“For all that Nature by her mother-wit
Could frame in earth.”
Canto 10, stanza 21
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book IV
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Edmund Spenser 53
English poet 1552–1599Related quotes

“The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.”
Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Ode to the Spirit of Earth in Autumn, st. 14.

Callum Coats: Water Wizard
Callum Coats: Water Wizard
Variant: "Our primeval Mother Earth is an organism that no science in the world can rationalize. Everything on her that crawls and flies is dependent upon Her and all must hopelessly perish if that Earth dies that feeds us." (Callum Coats: Water Wizard)

“The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me,—her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.”
Prologue, stanza 27.
Peter Bell (1798)

Summations, Chapter 60
Context: This fair lovely word Mother, it is so sweet and so close in Nature of itself that it may not verily be said of none but of Him; and to her that is very Mother of Him and of all. To the property of Motherhood belongeth natural love, wisdom, and knowing; and it is good: for though it be so that our bodily forthbringing be but little, low, and simple in regard of our spiritual forthbringing, yet it is He that doeth it in the creatures by whom that it is done. The Kindly, loving Mother that witteth and knoweth the need of her child, she keepeth it full tenderly, as the nature and condition of Motherhood will. And as it waxeth in age, she changeth her working, but not her love. And when it is waxen of more age, she suffereth that it be beaten in breaking down of vices, to make the child receive virtues and graces. This working, with all that be fair and good, our Lord doeth it in them by whom it is done: thus He is our Mother in Nature by the working of Grace in the lower part for love of the higher part. And He willeth that we know this: for He will have all our love fastened to Him. And in this I saw that all our duty that we owe, by God’s bidding, to Fatherhood and Motherhood, for God’s Fatherhood and Motherhood is fulfilled in true loving of God; which blessed love Christ worketh in us. And this was shewed in all and especially in the high plenteous words where He saith: It is I that thou lovest.

“We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”

Thomas Cromwell — quoted in Alison Weir (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. ISBN 0802136834, p. 197