Mothers Day Quotes

Let Mom know how much you love her...

Enjoy this collection of Mothers Day Quotes.  Find that special quote that expresses your feelings about your mother or "like a mother" on her special day.  There are many categories to choose ranging from sentimental to humorous to proverbs to down right "mushy". 

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About Mothers 

Only mothers can think of the future-because they give birth to it in their children.
~ Maxim Gorky

Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

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.
~ Tenneva Jordan

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. 
~ Victor Hugo

It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have...One pair that see through closed doors. Another in the back of her head...and, of course, the ones in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and reflect 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word.
~ Erma Bombeck

I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother.
~ Abraham Lincoln 

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All I Am I Owe to You

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

My mother was the making of me. She was so true and so sure of me, I felt that I had someone to live for - someone I must not disappoint. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me.
~ Thomas Edison

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. 
~ Abraham Lincoln

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There was never a great man who had not a great mother.
~ Olive Schreiner

Men are what their mothers made them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
~ Immanuel Kant

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Appreciation of a Mother's Love

My Mother's love is the Almond Blossom of my mind and the fragrance is worth dying for. Her gentle compassionate touch shaped my very essence and -- forever -- I shall remember and although we are separated by the corridor of life and the door way of heaven, I will always attempt to become the man that she perceived me to be. I love you mom, where ever you are and I hope you can feel my written word and I envision you enveloped in a shortcut of kindness and love and -- forever -- happy and content. God bless all of the Mother's of his world and other Space Time Continuum.
~ Frank L. de Roos III

A mother's love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, and it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking.
~ Helen Steiner Rice

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.
~ Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

You never realize how much your mother loves you till you explore the attic - and find every letter you ever sent her, every finger painting, clay pot, bead necklace, Easter chicken, cardboard Santa Claus, paperlace Mother's Day card and school report since day one.
~ Pam Brown

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A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
~ Washington Irving

Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. 
~ Erich Fromm

Mother's love grows by giving. 
~ Charles Lamb

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not. 
~ James Joyce

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Appreciation of a Spiritual Mother

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Appreciation of Mother as an Adult

When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.
~ Nancy Friday

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.
~ Unknown

We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
~ Erma Bombeck

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Appreciation of Mother as Comforter

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
~ Washington Irving

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.
~ T. DeWitt Talmage

Everybody knows that a good mother gives her children a feeling of trust and stability. She is their earth. She is the one they can count on for the things that matter most of all. She is their food and their bed and the extra blanket when it grows cold in the night; she is their warmth and their health and their shelter; she is the one they want to be near when they cry. She is the only person in the whole world in a whole lifetime who can be these things to her children. There is no substitute for her. Somehow even her clothes feel different to her children's hands from anybody else's clothes. Only to touch her skirt or her sleeve makes a troubled child feel better.
~ Katharine Butler Hathaway

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[A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled. 
~ Emily Dickinson

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.
~ Jane and Ann Taylor

I cannot forget my mother. [S]he is my bridge. When I needed to get across, she steadied herself long enough for me to run across safely.
~ Renita Weems

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Appreciation of Mother as Teacher

The mother's heart is the child's school-room.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

That best academy, a mother's knee. 
~ James Russell Lowell

One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. 
~ George Herbert

A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

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

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Appreciation of Mother's Hard Work

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. 
~ Lisa Alther

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The phrase 'working mother' is redundant. 
~ Jane Sellman

Nobody knows of the work it makes
To keep the home together.
Nobody knows of the steps it takes,
Nobody knows-but Mother.
~ Anonymous

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All mothers are working mothers.
~ Unknown

Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother.
~ Beverly Jones

A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.
~ Peter De Vries

A man's work is from sun to sun, but a mother's work is never done. 
~ Unknown

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Belated Mothers Day

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother's Day are the good ones. 
~ Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

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For a Birth Mother

No gift to your mother can ever equal her gift to you - life.
~ Anonymous

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For a New Mother

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.
~ Bagwan Shree Rajneesh

In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other.
~ Anne Morrow Lindberg

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For a Single Mother

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
~ Washington Irvin

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For a Stepmother

Mother's Day is in honor of the best Mother who ever lived - the Mother of your heart.
~ Anna Jarvis

Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day.
~ Jay Leno

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For an Adoptive Mother

Mother's Day is in honor of the best Mother who ever lived - the Mother of your heart.
~ Anna Jarvis 

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Humorous

Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day.
~ Jay Leno

My mother used to say, 'He who angers you, conquers you!' But my mother was a saint.
~ Elizabeth Kenny

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? 
~ Milton Berle

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. 
~ Lisa Alther

Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother.
~ Beverly Jones

A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.
~ Peter De Vries

Okay, using the dreaded middle name is not the best way to forge a bond.
~ Adam Brody

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
~ John F. Kennedy

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
~ Phyllis Diller 

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Importance of Mothers

The noblest calling in the world is that of mother. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece or who can write a book that will influence millions deserves the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will be exerting an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have been destroyed,deserves the highest honor that man can give.
~ David O. McKay

Motherhood is the greatest potential influence in human society. Her caress first awakens in the child a sense of security; her kiss the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world. Thus in infancy and childhood she implants ever-directing and restraining influences that remain through life.
~ David O. McKay

Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
~ Robert Browning

No gift to your mother can ever equal her gift to you - life.
~ Anonymous

Motherhood is priced
Of God, at price no man may dare
To lessen or misunderstand.
~ Helen Hunt Jackson

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Motherhood is the one thing in all the world which most truly exemplifies the God-given virtues of creating and sacrificing. Though it carries the woman close to the brink of death, motherhood also leads her into the very realm of the fountains of life and makes her co-partner with the Creator in bestowing upon eternal spirits mortal life.
~ David O. McKay

Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.
~ Pope Paul VI

Mothers are the pivot on which the family spins,
Mothers are the pivot on which the world spins.
~ Pam Brown

No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. 
~ Harry Truman

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. 
~ William Makepeace Thackeray

I affirm my profound belief that God's greatest creation is womanhood. I also believe that there is no greater good in all the world than motherhood. The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation.
~ James E. Faust, April 1993 General Conference

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Inspirational

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.
~ Unknown

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.
~ Pope Paul VI

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Jaded

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
~ Amy Tan

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.
~ Maya Angelou

My mother's great. She has the major looks. She could stop you from doing anything, through a closed door even, with a single look. Without saying a word, she has that power to rip out your tonsils.
~ Whoopi Goldberg

Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day.
~ Jay Leno

Okay, using the dreaded middle name is not the best way to forge a bond.
~ Adam Brody

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Like a Mother to Me

Mother's Day is in honor of the best Mother who ever lived - the Mother of your heart.
~ Anna Jarvis

How can I ever thank you enough
for all the nice things you've done?
You've accepted me into your family
and my heart you've readily won.

It takes a generous person
who can open her arms and her heart –
to include another 'child' to love
as if they were there from the start.

You've always had time to listen
as I've traveled down life's path
And you've guided me and given me
tons of loving and lots of laughs.

You're like a Mother to me
and I thank dear God above
'cause not everyone is doubly blessed
to have two mothers to love.
~ Unknown

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Men and Their Mothers

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
~ Irish Proverb

A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of success that often induces real success.
~ Sigmund Freud

Men are what their mothers made them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There was never a great man who had not a great mother.
~ Olive Schreiner

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Mothers Day

Mother's Day is in honor of the best Mother who ever lived - the Mother of your heart.
~ Anna Jarvis

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother's Day are the good ones. 
~ Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

You never realize how much your mother loves you till you explore the attic - and find every letter you ever sent her, every finger painting, clay pot, bead necklace, Easter chicken, cardboard Santa Claus, paperlace Mother's Day card and school report since day one.
~ Pam Brown

Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day.
~ Jay Leno

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Proverbs About Mothers

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers. 
~ Jewish Proverb

Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. 
~ Moorish Proverb

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. 
~ Spanish Proverb

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
~ Irish Proverb

There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.
~ Chinese Proverb

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Quotes by Famous People

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. 
~ Abraham Lincoln

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. 
~ Abraham Lincoln

I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Because I feel that in the heavens above
The angels, whispering one to another,
Can find among their burning tears of love,
None so devotional as that of 'Mother,'
Therefore, by that dear name I have long called you,
You who are more than mother unto me.
~ Edgar Allan Poe

Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just)
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled. 
~ Emily Dickinson

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It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have...One pair that see through closed doors. Another in the back of her head...and, of course, the ones in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and reflect 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word.
~ Erma Bombeck

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
~ Erma Bombeck

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

No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. 
~ Harry Truman

A mother's love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, and it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking.
~ Helen Steiner Rice

I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
~ Immanuel Kant

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Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day.
~ Jay Leno

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
~ John F. Kennedy

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart - a heart so large that everybody's joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation. 
~ Mark Twain

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? 
~ Milton Berle

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. 
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
~ Phyllis Diller

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I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them.
~ Phyllis Diller

Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.
~ Pope Paul VI

Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
~ Robert Browning

If I was damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o'mine.
~ Rudyard Kipling

Is my mother my friend? I would have to say, first of all she is my Mother, with a capital 'M'; she's something sacred to me. I love her dearly...yes, she is also a good friend, someone I can talk openly with if I want to.
~ Sophia Loren

My mother was the making of me. She was so true and so sure of me, I felt that I had someone to live for - someone I must not disappoint. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me.
~ Thomas Edison

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A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
~ Washington Irving

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
~ Washington Irving

The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated. 
~ Washington Irving

My mother's great. She has the major looks. She could stop you from doing anything, through a closed door even, with a single look. Without saying a word, she has that power to rip out your tonsils.
~ Whoopi Goldberg 

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Sentimental

She is my first, great love. She was a wonderful, rare woman - you do not know; as strong, and steadfast, and generous as the sun. She could be as swift as a white whiplash, and as kind and gentle as warm rain, and as steadfast as the irreducible earth beneath us.
~ D. H. Lawrence

I cannot forget my mother. [S]he is my bridge. When I needed to get across, she steadied herself long enough for me to run across safely.
~ Renita Weems

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. 
~ Honoré de Balzac

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

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.
~ William Goldsmith Brown

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My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. 
~ Graycie Harmon

I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine - she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights. 
~ Terri Guillemets

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
~ George Cooper

Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
~ Anne Taylor

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them all. 
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends - but only one mother in the whole world. 
~ Kate Douglas Wiggin

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart - a heart so large that everybody's joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation. 
~ Mark Twain

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Because I feel that in the heavens above
The angels, whispering one to another,
Can find among their burning tears of love,
None so devotional as that of 'Mother,'
Therefore, by that dear name I have long called you,
You who are more than mother unto me.
~ Edgar Allan Poe

A mother laughs our laughter,
Sheds our tears,
Returns our love,
Fears our fears.
She lives our joys,
Cares our cares,
And all our hopes and dreams she shares.
~ Julia Summers

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, 'where mother is'. 
~ Keith L. Brooks

Mother is the heartbeat in the home; and without her, there seems to be no heart throb.
~ Leroy Brownlow

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.
~ Jane and Ann Taylor

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Women and Their Mothers 

Mothers and daughters are closest, when daughters become mothers. 
~ Unknown

A daughter is a mother's gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self. And mothers are their daughters' role model, their biological and emotional road map, the arbiter of all their relationships. 
~ Victoria Secunda

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
~ Erma Bombeck

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