Quotes For Mother
A collection of quotes on the topic of family, for parents, for mother, mother's day.
Best quotes for mother

“There is another world, but it is in this one.”
Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci...
Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Gallimard, 1968.
“There is no time for grief; there never is.”
Source: The Red Dice

“As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.”
Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

“No man is poor who has a Godly mother.”

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

“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”
Source: My Name is Red
Quotes For Mother

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

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose


“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”
Vol. II, ch. 2.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”
Source: Dreaming Water

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.”
Variant: The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

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

“Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
All the Trouble in the World (1994)

“These are images of what love is about.”
"How Happiness Happpens", p. 61
Awareness (1992)
Context: Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?" Or is it possible for the lamp to say, "I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people"? Or can a tree say, "I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad"? These are images of what love is about.
“There's no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”

“There is no instinct like that of the heart.”
“I like it when my mother smiles. And I especially like it when I make her smile.”
Source: Viola in Reel Life

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun."”
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.
Source: Firefly Lane

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.”
Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.”
Variant: Behind all your stories is always your mother's story. Because hers is where yours begin.
Source: For One More Day

“A dog is like a person—he needs a job and a family to be what he’s meant to be.”

“n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

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

“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.”
The Minister's Wooing (1859) Ch. 21 The Bruised Flax-Flower

“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”
Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), Chapter 9

“Are cats strange animals or do they so resemble us that we find them curious as we do monkeys?”
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”

“There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears.”
Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

“Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.”
Source: The Truth About Forever

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

“The days are long, but the years are short.”
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
“We take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”

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

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.”
Source: Homeland and Other Stories

“What's your heart telling you to do?
I don't know.'
Maybe, you're trying too hard to hear it.”
Source: A Walk to Remember

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

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”
Frequently attributed to Freud, but there is no evidence Freud ever said it http://www.freud.org.uk/about/faq/.
Misattributed

“Men are what their mothers made them.”
Fate
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

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

“Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.”
"L'Isolement", Méditations Poétiques (1820)

“A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.”
The Three Graves
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Children are the anchors of a mother's life.”
Fragment 685.
Phædra

“If it's not one thing, it's your mother.”
Mum Wants A Bungalow Tour [2003]