Fathers

"I have discovered very little in life that I am adept at doing. I cannot fix your car, repair your roof, or even drive a nail straight. However, I have given everything I have to being a father, and I happily stand back to see the results."

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him."

"We have to face the consequences of the fact that the family has long since ceased to have any higher meaning, or been cemented by living forces that go beyond the merely individual. The organic and, to a certain degree, "heroic" character that its unity presented in the past has been lost in the modern world, just as the institution's residual veneer of "sacrality" bestowed by religious marriage has disappeared, or nearly so. In reality, in the great majority of cases the modern family is presented as a petit bourgeois institution determined almost exclusively by conformist, utilitarian, primitive, or at best sentimental factors. Above all, its essential fulcrum has disappeared, which was constituted by the primarily spiritual authority of its head, the father: that is shown by the etymological meaning of the word pater as "lord," or "sovereign." […] How could the family continue to have a firm, binding center, if its natural head, the father, is so often estranged from it today—even physically, when the practical mechanism of material life takes him away from it? What authority can the father have, especially in the so-called upper classes, if he is reduced to a money-making machine, a busy professional, and the like?"

"If we could all pick our fathers there might be ten men on earth who would have families."

"Remember my dad? He worked at the Wash his whole life. He was the #1 tongue scrubber. Every year for 25 years. To me, working at the Wash, was the coolest job in the ocean. But then I learned something I will never forget. My dad was the greatest."

"Your Lord has ordained that you must not worship anything other than Him and that you must be kind to your parents. If either or both of your parents should become advanced in age, do not express to them words which show your slightest disappointment. Never yell at them but always speak to them with kindness. Be humble and merciful towards them and say, "Lord, have mercy upon them as they cherished me in my childhood.""

"Whoever does not talk to his father never knows what his grandfather said."

"The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them."

"The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one – particularly if he plays golf."

"Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati, Casta pudicitiam servat domus."

"Sequiturque patrem non passibus aequis."

"Human society was so constituted, for human nature was so constituted, that the honour and dignity of a father were connected with that of a son; and there was no son who must not be disturbed and disquieted by imputations on his father."

"The authority of a father to guide and govern the education of his child is a very sacred thing, bestowed by the Almighty, and to be sustained to the uttermost by human law. It is not to be abrogated or abridged, without the most coercive reason. For the parent and the child alike, its maintenance is essential, that their reciprocal relations may be fruitful of happiness and virtue; and no disturbing intervention should be allowed between them whilst those relations are pure and wholesome and conducive to their mutual benefit."

"As a man of the world, and speaking as a father, I am satisfied that solitary children are not so happy, and not so likely to make good men and women, as children brought up in the society of brothers and sisters in early life."

"A father, by the law of God and nature, is bound to support his son, and è contra, in case the father is empoverished."

"The rights of a father are sacred rights because his duties are sacred duties."

"Atque in rege tamen pater est."

"And yet he feels the father in the king."

"Patriæ pietatis imago."

"The picture of paternal affection."

"Sequiturque patrem non passibus æquis."

"He follows his father with unequal steps."

"Un frére est un ami donné par la nature."

"A brother is a friend given us by nature."

"Wer seinen Kindern giebt das Brot, Und leidet nachmals selber Not. Den soll man schlagen mit der Keule tot."

"Who gives his children all his bread, And comes himself to grievous need, Shall with the club be smitten dead."

"Ζηλωτὸς ὅστις εὐτύχησεν ἐς τέκνα."

"He is to be envied who has prospered with his children."

"Κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ὠὸv."

"A bad crow lays a bad egg."

"Unde tibi frontem libertatemque parentis, Quum facias pejora senex?"

"When you do worse yourself, can you expect Your son should hold your grey hairs in respect?"

"Wie die Alten sungen, so zwitschern auch die Jungen."

"As the elders sing, so will the young ones twitter."

"Roma parentem, Roma patrem patriæ Ciceronem libera dixit."

"Parent and father of the fatherland, Was Cicero styled by liberated Rome."

"Amissum non flet, quum sola est Gellia, patrem; Si quis adest jusse prosiliunt lacrymæ. Non dolet hie quisquis laudari, Gellia, quærit, Ille dolet vere, qui sine teste dolet."

"Jane weeps not for her dad when none is by, Yet when one enters she begins to cry. Not by its wish for praise is true grief shown: He mourns indeed who mourns when he’s alone."

"Nam jam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor Optuma, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent."

"No more shall thy family welcome thee home, Nor around thee thy wife and sweet little ones come; All clamouring joyous to snatch the first kiss, Transporting thy bosom with exquisite bliss."

"Ημεῖς τοι πατέρων μέγ᾽ ἀμείνονες εὐχόμεθ᾽ εἶναι."

"We pride ourselves on being far better men than our fathers."

"Isi repi liperisi. (Palindrome; Risto Rekola)"