New Father to Be Quotes: 11 Lines With Sources, From a Poem Beside the Cradle to Dr. Spock's First Sentence

In May 1830, about three months before his fifth child was born, Victor Hugo wrote a poem that begins "Lorsque l'enfant paraît": when the child appears, the whole family circle cheers. It is one of the best lines ever written for a man waiting to become a father, and it rarely turns up on English-language lists. Below are 11 new father to be quotes with sources: poems written beside a cradle, a letter Charles Darwin sent about his five-month-old son, the moment Tolstoy's Levin first sees his baby, two Bible verses and the opening sentence of Dr. Spock's baby book. Each one is checked against the original text, with the year, the situation of the father who wrote it, and the kind of card or caption it suits.

The page is built around the questions people actually type when a friend, a husband or a son is about to become a dad. Jump to the one you need.

What are some powerful quotes about becoming a father?

The strongest lines are the ones written by fathers about their own children, at the time. These four were.

"Lorsque l'enfant paraît, le cercle de famille / Applaudit à grands cris. Son doux regard qui brille / Fait briller tous les yeux." (When the child appears, the family circle / Cheers with loud cries. Its soft, shining look / Makes every eye shine.) — Victor Hugo, "Lorsque l'enfant paraît", Les Feuilles d'automne (poem dated 18 May 1830; English translation ours)

Hugo had already had four children (the first died as a baby) when he wrote this, and his wife Adèle was expecting their daughter Adèle, born on 24 August 1830. The poem appeared the next year in Les Feuilles d'automne (the French text is on Wikisource). It ends with a prayer that a list of things never be empty: summer without flowers, a cage without birds, a hive without bees, "la maison sans enfants", the house without children. For a father to be, the first three lines are the card; the last line, in French, makes a lovely inscription inside a baby book.

"Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, / Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, / Fill up the interspersed vacancies / And momentary pauses of the thought!" — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight" (February 1798)

Coleridge wrote the poem at night in a cottage in Nether Stowey, Somerset, with his son Hartley, then about seventeen months old, asleep in a cradle beside the fire. The whole poem is a father thinking about the childhood he had (a city school, "pent 'mid cloisters dim") and promising his son a better one by lakes and mountains. It closes with the line "Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee," which is short enough for a nursery print. The text and the date at its foot are in the Project Gutenberg edition of Coleridge's poems. Choose this one for a quiet, thoughtful dad who will be up at night anyway.

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"He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter: / Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy; / My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all. / He makes a July's day short as December." — William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Act 1, Scene 2 (c. 1611)

King Polixenes says this when another king asks whether he is fond of his young son. It is a father's answer that sounds very modern: the child is his workout, his entertainment and his main subject of conversation, a friend one minute and an enemy the next. "Makes a July's day short as December" means the hours fly when they are together. For a father to be it works best as a promise of what is coming; it is also one of the few Shakespeare lines about fatherhood that is pure delight, without a tragedy attached (the play gets dark later, but not in this speech).

"The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him." — Proverbs 23:24, King James Version

This is the verse in Proverbs addressed most directly to a father's joy; the next verse widens it to both parents ("Thy father and thy mother shall be glad"), and we use that one on our page of Bible verses for a daughter. "Begetteth" makes it a good fit for a man who has not met his child yet: the joy is promised before the child is grown. More verses on a father's role, with context, are on the Bible on paternal duty.

What does a new father actually feel? Three honest answers

Not every new dad feels instant joy, and the writers below said so. These lines are useful for the friend who is nervous, or for the father himself on a hard night.

"What he felt towards this little creature was utterly unlike what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful and joyous in the feeling; on the contrary, it was a new torture of apprehension. It was the consciousness of a new sphere of liability to pain." — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 16 (1878; Constance Garnett translation)

Konstantin Levin has just watched his wife Kitty give birth after a long, frightening night. He looks at his son, the baby sneezes, and what he feels first is fear for this "helpless creature." The same paragraph ends with "the strange thrill of senseless joy and even pride" he felt at the sneeze, so the passage is not bleak; it is accurate. Levin is widely read as Tolstoy's self-portrait, and Tolstoy had a large family by then. The text is on Project Gutenberg. Don't put this on a baby shower banner; do send it to a friend who admits he is scared, with a note that the fear is the love arriving first.

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"Thou's welcome, wean; mishanter fa' me, / If thoughts o' thee, or yet thy mamie, / Shall ever daunton me or awe me, / My bonie lady, / Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me / Tyta or daddie." — Robert Burns, "A Poet's Welcome to His Love-Begotten Daughter" (1785)

Burns wrote this for his first child, Elizabeth, born in May 1785 to Elizabeth Paton, a servant on his family's farm; the two were not married, and his parish talked. In plain English: welcome, little one; bad luck on me if thinking of you or your mother ever frightens me, or if I ever blush when you call me daddy. A later verse admits "Tho' now they ca' me fornicator," so this is a father defending his child against gossip. Burns never published it (the note is in the Gutenberg edition of his poems). It suits a dad whose path to fatherhood did not go by the usual script, and anyone who loves Scots.

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." — Benjamin Spock, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946)

These are the first words of one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, and they are addressed to parents who had grown up on strict, by-the-clock baby schedules. Spock, a pediatrician, told them to rely on their own instincts instead (Encyclopedia.com quotes the opening and notes it stayed in every edition). It is the best single line of advice for a first-time dad, and it answers the question "what to say to a soon to be father" in ten words.

Are there funny quotes for a father to be?

Yes, and the best ones are by fathers laughing at themselves. Each of these is light enough for a card and still has a real source.

