woke us, my old ma was busy at work making the tortillas at 5:00 A. M. while he chopped the logs we’d hauled up from the river on the weekends.”

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 72.

Nastassja Kinski photo
Steven Erikson photo