Heartfelt Quotes to Honor the Loss of a Father

"The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity."

- Jean Paul

"Love has no age, no limit; and no death."

- John Galsworthy

"A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again."

- Maya Angelou

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

- Queen Elizabeth II

"When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us."

- Helen Keller

"It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone."

- John Steinbeck

"Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes."

- Gloria Naylor

"Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life."

- Anne Roiphe

"The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature."

- Antoine Francois Prevost

"The gift my father gave me every day of my life was he believed in me."

- Jim Valvano

"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them."

- Leo Tolstoy

"Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart."

- José N. Harris

"To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches."

- Yann Martel

"He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."

- Clarence Budington Kelland

"It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons."

- Johann Schiller

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

- C.S. Lewis

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

- Ernest Hemingway

"Say not in grief ‘he is no more’ but in thankfulness that he was."

- Hebrew Proverb

"Death ends a life, not a relationship."

- Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

"There is no expiration date on the love between a father and his child."

- Jennifer Williamson

"If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever."

- Winnie the Pooh

"The death of a father is one of the supreme human crises."

- Leon Edel

"The death of a parent is one of the greatest losses we can experience in life. The hole it leaves in our heart can feel insurmountable."

- Elizabeth Berrien

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim."

- Vicki Harrison

"My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could ever give another person. He believed in me."

- Jim Valvano

"No matter how old we are, we still need our dads, and wonder how we’ll get by without them."

- Jennifer Williamson

"A father’s love is forever imprinted on his child’s heart."

- Jennifer Williamson

"Dad is and always will be my living, breathing superhero."

- Bindi Irwin

"The loss of my father will always sting. But now, everything that I do is in honor of him and celebrates his life."

- Adrienne C. Moore

"You have been there for me, no matter what bad choices I might have made… you lovingly repaired my broken spirit, helped me plot a new course, and set me free to fly on my own once again. There is no greater love than that. You will always be special to me, and no matter where life takes me, I’ll remember you with love."

- Marilyn K. Deacon

"To her, the name of father was another name for love."

- Fanny Fern

"Dad, wherever you are, you are gone but you will never be forgotten."

- Conrad Hall

"My dad was my best friend and greatest role model. He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, husband and friend."

- Tiger Woods

"No matter where I am, your spirit will be beside me. For I know that no matter what, you will always be with me."

- Tram-Tiara T. von Reichenbach

"May each tear and each fond memory be a note of love rising to meet you."

- Jennifer Williamson

"Deeply, I know this, that love triumphs over death. My father continues to be loved, and therefore he remains by my side."

- Jennifer Williamson

"You will always be in my heart… because in there you’re still alive."

- Jamie Cirello

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal."

- From a headstone in Ireland

"Let me tell you, he is the hole in my heart. His loss is my scar. But let me tell you something, his memory drives me forward every single day of my life."

- Michelle Obama

"Those we love don't go away, they sit beside us every day."

- Liane Moriarty

"Whenever I am missing you I also remember how fortunate I was that you were in my life I wouldn't trade those moments for the world."

- Cindy Adkins

"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

"When you lose your father, you lose a connection to your past. When you become a father, you gain a connection to the future."

- Dan Schawbel

"You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."

- Anne Lamott

"They shine in every twinkle light, and glow in every start. They are still with us, always."

- Meghan Craig

"Amid the season’s hustle and bustle, a warm, quiet place is reserved in our hearts for remembering the ones we’re missing."

- Suzanne Berry

"May you find that your loved one is still there in the glows and touches of the season. As the beauty of the holidays begins to surround you, I hope that even in the moments of grief, your heart shines with all the things that remind you of your loved one."

- Kat Stano

"Take Christmas as a sign that when this sorrow has passed, faith will yet survive, joy will come alive, life and love will last."

- Bill Gray

"Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms."

- Paulo Coelho

"Let all the Christmas bells that ring give voice to our remembering: A loved one lived among us here and will be sadly missed this year."

- Jim Howard

"I should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone — you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence."

- Alyson Noel

"Although our lives' journeys have bid us to be apart, I am with you, you are with me, always in our hearts."

- Carolyn Ferreira

"Though they’re gone, they still live on in every happy holiday memory."

- Sara Quenzer

"May the clear midnight skies and the quiet snowfall of the season give you peace—knowing that your loved one has found a place among nature’s eternal beauty."

- Suzanne Berry

"Christmas is big enough to hold “merry and bright” and “wish you were here.”"

- Claire Redinger

"This is the price you pay for having a great father. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments – and you get the tears at the end, too."

- Harlan Coben

"When I was a child, all problems had ended with a single word from my father. A smile from him was sunshine, his scowl a bolt of thunder. He was smart, and generous, and honorable without fail. He could exile a trespasser, check my math homework, and fix the leaky bathroom sink, all before dinner. For the longest time, I thought he was invincible. Above the petty problems that plagued normal people. And now he was gone."

- Rachel Vincent

"When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires."

- Jodi Picoult

"The loss of my father was the most traumatic event in my life – I can’t forget the pain."

- Frank Lowy

"My Father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."

- Clarence Budington Kelland

"Everything I do in my life I do to make my mum and dad proud. I want to carry on in my dad’s footsteps and make sure that his legacy lives on forever."

- Bindi Irwin

"My appreciation for my father’s greatness cannot be measured."

- Jennifer Williamson

"The heavenly distance between us now does not change the power of our love."

- Melvina Young

"We honor the struggle…and claim the peace that was found."

- Ginnie Job

"It’s the ones who touch our lives in the biggest way who show us that it’s possible to laugh and cry at the same time."

- Keely Chace

"The remembrance of the good deeds of the dead is the greatest and most lasting consolation which the survivors can have."

- Tacitus

"Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place."

- Sarah Dessen

"There’s a new star shining down on us this Christmas."

- Caroline Cattrell

"When we lose someone in a way we can’t imagine, love pulls us closer together."

- Kat Stano

"Like flowers pressed between the pages of a book, beautiful memories are ours to keep."

- Melvina Young

"What a blessing to call up beautiful memories whenever we need them. What a blessing to feel close to our loved ones each time we remember."

- Alarie Tennille

"There’s honor in such a well-lived life…there’s healing in remembering…there’s hope in knowing love goes on forever."

- Diana Manning

"Their light shines still from a farther heaven."

- Melvina Young

"You would never know stars were there if you looked for them in a sunlit sky. It’s only when darkness falls that you realize…some things are always shining over us…just beyond our sight."

- Suzanne Berry

"When evening falls and shadows dim and all that’s left are stars…that’s when our dear ones shine the most. Their love is never far."

- Kat Stano

"The flower is gone, but its beauty lives on. We stand in grief as a beautiful life is taken from this earth. And we stand in wonder at the legacy of love it leaves behind."

- Cat Hollyer

"The only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still."

- Jan Richardson

"Always forward. With love and remembrance, that’s how we move."

- Keion Jackson

"Now there is no more pain. Your loved one is safe and well in a place where peace is endless."

- Kat Stano

"In quiet moments, may healing begin. In broken places, may brightness shine in."

- Keely Chace

"The music still plays in our hearts even after the song has faded away."

- Kevin Dilmore

"The angels are singing welcome, and the ancestors are shouting joy that a beautiful soul has come home to perfect peace and love."

- Melvina Young

"The love that surrounds us—the love that was here before us and will be here after us—will hold us up."

- Dan Taylor

"In our longest, hardest hours, that’s when God’s love touches us most—when it holds us, comforts us, and prepares us to move through dark and into steadfast light."

- Courtney Taylor

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight."

- Rossiter Worthington Raymond

"When you have lost someone you love… Do not make the mistake of living in sadness, or living small to honour their absence. You owe it to them to live even more vividly than before."

- Donna Ashworth

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim."

- Vicki Harrison

"What is grief if not love persevering."

- WandaVision

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

"That man is a success – who has lived well, laughed often and loved much, who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children, who has filled his niche and accomplished his task. who leaves the world better than he found it, who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it, who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had."

- Unknown

"The scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person."

"When it feels as though nothing will ease your grief, hold on to the belief that every new sunrise brings you closer to comfort."

"You want a physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died."

"In another time, in a happier place, you’ll meet again."

"The pain/grief never goes away. You just grow stronger around it."

"Do not surrender your grief so quickly. Let it cut more deeply. Let it ferment and season you."

"The pain of losing someone is a reminder of the love we shared."

"The grief is never ending, but so is the love."

"Little by little, we let go of loss…but never of love."

"The bond between a father and child is special and irreplaceable. Though your father is no longer physically present, his spirit and influence will live on through you."

"The greatest gift I ever had came from God, I call him Dad."

- Unknown

"Grief is the price we pay for having known such love."

"The death of any loved parent is an incalculable lasting blow. Because no one ever loves you again like that."

"Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever."

"Grief is love with nowhere to go."

"There is no new pain."