"He is so charming, that I cannot pretend to any modesty. ... You will perceive, by this, that I have a fine degree of paternal fervour." — Charles Darwin, letter to William Darwin Fox, 7 June 1840

Darwin's first child, William, was born on 27 December 1839, and five months later the man who would explain evolution was writing to his cousin that the baby was "a prodigy of beauty & intellect" and that he "had not the smallest concepcion there was so much in a five month baby" (his spelling). The full letter is in the Darwin Correspondence Project. Darwin also kept notes on William's first months, later published as "A Biographical Sketch of an Infant" (1877), so the "fervour" was scientific too. Give this to a dad who will soon be showing everyone 200 photos.

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"My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky; / Contrariwise, my blood runs cold / When little boys go by." — Ogden Nash, "Song to Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children" (1933)

Nash had two small daughters when he wrote this, and the first line is a joke on Wordsworth's famous "My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky" (1802). The rest of the poem is a father plotting against the baby boy who will one day marry his daughter ("I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle"). It was first printed in his collection Happy Days (1933) and is collected again in Many Long Years Ago (1945), the source Wikiquote gives. Perfect for a father to be who has just found out it is a girl.

"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me." — Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume 1, Chapter 1 (1759)

This is the first sentence of one of the funniest novels in English, told by a narrator who blames all his troubles on his parents' distraction at the moment he was conceived (his mother had just asked his father whether he had remembered to wind up the clock). For a baby shower toast it is a gentle way of saying "no pressure, but everything starts now." The opening chapter is on Project Gutenberg. Keep it for a crowd that knows the dad well.

What does the Bible say to a man who is about to be a father?

The clearest scene is the angel's message to Zacharias, an old priest who had given up hope of a child. It is a good verse for a couple who waited a long time.

"Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth." — Luke 1:13-14, King James Version

Zacharias doubts the message and is struck silent until the baby is born and named; his first words afterwards are a song of praise (Luke 1:64-79). For a card, the second sentence works on its own and fits any father to be: "And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth." Change "his" to "her" only if you drop the quotation marks and the reference, because then it is your wish, not the verse.

All 11 lines at a glance

Where the father was when the words were written tells you a lot about where the line fits. Our count of words is for the part quoted above.

Line	Who, year	The father's moment	Words	Tone
Lorsque l'enfant paraît	Victor Hugo, 1830	waiting for his fifth child	21 (French)	joyful
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side	Coleridge, 1798	son about 17 months old	27	tender, quiet
He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter	Shakespeare, c. 1611	a king talking about his boy	30	delighted
The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice	Proverbs 23:24	joy promised in advance	20	faith
A new torture of apprehension	Tolstoy, 1878	minutes after the birth	45	honest, anxious
Thou's welcome, wean	Robert Burns, 1785	first child, born out of wedlock	36	defiant, warm
Trust yourself	Benjamin Spock, 1946	advice to all new parents	10	reassuring
I cannot pretend to any modesty	Charles Darwin, 1840	son five months old	25	funny, proud
My blood runs cold when little boys go by	Ogden Nash, 1933	two small daughters	22	funny
Had minded what they were about	Laurence Sterne, 1759	a narrator blaming his parents	33	cheeky
Thou shalt have joy and gladness	Luke 1:13-14	an old man told he will be a father	38	faith, long-awaited

What to say to a soon to be father: putting a quote in a card

A quote does half the work; one sentence of your own does the rest. A simple order works for almost any card:

1. Pick by who he is, not by who you are. A nervous first-time dad gets Spock or Tolstoy; a show-off gets Darwin; a reader gets Coleridge or Hugo; a churchgoer gets Proverbs or Luke.
2. Quote, then credit. Write the line, then the name and the work on its own line. "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. (Dr. Benjamin Spock, 1946)" looks better than a line with no name.
3. Add one sentence about him. Something you have actually seen: how he is with his nephews, how he talked about the first scan, how he built the crib. That sentence is what he will remember.
4. From a wife or partner, the Shakespeare line works because it is about what the baby will do to him: "He makes a July's day short as December." Add the date the baby is due.
5. From a friend or a coworker, stay on the light side (Darwin, Nash) and keep it to two lines.
6. For a first Father's Day before the birth, see the next section.

If what you need is a full ready-made message rather than a quote, keep it short and specific; the lines above are there to give it a frame, not to replace it.

Is Father's Day for a father to be?

Many families now mark a "first Father's Day" while the baby is still on the way, and "father to be Father's Day quotes" is one of the most searched versions of this topic every June. There is no rule against it. The holiday itself started with a daughter: Sonora Smart Dodd organized the first Father's Day at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington, on 19 June 1910, to honor her father, a widower who had raised six children on his own. It became a permanent national holiday when President Nixon signed it into law in 1972, and it falls on the third Sunday in June (Wikipedia summarizes the history). For a card that June, Proverbs 23:24 and Hugo's first lines are the two that read as "this is already your day."

Which popular new dad quotes have no source?

The line you will see most on new dad lists, "Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad," is usually credited to the baby photographer Anne Geddes. We found it only on quote sites and gift shops, never in one of her books or interviews, so we list it as commonly attributed to Anne Geddes (no primary source found). It is a fine sentiment to write in your own voice; just don't sign her name to it.

Another common one, "It is a wise father that knows his own child," is real Shakespeare, but it is a servant's joke in The Merchant of Venice, not a compliment; the story is on our page of misattributed family quotes. For lines about fathers and sons once the baby is older, see authors on father and son bonding, and for fathers and daughters, how a daughter measures her father.