50 Heartfelt Father’s Day Quotes That Celebrate the No. 1 Guy in Your Life
Updated: Jun. 21, 2023These Father's Day quotes perfectly express how much we love and appreciate our dads
Heartfelt Father’s Day quotes to share with your pop
It’s that time of year again, when we honor our favorite man (and if you’re wondering “When is Father’s Day this year?” it’s Sunday, June 18). You may come up with the best Father’s Day ideas and even snag a fabulous Father’s Day gift to celebrate your dad, but if you really want to express your love and appreciation for him, try sharing meaningful quotes that perfectly sum up your special relationship. For instance, the Father’s Day quotes listed below really capture how much you love your old man—and they may even make him a little teary-eyed!
Many notable people have spoken publicly about how important their father is to them, making for some beautiful dad quotes and even some funny Father’s Day quotes—but this list of Father’s Day quotes is mostly sentimental (with a few humorous ones sprinkled in). Your father may not be a man of many words, but he will surely love these wonderful sayings.
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Sentimental Father’s Day quotes
1. “My father didn’t do anything unusual. He did what dads are supposed to do—be there.” —Max Lucado
2. “The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get.” —Tim Russert
3. “Lately all my friends are worried they’re turning into their fathers. I’m worried I’m not.” —Dan Zevin
4. “A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.” —Unknown
5. “I realized being a father is the greatest job I have ever had and the greatest job I will ever have.” —Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
6. “The only way I can describe [fatherhood]—it sounds stupid, but—at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you know how his heart grows like five times? Everything is full. It’s just full all the time.” —Matt Damon
7. “One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” —George Herbert
8. “I’ve never been part of anything so great as those three kids.” —Al Roker
9. “I’m a father; that’s what matters most. Nothing matters more.” —Gordon Brown
10. “Being a parent is the single most challenging thing I’ve ever done/continue to do, but it’s also far and away the greatest joy in my life. It has given me purpose, taught me patience and expanded my heart.” —Neil Patrick Harris
11. “Some people don’t believe in heroes, but they haven’t met my dad.” —Unknown
12. “I have a Father’s Day every day.” —Dennis Banks
13. “Dads don’t need to be tall and broad-shouldered and clever. Love makes them so.” —Pam Brown
14. “Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.” —Lydia Maria Child
15. “Having a kid is like falling in love for the first time when you’re 12, but every day.” —Mike Myers
Any of these quotes would make great Father’s Day messages for your father figure.
Inspirational Father’s Day quotes
16. “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.” —Anne Geddes
17. “The power of a dad in a child’s life is unmatched.” —Justin Ricklefs
18. “It’s only when you grow up and step back from him—or leave him for your own home—it’s only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it.” —Margaret Truman
19. “I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 13 years ago—crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter’s future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had—that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father.” —Barack Obama
20. “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.” —Jim Valvano
21. “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by the little scraps of wisdom.” —Umberto Eco
22. “A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.” —Unknown
23. “My dad, like any coach, has always stressed the fundamentals. He taught me responsibility, accountability and the importance of hard work.” —Steve Young
24. “My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived and let me watch him do it.” —Clarence Budington Kelland
25. “Father’s Day is hopefully a time when the culture says, ‘This is our moment to look at who our men and boys are.'” —Michael Gurian
26. “Life doesn’t come with an instruction book—that’s why we have fathers.” —H. Jackson Brown Jr.
27. “It is a wise father that knows his own child.” —William Shakespeare
28. “What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
29. “Dad—a son’s first hero, a daughter’s first love.” —John Walter Bratton
Who doesn’t love some inspirational quotes about dad?
Father’s Day quotes from wife
30. “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” —Theodore Hesburgh
31. “What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity.” —Jean Paul
32. “The most important thing in the world is family and love.” —John Wooden
33. “A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.” —Unknown
34. “Fathers, yours is an eternal calling from which you are never released.” —Ezra Taft Benson
35. “Fathers in today’s modern families can be so many things.” —Oliver Hudson
Check out these other Father’s Day quotes for your husband that will move you both.
Father’s Day quotes from daughter
36. “Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.” —Gloria Naylor
37. “My daddy was my hero—he was always there for me when I needed him.” —Bindi Irwin
38. “My dad’s my best mate, and he always will be.” —Cher Lloyd
39. “No one in this world can love a girl more than her father.” —Michael Ratnadeepak
40. “My sisters and I can still recite Dad’s grilling rules: Rule No. 1: Dad is in charge. Rule No. 2: Repeat Rule No. 1.” —Connie Schultz
41. “When my father didn’t have my hand, he had my back.” —Linda Poindexter
42. “It doesn’t matter who my father was. It matters who I remember he was.” —Anne Sexton
43. “To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter.” —Euripides
Looking for more special words to send dad? Browse through these touching father-daughter quotes!
Father’s Day quotes from son
44. “It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.” —Friedrich Schiller
45. “I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father’s life.” —Sidney Poitier
46. “For thousands of years, father and son have stretched wistful hands across the canyon of time.” —Alan Valentine
47. “Are we not like two volumes of one book?” —Marceline Desbordes-Valmore
48. “When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.” —William Shakespeare
49. “You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.” —Wally Schirra
50. “With sons and fathers, there’s an inexplicable connection and imprint that your father leaves on you.” —Brad Pitt
Read more heartwarming father-son quotes that perfectly capture that special bond.
Additional reporting by Emma Taubenfeld.
