Best 165 quotes in «fathers quotes» category

If you have no arms To hold your crying child but your own arms And no legs but your own to run the stairs one more time To fetch what was forgotten I bow to you If you have no vehicle To tote your wee one but the wheels that you drive And no one else to worry, “Is my baby okay?” When you have to say goodbye on the doorsteps of daycare or on that cursed first day of school I bow to you If you have no skill but your own skill To replenish an ever-emptying bank account And no answers but your own to Satisfy the endless whys, hows, and whens your child asks and asks again I bow to you If you have no tongue to tell the truth To keep your beloved on the path without a precipice And no wisdom to impart Except the wisdom that you’ve acquired I bow to you If the second chair is empty Across the desk from a scornful, judging authority waiting For your child’s father to appear And you straighten your spine where you sit And manage to smile and say, “No one else is coming—I’m it.” Oh, I bow to you If your head aches when the spotlight finally shines on your child because your hands are the only hands there to applaud I bow to you If your heart aches because you’ve given until everything in you is gone And your kid declares, “It’s not enough.” And you feel the crack of your own soul as you whisper, “I know, baby. But it’s all mama’s got.” Oh, how I bow to you If they are your life while you are their nurse, tutor, maid Bread winner and bread baker, Coach, cheerleader and teammate… If you bleed when your child falls down I bow, I bow, I bow If you’re both punisher and hugger And your own tears are drowned out by the running of the bathroom faucet because children can’t know that mamas hurt too Oh, mother of mothers, I bow to you. —Toni Sorenson

I grew up watching my father make plates that featured penises as centerpieces. Pink, proud, and stiff, encircled by cerulean Greek key, Dad’s creations made me feel scared and small. I saw a private part of the man I could not measure up to. At six years old, I lived in a world shaded by his ceramic glazes. There was love and color, but anger, too, in the way he kneaded his clay, palms pounding the rich, wet earth into shapes of his choosing.

I knew a lot of fellas who live in Lizzy and never got involved in some of the stuff that we were getting into. This was because they had a strong father figure at home, so they couldn’t have gotten involved. The few of those who did end up in the gang even though their father was in the home, their father was just there as a provider, but he was not directly involved in their lives. Shelton ‘Apples’ Burrows reform gang leader

I had found I could best be a good daughter by making sure my father never guessed what to forbid.

I know that not every family is a clean-cut nuclear Mom and Dad at home situation - but I think every father needs to do whatever he can to be present in the lives of his kids. If you are in a situation where you have not been - fight for it. Don’t give up till you get it. Don’t be a jerk about it - don’t “fight” mom - but “fight” whatever things tell you to just give up. Send cards, make phone calls, pay your support, and do whatever you can to be present in the lives of your children.

I let his voice be my comfort. It bore no trace of pain or self-pity, carrying only good humor and softness and just the tiniest hint of jazz. I lived on it as if it were oxygen. It was sustaining, and it was always enough.

In a patriarchal society, one of the most important functions of the institution of the family is to make feel like a somebody whenever he is in his own yard a man who is a nobody whenever he is in his employer’s yard.

I’m there for my son 24/7, because I don’t want him to take the road we took. I believe if I had a father around, I would’ve learned plenty things. There was no father there to tell me look here son, this is the wrong way to go. When we were coming up, we learned through trial and error. Anthony ‘Ada’ Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders street gang.

It isn't just the physical presence of the father that matters- it's his engagement and involvement. An emotionally remote or rejecting or actively punitive father leads to girls' feeling pretty apprehensive around men.

I shadowed my father a million times before, watching him sneak off to the outskirts, but it never occurred to me to follow my mother—that she would have a life of her own.

In the shop, breathing the scent of dusty grease and oil; in the old house, staring into the living room where Dad and Jake used to take naps together on the couch; in the sheep barn, remembering the joy implicit in so much baaing life; in every inch of the farm, I recalled my father’s presence.

It’s time we stand up and demand more of the fathers of this world. It’s time we stop buying into their rationalizations and their sorry explanations. It’s time we give our kids a fighting chance.

It was as if someone had left the bird there as a kind of telegram of feathers, oily feathers that looked like they’d struggled, shuttered a little before letting go into flight forever.

It was a fact generally acknowledged by all but the most contumacious spirits at the beginning of the seventeenth century that woman was the weaker vessel; weaker than man, that is. ... That was the way God had arranged Creation, sanctified in the words of the Apostle. ... Under the common law of England at the accession of King James I, no female had any rights at all (if some were allowed by custom). As an unmarried woman her rights were swallowed up in her father's, and she was his to dispose of in marriage at will. Once she was married her property became absolutely that of her husband. What of those who did not marry? Common law met that problem blandly by not recognizing it. In the words of The Lawes Resolutions [the leading 17th century compendium on women's legal status]: 'All of them are understood either married or to be married.' In 1603 England, in short, still lived in a world governed by feudal law, where a wife passed from the guardianship of her father to her husband; her husband also stood in relation to her as a feudal lord.

I’ve watched my dad move our family from extreme poverty to extreme wealth and then everywhere in between. Never once did I see or hear him be anything but a cheerleader for the accomplishments of others. It didn’t matter if he was down or up in life, he wanted everybody around him to succeed. I’ve even watched him praise the very people that have tried to destroy him over the years and then very publicly wish them success and happiness. He taught me the enthusiasm that should always come at the success of others. He constantly taught me that when others succeed, it gives us all more opportunity to succeed. He taught me that when there is conflict, minor or major, you can almost always walk away at the end with a handshake.

