Father's Love Quotes: 18 Lines From Scripture, Letters and Novels, and What They Mean

In one of the oldest father stories still read aloud, the father runs. A son who has spent his inheritance and lost everything walks home rehearsing an apology, and before he can finish it his father has crossed the field to meet him. Two thousand years later, people looking for a quote about a father's love are usually after the same thing: a line that says what a dad did, quietly and for years, without much being said about it.

This page gathers 18 such lines and checks where each comes from: scripture, Homer, an eighteenth-century French novel, letters from fathers to their children, and poems written by grown sons. For every line we give the wording as printed, the book or letter and the year, a few sentences on the scene it comes from, and the kind of card, toast or eulogy it suits. Several lines that circulate widely did not survive the check. They are listed near the end with what we found.

A quick chooser: which line fits which moment

If you already know what you're writing, start here. "Length" is the line as you'd copy it into a card. The full wording and source for each are in the sections below.

Two lines from scripture

And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

— Luke 15:20 (ESV)

This is the turning point of the parable of the prodigal son, which Luke's Gospel gives as one of Jesus's stories. The younger son has asked for his share early, wasted it, and come back hungry, intending to ask to be taken on as a hired hand. What readers notice is the order of events: the father sees him "a long way off", so he must have been watching the road, and he runs before any apology is spoken. It is the best line on this page for a reconciliation, a note after a long silence, or any card where the point is "you came back for me".

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As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

— Psalm 103:13 (ESV)

Psalm 103 is a song of thanks, headed "Of David" in the Hebrew text. The comparison runs from human fathers up to God, which is why it works well on a funeral program or a Father's Day card for a man of faith: it honours him by naming the thing he was a picture of. For more verses written with a dad in mind, see our short Bible verses for dads, sorted by card.

Fathers in old stories: Homer, Shakespeare, an abbé and a New England novelist

Jove, grant that this my child may be even as myself, chief among the Trojans… Then may one say of him as he comes from battle, 'The son is far better than the father.'

— Homer, Iliad, Book 6, translated by Samuel Butler (1898)

Hector, Troy's great defender, says goodbye to his wife Andromache and their baby son on the city walls. The baby screams at the horsehair plume on his father's helmet, so Hector laughs, takes the helmet off, and lifts the boy up to pray over him. The prayer is unusual for a warrior: he wants to be outdone. Readers have found it moving for nearly three thousand years because we know Hector will not come back. Note that "far better than his father", the wording you see on many sites, comes from other translations; Butler's own words are the ones above.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 2 (c. 1596–97)

This one is a joke, and it's worth knowing that before you engrave it. Launcelot Gobbo (Lancelet in the Folger edition) meets his nearly blind father, who doesn't recognise him, and teases the old man before revealing who he is. He flips a proverb of the day, "it is a wise child that knows his own father". In a card it reads as affectionate ribbing, which suits a dad with a sense of humour. It is not a solemn tribute.

No music is so pleasant to my ears as that word—father.

— Lydia Maria Child, Philothea: A Grecian Romance (1836), Chapter XIX

This line is usually credited to Child's The Girl's Own Book (1833), but it actually comes from her novel Philothea, set in ancient Athens. A long-lost father, found at last by his daughter Eudora, says it when she calls him by that name for the first time. That makes it a father's line about being called "father", which is why it works so well from a daughter, on a new dad's first Father's Day, or under a photo of a child's first word. Child, a Massachusetts novelist and abolitionist, is also remembered for the poem now sung as "Over the River and Through the Wood".

A father's heart is a chef-d'oeuvre of creation. There nature rules in undisturbed dominion, and regulates at will its most secret springs.

— Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut (1731), Part II, English translation as printed in Project Gutenberg's edition

The French reads: "Un coeur de père est le chef-d'oeuvre de la nature." The narrator, the Chevalier des Grieux, has thrown away his family's hopes for love of Manon and ended up in prison, and his father comes to see him. Expecting fury, the son meets a man who is both angry and helplessly fond of him. The internet usually prints the opening as "The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature", which is a fair translation of a slightly misquoted French line ("Le cœur d'un père"). Use either English version, but credit the novel, not "French proverb".

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What fathers wrote to their own children

I miss you all dreadfully, and the house feels big and lonely and full of echoes with nobody but me in it… I love you very much.

— Theodore Roosevelt to his son Quentin, the White House, April 1, 1906

Roosevelt wrote to his children constantly, often with little drawings, and the letters were published in 1919 as Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children. This one opens "Darling Quenty-quee". The sitting president is alone in the White House and plainly homesick for his noisy family. Few lines about a father's love are this unguarded, and it suits a dad who travels for work, is deployed, or is newly living apart from his kids.

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Worry about courage

— F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter Scottie, August 8, 1933, signed "With dearest love, Daddy"

Fitzgerald sent his eleven-year-old a now-famous list of "things to worry about" and "things not to worry about". Courage came first. The letter is printed in F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters. Beware the longer versions online: some add a closing paragraph and a postscript about saying "I love you" every day, and those lines are not in the letter. The three words and the sign-off are enough for a graduation card from a father.

Grown children looking back

What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?

— Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays" (1960s; Collected Poems, Liveright)

The poem opens "Sundays too my father got up early" and remembers a father who rose in the cold to light the fires and polish his son's good shoes, and who was never thanked. "Offices" here means duties, the unglamorous work of love. If you are writing a eulogy, or a letter to a father you didn't appreciate until you had your own children, this is the line. Because the poem is under copyright, quote these two lines and point people to the whole poem rather than reprinting it.

But today / It is my father who keeps stumbling / Behind me, and will not go away.

