In several respects, I consider my father as one of the most interesting men I have known. He was a man of perhaps the very largest natural endowment of any it has been my lot to converse with. None of us will ever forget that bold glowing style of his, flowing free from his untutored soul, full of metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was) with, all manner of potent words which he appropriated and applied with a surprising accuracy you often would not guess whence; brief, energetic, and which I should say conveyed the most perfect picture — definite, clear, not in ambitious colors, but in full white sunliglit — of all the dialects I have ever listened to. Nothing did I ever hear him undertake to render visible which, did not become almost ocularly so. Never shall we again hear such speech as that was. The whole district knew of it and laughed joyfully over it, not knowing how other-wise to express the feeling it gave them; emphatic I have heard him beyond all men. In anger he had no need of oaths, his words were like sharp arrows that smote into the very heart. The fault was that he exaggerated (which tendency I also inherit), yet only in description and for the sake chiefly of humorous effect.

In this connection, it is interesting to remark that I, as well as many others, noticed that when he himself used these sayings in conversation, it always seemed to every hearer that they could not have been more apt or better put, but that if anyone else made use of them, they seemed to be entirely beside the point or improbable nonsense.

In this connection, it is interesting to remark that I, as well as many others, noticed that when he himself used these sayings in conversation, it always seemed to every hearer that they could not have been more apt or better put, but that if anyone else made use of them, they seemed to be entirely beside the point or improbably nonsense.

“Try to be a man about whom nothing is known,” our father said, when we were young. Our father said several other interesting things, but we have forgotten what they were. “Keep quiet,” he said. That we remember. He wished more quiet. One tends to want that, in a National Park. Our father was a man about whom nothing was known. Nothing is known about him still. He gave us the recipes. He was not very interesting. A tree is more interesting. A suitcase is more interesting. A canned good is more interesting. When we sing the father hymn, we notice that he was not very interesting. The words of the hymn notice it. It is explictly commented upon, in the text.

He affected to say some things, that, tho’ trite, were sententious, and carried with them the air of observation. There is some degree of merit in having such a memory, as will help a person to repeat and apply other mens wit with some tolerable propriety. But when he attempted to walk alone, he said things that it was impossible a man of common sense could say.

My dad went through a sea of deaths. The oldest of six, he buried his four younger brothers and four of his children. Yes, I was it. His philosophy after grieving was to laugh. To try to bring some joy to others, because life is just so hard sometimes. Because it ends. My father also had a huge amount of dignity. This Mark Twain quote sums up the way my father and mother felt about life: "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." As crazy and dark as I would imagine some of these stories sounded, I am very proud of the life I have led so far. I have a lot of love in my life. And a lot of laughs. And I wish that for you all. I wish that even for the guy in the audience with his arms folded.

He could be as memorable an orator as his father, particularly when he was speaking on that topic that had captured his imagination;

Clearness, emphatic clearness, was his highest category of man's thinking power. He delighted always to hear good argument. He would often say, I would like to hear thee argue with him." He said this of Jeffrey and me, with an air of such simple earnestness, not two years ago (1830), and it was his true feeling. I have often pleased him much by arguing with men (as many years ago I was prone to do) in his presence. He rejoiced greatly in my success, at all events in my dexterity and manifested force. Others of us he admired for our "activity," our practical valor and skill, all of us (generally speaking) for our decent demeanor in the world. It is now one of my greatest blessings (for which I would thank Heaven from the heart) that he lived to see me, through various obstructions, attain some look of doing well. He had "educated" me against much advice, I believe, and chiefly, if not solely, from his own noble faith. James Bell, one of our wise men, had told him, "Educate a boy, and he grows up to despise his ignorant parents." My father once told me this, and added, "Thou hast not done so; God be thanked for it." I have reason to think my father was proud of me (not vain, for he never, except when provoked, openly bragged of us); that here too he lived to see the pleasure of the Lord prosper in his hands. Oh, was it not a happiness for me! The fame of all this planet were not henceforth so precious.

My dad was like the Marine Corps, only instead of tearing you to pieces and then putting you back together, he just did the first part and called it a day. I'm sure my father said plenty of normal things to me when I was growing up, but what stuck, probably because he said it, like, ten thousand times, was "Everything you touch turns to crap." His other catchphrase was "You know what you are? A big fat zero."

I am the Father of Lies. Over the years, my children have done me proud. I shouldn’t play favorites, but I am especially pleased with “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Likewise, I shall always retain a soft spot in my heart for “Every cloud has a silver lining.” As for “Time heals all wounds” and “Whenever God closes a door, He opens a window”—they, too, make me gloat unconscionably.

I had by this time heard a number of his public speeches and was beginning to understand the pattern of their appeal. The first secret lay in his choice of words. Every generation develops its own vocabulary of catchwords and phrases, and these date thoughts and utterances. My own father talked like a contemporary of Bismarck, the people of my own age bore the stamp of Wilhelm II, but Hitler had caught the casual camaraderie of the trenches, and without stooping to slang, except for special effects, managed to talk like a member of his audience. In describing the difficulties of the housewife without enough money to buy the buy the food her family needed in the Viktualien Market he would produce just the phrases she would have used herself to describe her difficulties, if she had been able to formulate them. Where other national orators gave the painful impression of talking down to their audience, he had his priceless gift of expressing exactly their own thoughts.

My father had a very simple, clear and quite definite view on the aim of human life. He told me many times in my youth that the fundamental striving of every man should be to create for himself an inner freedom towards life and to prepare for himself a happy old age. He considered that the indispensability and imperative necessity of this aim in life was so obvious that it ought to be understandable to everyone without any wiseacring. But a man could attain this aim only if, from childhood up to the age of eighteen, he had acquired data for the unwavering fulfilment of the following four commandments:
First— To love one's parents. Second— To remain chaste.
Third— To be outwardly courteous to all without distinction, whether they be rich or poor, friends or enemies, power possessors or slaves, and to whatever religion they may belong, but inwardly to remain free and never to put much trust in anyone or anything. Fourth—To love work for work's sake and not for its gain. My father, who loved me particularly as his first-born, had a great influence on me. My personal relationship to him was not as towards a father, but as towards an elder brother; and he, by his constant conversations with me and his extraordinary stories, greatly assisted the arising in me of poetic images and high ideals.

...'Beetles, black beetles' – his father had a really passionate feeling about the clergy. Mumbo-jumbery was another of his favourite words. An atheist and an anti-clerical of the strict old school he was.

I thought what father said. Oh god he said. And only eight.