It was Sunday, and Mumma had gone next door with Lena and the little ones. Under the pepper tree in the yard Pa was sorting, counting, the empty bottles he would sell back: the bottles going clink clink as Pa stuck them in the sack. The fowls were fluffing in the dust and sun: that crook-neck white pullet Mumma said she would hit on the head if only she had the courage to; but she hadn't.

I will see my father in every anger.

Many fathers believe the lie that they play a second-class role to the mother. If you are a father, I want to remind you that your children want and need you. You are critical to their well-being and success.

Man is man.

Loving my son, building my son, touching my son, playing with my son, being with my son… these aren’t tasks that only super dads can perform. These are tasks that every dad should perform. Always. Without fail.

My special possessions are my sacred family.

Maybe not. But maybe that's how the world changes, Isaiah. One father, one child, at a time.

My father, that silhouette, a form comprised of all I did not know, a shape filled with rain. "Whenever I asked, she'd say, 'You had no father. I'm your father. You sprang full-blown from my forehead, like Athena.

n Dogter leer haarself deur die oë van 'n pa ken, het sy eenkeer gelees. Met 'n ma is daar soms 'n subteks. Maar 'n pa se oë is sag. Daar is geen verwagting nie, net aanvaarding.

My own view of Father was not nearly so high-flown or complicated. For me he was flesh and blood and until the day I left Memphis behind, to take up residence in Manhattan, he remained simply a barrier between me and any independent life I might aspire to- a barrier to any pursuit of ideas, interests, goals that my temperament guided me toward.

Neither father nor son moved, but stayed face to face for hours and hours, neither looking away nor surrendering, until the sun finished its daily pilgrimage, for no day is so long that it is not ended by nightfall.

Oh, my dear, love isn't always the coup de foudre--the lightning strike. Sometimes it happens quietly, so quitely you may not even notice.

Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.

Odia su violencia, pero nunca lo odies a él.

Oh, my dear, love isn't always the coup de foudre--the lightning strike. Sometimes it happens quietly, so quietly you may not even notice.

Our fathers of faith have done a great job delivering our nations from the clutches of idolatry and witchcraft through signs and wonders

Our fathers were demons,' Catarina said. 'Our mothers were heroes.

One of the biggest things that hold men back from being the fathers, husbands, and leaders they are meant to be is that we are often unfit, unhealthy, or otherwise limping along.

Papas should be loving their children so much that they cry when they gone. That’s what papas is supposed to do.

Papi, I don't know what to do anymore." Lourdes begins to cry. "No matter what I do, Pilar hates me." "Pilar doesn't hate you, hija. She just hasn't learned to love you yet.

Parenting isn't something you do. It's who you are. You are a mother. You are a father.

Sir Arthur grimaced. He hated violence - perhaps his father ingrained that into him. But he still fought, for principle and for father's legacy. Now that legacy meant the protection of defenseless women. There were a few Persians in the way to execute that duty. He stabbed his blade into a Tatar's chest. Another one.

Play with your dolls for not more than half an hour, no more than fifteen minutes, no more than a second, a millisecond. If you learned math as fast as you ran outside to play, then you might be a genius. But you do not and you are not. You're a hole where knowledge goes to sleep.

Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazard from the shelf, but with Nabokov's first sentence I knew it wasn't the thing to read to a dying man: The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. The words disturbed both of us immediately, and I stopped. With music it was the same -- Chopin's Piano Concerto — he asked me to turn it off. He ceased eating, and drank little, while the tumors briskly appropriated what was left of him. But to return to the cradle rocking. I think Nabokov had it wrong. This is the abyss. That's why babies howl at birth, and why the dying so often reach for something only they can apprehend. At the end they don't want their hands to be under the covers, and if you should put your hand on theirs in a tentative gesture of solidarity, they'll pull the hand free; and you must honor that desire, and let them pull it free.

Remember the end goal You are trying to make a full grown human capable of surviving in the wild on their own. You aren't going to keep them forever. You can't make them live your life for you. You can't coddle them and do everything for them. You are preparing them to leave you. Don't lose sight of that!

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry and an atheist, theorized that one’s attitude toward one’s father largely shaped one’s attitude toward God.

The good father does not have to be perfect. Rather, he has to be good enough to help his daughter to become a woman who is reasonably self-confident, self-sufficient, and free of crippling self-doubt, and to feel at ease in the company of men.

Sometimes am so worried,i complain to God that He's not been listening to my prayers,and then my son comes and says,"hey dad,why are you not mom?"ilook at him and say,God.you've already answered my prayers with the best..who knows whats on the way for me?.

Sometimes we wait too long for the forgiveness of our fathers.

So, you’re handed a baby and a new name (Daddy) and you now have to choose to accept the challenge. Here’s the thing. I don’t believe that rejecting it’s an option. I mean, people DO reject it. But you shouldn’t. You choose then and there to be a father. And you make that choice, day in and day out to make sure their needs are met, that the example is set for them, that they are loved, cherished, corrected, and challenged. You have to choose it.

The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth have been set on edge.

Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.

Sonship is our destiny and our inheritance is wrapped up in discovery

Spiritual fathers have influence over the lives of individuals. Patriarchs have influence over families. The devil has been able to destroy families because there is a lack of spiritual fathers and patriarchs.

The conception of marriage that he formed as a young person and envisioned as an adult has been marred by circumstances that he believes could have been overcome without divorce. Yet, he still believes in marriage— the commitments and promises…. Coinciding with his commitments (and promises) is a very powerful force that he perceives as not only able, but is actually working to dismantle fathers, families and even faith if that were possible.