“Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.” – Author Unknown

After the recent popularity of my collection of the best mother quotes, I wanted to follow up with some of the best father’s day quotes.

Obviously I’m not a father, so I don’t speak from my own experience. And in fact, my own father was an absentee one, so I don’t even have that experience to draw on.*

However, I’m loving the chance to observe fatherhood through my husband Harry and his joy in being a father as well as the many other wonderful fathers of my acquaintance.

7 More of the Best Fathers Day Quotes

“It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons” – Johann Friedrich von Schiller

“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 little scraps of wisdom.” – Umberto Eco

“A daddy is someone who wants to catch you before you fall, but instead, picks you up, brushes you off, and lets you try again.” – Author Unknown

“Dad: A son’s first hero, a daughter’s first love.” – Author unknown

“One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, make me the kind of man my Daddy is.  Later that night, the father prayed, Dear God, make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.” – Author Unknown

“Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow.” – Reed Markham

“There are three stages of a man’s life: He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus.” – Author Unknown

I’m sure there are plenty of other great fathers day quotes…

If you have a favorite about dads and fatherhood that I didn’t include here, please write it in the comments!

*And, just because this was my own experience growing up, here’s one more quote:

“My father wasn’t around  when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‘Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?’ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‘I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?” – LeBron James

A note on photos: Many of the photos here depict my husband, Harry, with our daughters; some show Doug, a good friend, with his sons. The Santa drawing is one I did as a child. And yes, that’s a pic of me above, in my diaper and red shoes, watching my father hammer a nail.