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
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
All that I am my mother made me.
—John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) Sixth President of the USA
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
Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
—Persian Proverb
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
Where there is a mother in the home, matters go well.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
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
A mother understands what a child does not say.
—Hebrew Proverb
Mother’s love grows by giving.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
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
The babe at first feeds upon the mother’s bosom, but is always on her heart.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
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
Nature’s loving proxy, the watchful mother.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
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
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
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
A mother’s heart is always with her children.
—Common 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
All mothers are working mothers.
—Unknown
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
—Common Proverb
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Who kisses the feet of his mother, kisses the step of Paradise.
—Turkish Proverb
A mother can more easily feed seven children than seven children can feed one mother.
—French Proverb
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
—Spanish Proverb
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
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
A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap.
—Danish Proverb
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