A mother understands what a child does not say.
—Hebrew Proverb
The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English 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
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
A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
—Irish Proverb
A mother can more easily feed seven children than seven children can feed one mother.
—French Proverb
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
—Common Proverb
Few are like father, no one is like mother.
—Icelandic Proverb
Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
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
All mothers are working mothers.
—Unknown
A mother’s heart is always with her children.
—Common Proverb
Who kisses the feet of his mother, kisses the step of Paradise.
—Turkish Proverb
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
God could not be everywhere, and therefore He made mothers.
—Hebrew Proverb
A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a mother’s work is never done.
—Unknown
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
Who takes a child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.
—Danish Proverb
That best academy, a mother’s knee.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
What reaches the mother’s heart will only reach the father’s knees.
—Polish 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
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
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
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
A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap.
—Danish Proverb
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Where there is a mother in the home, matters go well.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher