All that I am my mother made me.
—John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) Sixth President of the USA
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
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
—Common Proverb
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
That best academy, a mother’s knee.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
The dignity, the grandeur, the tenderness, the everlasting and divine significance of motherhood.
—Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Religious Leader
Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
—Persian Proverb
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
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
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
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
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 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.
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers venerable.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
The loss of a mother is always severely felt: even though her health may incapacitate her from taking any active part in the care of her family, still she is a sweet rallying point, around which affection and obedience, and a thousand tender endeavors to please, concentrate; and dreary is the blank when such a point is withdrawn.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
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
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author