Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The dignity, the grandeur, the tenderness, the everlasting and divine significance of motherhood.
—Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Religious Leader
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Observe how soon, and to what a degree, a mother’s influence begins to operate! Her first ministration for her infant is to enter, as it were, the valley of the shadow of death, and win its life at the peril of her own! How different must an affection thus founded be from all others!
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
Few are like father, no one is like mother.
—Icelandic Proverb
A mother’s love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek, or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with a softened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle chidings, of the best friend that God ever gives us.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
—Persian Proverb
Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain. In after life you may have friends, fond, dear friends, but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you, which none but a mother bestows.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
If you would reform the world from its errors and vices, begin by enlisting the mothers.
—Charles Simmons (1924–2017) American Editor, Novelist
All that I am my mother made me.
—John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) Sixth President of the USA
Even He that died for us upon the cross, in the last hour, in the unutterable agony of death, was mindful of his mother, as if to teach us that this holy love should be our last worldly thought,—the last point of earth from which the soul should take its flight for heaven.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Mother’s love grows by giving.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
No joy in nature is so sublimely affecting as the joy of a mother at the good fortune of her child.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
A mother can more easily feed seven children than seven children can feed one mother.
—French Proverb
The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.
—Sri Rajneesh (Osho) (1931–90) Indian Spiritual Teacher
There is no mother like your own mother.
—African Proverb
A man never sees all that his mother has been to him till it’s too late to let her know that he sees it.
—William Dean Howells (1837–1920) American Novelist, Critic
God could not be everywhere, and therefore He made mothers.
—Hebrew Proverb
Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this engineer, or a chemical discovery from that jobber.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a mother’s work is never done.
—Unknown
Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Stories first heard at a mother’s knee are never wholly forgotten,—a little spring that never quite dries up in our journey through scorching years.
—Giovanni Ruffini (1807–81) Italian Writer, Patriot
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers venerable.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
Who takes a child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.
—Danish Proverb
All mothers are working mothers.
—Unknown
No language can express the power and beauty and heroism and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star in heaven.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
What reaches the mother’s heart will only reach the father’s knees.
—Polish Proverb
I think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of mothers shall be visited on their children, as well as the sins of their fathers.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
—Spanish Proverb
Children are what the mothers are; no fondest father’s fondest care can so fashion the infant’s heart, or so shape the life.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same—and most mothers kiss and scold together.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
My mother’s influence in molding my character was conspicuous. She forced me to learn daily long chapters of the Bible by heart. To that discipline and patient, accurate resolve I owe not only much of my general power of taking pains, but the best part of my taste for literature.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
A father may turn his back on his child; brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies; husbands may desert their wives, and wives their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all; in. good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world’s condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways, and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never be brought to think him all unworthy.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Who kisses the feet of his mother, kisses the step of Paradise.
—Turkish Proverb
The mother’s yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the base, degraded man.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Happy he with such a mother! faith in womankind beats with his blood, and trust in all things high comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall, he shall not blind his soul with clay.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
Say to mothers, what a holy charge is theirs; with what a kingly power their love might rule the fountains of the newborn mind.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap.
—Danish Proverb
That best academy, a mother’s knee.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
Nature’s loving proxy, the watchful mother.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
—Common Proverb
When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. He called her Eva, that is to say, the Mother of All. He did not style her wife, but simply mother,—mother of all living creatures. In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
—Irish Proverb
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
A mother understands what a child does not say.
—Hebrew Proverb