That best academy, a mother’s knee.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
There is a point where you aren’t as much mom and daughter as you are adults and friends. It doesn’t happen for everyone—but it did for Mom and me.
—Jamie Lee Curtis (b.1958) American Film Actress, Children’s Books Writer
It’s easy to pick children whose mothers are good housekeepers; they are usually found in other yards.
—Anonymous
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
One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands – bare hands – and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands – a kind of mad courage.
—Robert Fulghum (b.1937) American Unitarian Universalist Author, Essayist, Clergyman
What are Raphael’s Madonnas but the shadow of a mother’s love, fixed in permanent outline forever?
—Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911) American Social Reformer, Clergyman
A mother’s heart is always with her children.
—Common Proverb
Mother’s love grows by giving.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
Life is the fruit she longs to hand you,
Ripe on a plate.
And while you live,
Relentlessly she understands you.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.
—Meryl Streep (b.1949) American Actor
I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhood and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing.
—Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American Novelist, Editor, Academic
If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?
—Milton Berle (1908–2002) American Comedian, Actor
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
I miss thee, my Mother! Thy image is still
The deepest impressed on my heart.
—Eliza Cook (1818–89) English Author, Poet
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often. God’s will be done, and if He decrees that we are to have a great number of children why we must try to bring them up as useful and exemplary members of society.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart – a heart so large that everybody’s joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
—Spanish Proverb
A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
There was never a great man who had not a great mother.
—Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) South African Writer, Feminist
Women who miscalculate are called mothers.
—Pauline Phillips (Abigail van Buren) (b.1918) American Columnist
Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who rejoiced with us in our sunshine desert us; when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.
—John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) American Catholic Clergyman, Educator, Essayist, Biographer
A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.
—James Fenton (b.1949) English Poet, Journalist
The mother as a social servant instead of a home servant will not lack in true mother duty. From her work, loved and honored though it is, she will return to her home life, the child life, with an eager, ceaseless pleasure, cleansed of all the fret and fraction and weariness that so mar it now.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American Feminist, Writer