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 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
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
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
—Spanish 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
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and obedience, and a thousand tender endeavors to please, concentrate; and dreary is the blank when such a point is withdrawn.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
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
Who takes a child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.
—Danish 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
All mothers are working mothers.
—Unknown
Who kisses the feet of his mother, kisses the step of Paradise.
—Turkish Proverb
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
A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap.
—Danish 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
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
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
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
A mother’s heart is always with her children.
—Common Proverb
One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, 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
What reaches the mother’s heart will only reach the father’s knees.
—Polish Proverb
Nature’s loving proxy, the watchful mother.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
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
Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers venerable.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
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
Few are like father, no one is like mother.
—Icelandic 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
There is no mother like your own mother.
—African Proverb
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
The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Mother’s love grows by giving.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, 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
A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
—Irish Proverb
Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
—Persian Proverb
The babe at first feeds upon the mother’s bosom, but is always on her heart.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Where there is a mother in the home, matters go well.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
The dignity, the grandeur, the tenderness, the everlasting and divine significance of motherhood.
—Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Religious Leader
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
—Common 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
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
God could not be everywhere, and therefore He made mothers.
—Hebrew Proverb
That best academy, a mother’s knee.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
A mother understands what a child does not say.
—Hebrew 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
If you would reform the world from its errors and vices, begin by enlisting the mothers.
—Charles Simmons (1924–2017) American Editor, Novelist
The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
A mother can more easily feed seven children than seven children can feed one mother.
—French Proverb