O Father Abram! what these Christians are,

Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect

The thoughts of others!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.

My God, my Father, and my Friend,

Do not forsake me at my end.

Earl Of Roscommon (1633-1684): Translation of Dies Irae.

The booby father craves a booby son,

And by Heaven's blessing thinks himself undone.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 165.

My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills

My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,

Whose constant cares were to increase his store,

And keep his only son, myself, at home.

John Home (1724-1808): Douglas. Act ii. Sc. 1.

If the man who turnips cries

Cry not when his father dies,

'T is a proof that he had rather

Have a turnip than his father.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 30.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

Didst thou never hear

That things ill got had ever bad success?

And happy always was it for that son

Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.

Yet while my Hector still survives, I see

My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 544.

With filial confidence inspired,

Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye,

And smiling say, My Father made them all!

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 745.

My father's brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.

Father of all! in every age,

In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, and by sage,

Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Universal Prayer. Stanza 1.

The child is father of the man.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): My heart leaps up when I behold.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!

Praise Him, all creatures here below!

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host!

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Thomas Ken (1637-1711): Morning and Evening Hymn.

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 5.

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,

"The few locks which are left you are gray;

You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,—

Now tell me the reason I pray."

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The Old Man's Comforts, and how he gained them.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.

'T is a very fine thing to be father-in-law

To a very magnificent three-tailed Bashaw!

George Colman, The Younger (1762-1836): Blue Beard. Act ii. Sc. 5.