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An acrostic is generally a poem or phrase in which the first letters spell out a word. It is Father’s Day. How many of these old sayings apply to you? How many apply to your dad? Acrostics below were created by Don Mathis; axioms were written by children and fathers across history.
Daughters Are Different
There’s something like a line of gold thread running through a man’s words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. – John Gregory Brown
Divisions About Daddies
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
Directly After a Deity
Directly after God in heaven comes a Papa. – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Delectation At Detecting
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father! – Lydia M. Child
Docious And Ductile
A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child. – Confucius
Display A Demeanor
Father of fathers, make me one, A fit example for a son. – Douglas Mallooch
Desires About Devices
The child had every toy his father wanted. – Robert C. Whitten
Destiny Always Descends
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope. – John Ciardi
Details About Development
I didn’t know the full facts of life until I was 17. My father never talked about his work. – Martin Freud, son of Sigmund Freud
Did And Didn’t
Fathers send their sons to college either because they went to college, or because they didn’t. – L.L. Hendren
Duty At Death
In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons. – Croesus
Duplicate After Development
Middle age at forty-five, what next, what next? At every corner, I meet my father, my age, still alive. – Robert Lowell
Division Across Decades
His father watched him across the gulf of years and pathos which always must divide a father from his son. – John Marquand
Defect After Design
The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them. – Bertrand Russell
Discern A Double
A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father. – Gabriel García Márquez
Duty As Defender
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection. – Sigmund Freud
Difference At Daylight
All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye. – Margaret Atwood
Describe Any Dependence
Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son. – Evelyn Waugh
Desire A Duplicate
A man’s desire for a son is usually nothing but the wish to duplicate himself in order that such a remarkable pattern may not be lost to the world. – Helen Rowland
Dispel Any Doubts
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person; he believed in me. – Jim Valvano
Down-to-earth And Dependable
My best training came from my father. – Woodrow Wilson
Deserving And Delighting
Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee. – Margaret Courtney
Previous version published on Rivard Report
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