— Seamus Heaney, "Follower", Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Heaney grew up on a farm in County Derry, and the poem watches his father plough with a horse while the small boy stumbles in his wake, wanting to be him. In the last lines the roles swap: the father is now the one following. It is the most honest line here for adult children caring for an ageing parent, tender and a little heavy at once. Choose it for a private letter more than a party.

Fathers in modern novels

…each the other's world entire.

— Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

A father and his young son walk south through a burned, ash-covered America, and McCarthy describes them setting out "shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire". Elsewhere the father says, "My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God." The novel won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Four words make it a favourite for engraving on a watch, a wallet card or a tattoo between father and son.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

— Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Chapter 3

Atticus Finch says this to Scout after her bad first day at school. In the book, Scout interrupts him with "Sir?" between the two halves, and quote sites usually smooth that over with an ellipsis. It is a father's love shown as teaching, not saying, so it fits a card for a dad who taught you how to treat people.

…out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector…

— Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), Chapter 21

Wolfe's novel spends most of its pages mocking status and greed in 1980s New York. This passage is one of the few where the satire stops. It describes an ordinary man who grows up, has a child and puts on fatherhood like a role, for the child's sake. Most sites start the line at "He adopted…", which isn't how the book has it. The "perhaps love" is the part worth keeping; for a new father's card or a speech, quote from "adopted a role" onward.

A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.

— Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), Chapter IV, translated by Edith Grossman (1988)

The Spanish is "Un hombre sabe cuando empieza a envejecer porque empieza a parecerse a su padre." It is a passing remark in a long novel about waiting a lifetime for love. On a son's milestone birthday it lands as gentle teasing, and it carries the compliment underneath: becoming him is not the worst fate.

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.

— Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Chapter I, translated by James Strachey (1961)

Freud is discussing where religious feeling comes from, and he traces it to the helpless child's longing for a protecting father. The older 1930 translation by Joan Riviere words it differently: "I could not point to any need in childhood so strong as that for a father's protection." Popular sites use Strachey's wording, so credit Strachey if you use it. It belongs in a speech or essay more than a card.

Three more fathers: a letter, an old king and a wedding

Give them all of my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night, and find my best comfort in their affection at all times.

— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Chapter One (1868)

The March sisters gather by the fire to hear a letter from their father, who is away with the army. Alcott says that in it little is said of hardships or homesickness, "and only at the end did the writer's heart over-flow with fatherly love". The message is addressed to their mother, who is asked to say it for him, which is a common shape for a father's letter: news first, the feeling tucked into the last lines. If you are writing to your own father, copy that order: ordinary news first, one real sentence last.

Pray, do not mock me: / I am a very foolish fond old man, / Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; / And to deal plainly, / I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

— William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, Scene VII (1608)

Lear wakes in the French camp and finds Cordelia, the daughter he banished in Act I for refusing to flatter him, beside him. "Fond" meant both affectionate and foolish, and he is both. Use the first half for a father who spent his life being strict and is softer now; it is not a line for a young dad's birthday card.

Well, my dear, I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy.

— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 59 (1813)

Mr Bennet, usually ironic, gives his consent when Elizabeth tells him she will marry Mr Darcy. It is a father's love shown as a high standard for the man who takes his daughter, so it suits a father-of-the-bride card or toast; quote the last sentence only. See it in context among our Pride and Prejudice love quotes by chapter.

Putting a line into a card, a toast or a eulogy

A quote rarely carries a message alone. Generally it works best as the middle of three parts: one sentence of yours that sets it up, the line, then one specific thing your father did. If you need help with the opening and closing lines, our guide to starting and ending a letter works for parents too. A few rules of thumb:

• Match the tone to the man. A dad who never says "I love you" may squirm at Child or Prévost and grin at Shakespeare or García Márquez.
• Use the full credit. "— Robert Hayden" is better than "— Unknown", and it shows you didn't grab the first line you found.
• Keep long poems short. Two lines of Hayden or Heaney say more than the whole poem pasted into a card.
• For a eulogy, read the line before you explain it. Let the room hear it once, then say why it is him.

Here are three short examples our editors wrote to show the shape. Swap in your own details:

If you would rather write him a whole letter, the steps in how to write a love letter carry over: name one memory, say what it gave you, and end with something you'll do next.

Lines we checked and left out

These turn up on nearly every father's love quotes list. We couldn't confirm them as worded, or found that the credit is wrong. Our misattributed love quotes page covers the same problem for romantic lines.

Questions readers ask about father's love quotes

What is a short quote about a father's love?

The shortest verified lines here are McCarthy's "each the other's world entire" (four words), Fitzgerald's "Worry about courage" (three), and Roosevelt's "I love you very much" from his 1906 letter to Quentin. For a short line with scripture behind it, use Luke 15:20: "his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him."

Which father's love quote suits a card from a daughter?

Lydia Maria Child's "No music is so pleasant to my ears as that word—father" (Philothea, 1836) is spoken by a father reunited with his daughter, so it fits naturally. Roosevelt's homesick letter and Fitzgerald's sign-off to Scottie, "With dearest love, Daddy", are good choices if you want a real father's own words.

Did Mark Twain say "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant"?

No evidence says he did. The earliest version Quote Investigator found appeared in 1915, after Twain's death, with different ages. Twain's name was attached later. If you love the joke, credit it as "anonymous, often misattributed to Mark Twain".

When Hector took off his helmet so his son would stop crying, Homer had him laugh first. Many of these lines work the same way: the love sits in a small, practical act, like taking the helmet off, lighting the fire before dawn, or running down the road.