Mother's Day quotes

A collection of quotes on the topic of anniversary, mother's day, for mother, mother.

Best mother's day quotes

“You will always love, and you will always be loved.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“You can be in love and not be in a relationship.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

“Life is short, but the years are long.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Methuselah's Children

Part of the secret "call and response" codewords by which members of the long-lived Howard Families can identify others:
: Life is short.
But the years are long.
Not while the evil days come not.
Methuselah's Children (1958)

“If there is a good will, there is great way.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Attributed in The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1866) by Josiah G. Holland, p. 23; also in The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867) by George Alfred Townsend, p. 6; according to Townsend, Lincoln made this remark to his law partner, William Herndon. It is disputed whether this quote refers to Lincoln's natural mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who died when he was nine years old, or to his stepmother, Sarah Bush (Johnston) Lincoln.
Posthumous attributions

“Everything is beautiful if you love it.”

Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914) German author

“But then it passed, as all things do.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“The best place to cry is on a mother's arms.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

“n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Mother's Day quotes

“It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

For Parents, For Mother, Imagination, Thinking

“The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

For Mother, Love, Children

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

For Wife, Happy, Friendship, Cute

“My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

For Mother, Life

“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. II, ch. 2.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

For Mother, God, Children, Heart

“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

For Parents, For Mother, Life, Education

“Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on”

Maria Shriver (1955) journalist and author from the United States

For Mother

“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

For Parents, For Mother, Life

“Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There's no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving.”

Gail Tsukiyama (1957) American writer

Source: Dreaming Water

For Parents, For Mother, Love, Children

“When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Family

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Attributed to Reverend Theodore Hesburgh in Sol Gordon Let's Make Sex a Household Word: A Guide for Parents and Children (John Day Company, 1975), p. 79
Misattributed

For Mother, For Father, Love, Children

“Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

For Parents, For Mother, Moms, Help

“Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

For Mother, World, Forgiveness

“There's no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”

Jill Churchill (1943) American writer of historical, mystery, and romantic novels under several names

For Parents, For Mother, Way, Perfection

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun."”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Ch.2 : My Folks, p. 13.
Context: Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

For Mother, Children, Sun

“A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”

Agatha Christie book The Hound of Death

Source: The Hound of Death

For Mother, Love, World, Law

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Heart Touching, For Parents, For Mother, Love

“But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Variant: Behind all your stories is always your mother's story. Because hers is where yours begin.
Source: For One More Day

For Mother

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

Calvin Trillin (1935) American journalist

For Mother, Family

“My mother… she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

For Mother, Beauty

“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?”

Milton Berle (1908–2002) American comedian and actor

Cute, For Parents, For Mother, Funny

“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

The Minister's Wooing (1859) Ch. 21 The Bruised Flax-Flower

For Parents, For Mother

“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), Chapter 9

For Parents, For Mother

“There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

For Parents, For Mother, Tear

“I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Variant: When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.
Source: For One More Day

For Parents, For Mother, Love

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

For Parents, For Mother

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

“I don't know what it is about food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meat loaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

For Mother, Food, Memory

“When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window.
~ Ogden Nash”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

“I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

"A Bouquet of Wild Flowers", article published in the Missouri Ruralist (20 July 1917)

Life, Learning

“A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.”

Amy Tan book The Bonesetter's Daughter

Source: The Bonesetter's Daughter

For Mother

“Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

For Parents, For Mother, Love, Peace

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Source: Homeland and Other Stories

Heart Touching, For Parents, For Mother, Law

“My mother refused to let me fail. So I insisted.”

Walker Percy book The Second Coming

Source: The Second Coming

“Maybe it's just a daughter's job to piss off her mother.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

Daughters

“I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.”

Maya Angelou book Mom & Me & Mom

Source: Mom & Me & Mom

For Mother, Way

“it's wrong to be right; it's right to be wrong.”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

love, Success, Heartbreaking, Leadership

“A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

La joie d’une mère est une lumière qui jaillit jusque sur l’avenir et le lui éclaire, mais qui se reflète sur le passé pour lui donner le charme des souvenirs.
Part I, ch. XXXI.
Letters of Two Brides (1841-1842)

For Mother, Light, Memory, Past

“Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.”

William Feather (1889–1981) Publisher, Author

Also quoted in Every Day Is Father's Day: The Best Things Ever Said About Dear Old Dad (1989), p. 150
The Business of Life (1949)

For Parents, For Mother, Children, Age

“Men are what their mothers made them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Fate
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Graduation, For Parents, For Mother, Men

“If you bungle raising your children I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Interview with NBC News Correspondent Sander Vanocur (1 October 1960) https://web.archive.org/web/20140127091759/http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/joint/joint011060_nbctv03.html

For Mother, Children, Thinking

“A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

The Three Graves
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

For Mother

“Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

Statement in Reader's Digest (1987), as quoted in Incredibly American : Releasing the Heart of Quality (1992) by Marilyn R. Zuckerman and Lewis J. Hatala, p. 13.

Children

“This is the thing that I was born to do.”

Samuel Daniel book Musophilus

Musophilus (1599), Stanza 100, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Attitude, Back To Work

“That is what I want to be remembered for.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Yours, Isaac Asimov (20 September 1973) 
General sources
Context: What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for.

Birthday, For women, Good Night, Anniversary

“Children are the anchors of a mother's life.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Fragment 685.
Phædra

For Mother, Life, Children

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ”

Теннева Джордан

For Parents, For Mother, People, Personality

“If it's not one thing, it's your mother.”

Peter Kay (1973) English writer, producer, actor and comedian

Mum Wants A Bungalow Tour [2003]

Faith, For Mother