Father's Day quotes with their real sources
Father's Day quotes tend to be either sugary or misattributed. These are checked against their sources, and several have a sense of humor, which suits most dads better than poetry.
One of the Ten Commandments: treat your parents with respect and care. It is the first commandment that comes with a promise, a long life in the land.
Read the full explanation →Telemachus, whose father Odysseus left for war when he was a baby, says he has only his mother's word for who his father is. No child can be completely sure.
Read the full explanation →A joke turned into a proverb: even a father may not truly know his child. Shakespeare reverses the older saying that it is a wise child who knows its own father.
Read the full explanation →Don't borrow money and don't lend it, because a loan can cost you both the money and the friend, and borrowing makes you careless with what you have.
Read the full explanation →The person we are as children shapes the adult we become. Wordsworth hopes his grown-up self will keep the wonder he felt as a child seeing a rainbow.
Read the full explanation →The habits and values children learn early stay with them for life, so guide them well while they are young.
Read the full explanation →Parents bring children into the world and love them, but do not own them. Children have their own thoughts and their own future, and a parent's job is to send them forward, like a bow sending an arrow.
Read the full explanation →No quotes match these filters yet. New quotes are added every week.
How to use a quote on Father's Day
Keep it short. Many fathers are more comfortable with a joke than a speech, so a witty line from Shakespeare or Homer followed by a sincere sentence often lands better than a long tribute.
Make it specific. After the quote, mention one thing he did: the lifts to practice, the advice you ignored and later followed, the way he fixes things. The detail is what makes the card worth keeping.
If you want to use the famous "when I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant" line, use it, but credit it as an old joke rather than to Mark Twain. His own father died when he was eleven.