Mothers

A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestational surrogacy.

• How vastly important is it, then, for mothers to have a higher regard for their duties—to feel deeply the immense responsibilities that rest upon them! It is through their ministrations that the world grows worse or better.
  • Timothy Shay Arthur, The Mother’s Rule; or, The Right Way and the Wrong Way (1856), Preface

• ... mammals ... They—or rather, we—actually originated around the same time as the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago, when all land was gathered together as one supercontinent, scorched by vast deserts. Those first mammals had an even deeper legacy, tracing back to about 325 million years ago, to a humid realm of coal swamps, when the ancestral mammal lineage split from the reptile line on the great family tree of life. Over these immense stretches of geological time, mammals developed their trademark features: hair, keen senses of smell and hearing, big brains and sharp intelligence, fast growth and warm-blooded metabolism, a distinctive lineup of teeth (canines, incisors, premolars, molars), mammary glands that mothers use to nourish their babies.
  • Stephen L. Brusatte, "Introduction. Our mammalian family". The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us. HarperCollins. 7 June 2022. ISBN 9780062951526. 

• Mao's mother, Wen Chi-mei, was a hardy woman who worked in the house and fields. A Buddhist, she exhibited a warm-hearted kindness toward her children much in contrast to her husband's patriarchal sternest. During famines, when her husband was not watching, she would give food to the poor who came begging.
  • Fox Butterfield, (September 10, 1976)"Mao Zedong Dies in Peking at 82". The New York Times.

• Mother and poetess do not rhyme, but they go together rather well.
  • Rosario Castellanos "Genesis of an Ambassador" (1971) In Another Way to Be: Selected Works of Rosario Castellanos translated from Spanish by Myralyn Allgood

• Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
  • Exodus 20:12 (NIV)

• Motherhood in the true sense should embrace all children. Because so few realize this truth, child life is so empty of warmth, of love, of color, and beauty. A home—what is it to-day but a cage from which most of its inhabitants wish to escape? No, I should never have found happiness in such a place.
  • Emma Goldman "Has My Life Been Worth While?" (1933)

• 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, Sr., in "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1859), p. 618.

• In this unexpected scenario, the UFO occupants -- despite their obvious technological superiority -- are desperate for both human genetic material and the ability to feel human emotions -- particularly maternal emotions. Unlikely though it may seem, it is possible that the very survival of these extraterrestrials depends upon their success in absorbing chemical and psychological properties received from human abductees.
  • Budd Hopkins in Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods, p. 190

• Dear Sir,
  You have by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of sharing your grief. I have a mother, now eight-two years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she rather should mourn for me.
  • Samuel Johnson, letter to Mr. James Elphinston, September 25, 1750, as quoted by James Boswell in Chapman, R.W., ed (1998). Life of Johnson. Oxford University Press. p. 151. 

• When I was a little girl and I read a book I loved, I would kiss the picture of the author on the back of the book. And then my mother would come in the room and I would say, "I just read this book and this is the woman who wrote it." And my mother would say, "She's dead." Always the depressive, my mother.
  • Erica Jong in (February 5, 2015)"PEN DIY: Erica Jong on How to Write YOUR Book". PEN America, YouTube. (quote at 31:09 of 36:38)

• Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.
  • James Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

• I saw that God rejoiceth that He is our Father, and God rejoiceth that He is our Mother, and God rejoiceth that He is our Very Spouse and our soul is His loved Wife. And Christ rejoiceth that He is our Brother, and Jesus rejoiceth that He is our Saviour. These are five high joys, as I understand, in which He willeth that we enjoy; Him praising, Him thanking, Him loving, Him endlessly blessing.
  • Julian of Norwich, in Revelations of Divine Love (c.1393), Ch. 58

• Our Substance is our Father, God Almighty, and our Substance is our Mother, God, All-wisdom; and our Substance is in our Lord the Holy Ghost, God All-goodness.
  • Julian of Norwich, in Revelations of Divine Love (c.1393), Ch. 58

• As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all, and especially in these sweet words where He saith: I IT AM. That is to say, I IT AM, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I IT AM, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I IT AM, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love: I IT AM, the Trinity, I IT AM, the Unity: I am the sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to love: I am that maketh thee to long: I IT AM, the endless fulfilling of all true desires.
  • Julian of Norwich, in Revelations of Divine Love (c.1393), Ch. 58

• Our Rabbis taught: It says, 'Honour your father and your mother' (Exodus 20:12), and it says, 'Honor God with your wealth' (Proverbs 3:9). By using the same terminology, the Torah compares the honour you owe your father and mother to the honour you have to give to the Almighty. It also says, 'Every person must respect his mother and his father' (Leviticus 19:3), and it says, 'God your Lord you shall respect, Him you shall serve' (Deuteronomy 10:20). Here the same word, respect, is used. The Torah equates the respect you owe your parents with the respect you must show God. Furthermore it says, 'Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death' (Exodus 21:17). And furthermore it says, 'Anyone that curses God shall bear his sin' (Leviticus 24.–15). By using the same terms the Torah compares cursing of parents with cursing the Almighty.[14]
  • Talmud Kiddushin 31

• Being a good mother means teaching your children to care for the world.
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions. 16 September 2013. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-57131-871-8. 

• Being a good mother doesn't end with creating a home where just my children can flourish. A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn't end until she creates a home where all of life's beings can flourish.
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions. 16 September 2013. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-57131-871-8. 

• If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  • Rudyard Kipling Mother O' Mine,

• We should always loved our mother more because she's the light in our eyes, if her eyes is closed permanently then our world will be dark as ever.
  • Sarah Khan

• All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
  • Attributed to Abraham Lincoln in Josiah G. Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1866), p. 23; and George Alfred Townsend, The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867), 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.

• My mother is like the bright light in the sky, a doe on the hillsides. She is the morning star, shining even at noon-time. She is precious cornelian, a topaz from Marhaci.
  • Lu-diĝira, The message of Lu-dingira to his mother (mid to late 3rd millennium BC).

• A Kanga is Generally Regarded as One of the Fiercer Animals. I am not frightened of Fierce Animals in the ordinary way, but it is well known that, if One of the Fiercer Animals is Deprived of Its Young, it becomes as fierce as Two of the Fiercer Animals.
  • A. A. Milne, in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

• it was kind of exhausting running after two babies. Still, looking back I see the pleasure of it. That’s when I began to know women very well—as co-workers, really...If I hadn’t spent that time in the playground, I wouldn’t have written a lot of those stories.
  • Grace Paley Interview with The Paris Review (1992)

• It is as unnatural to force a child from the mother as from the father.
  • C.J. Parker, in Inhabitants of St. Katherine v. St. George (1714), Fortescue, 218; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 188.

• She was not, herself, hugely in favor of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn’t exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they’d been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they’d got the label which said “mother,” everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said “child”...
  • Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum (1998)

• And I decided that if motherhood turned a "young American beauty" into that unhappy woman, then motherhood wasn't for me, either. That youthful, emotional decision (ill-formed and made for the wrong reasons) kept me from too much early sexual experimentation, and probably turned me into a bit of a tease. I'd "neck" but only go so far, because . . . well, I because I was going to be a writer, "free and unhampered." At the very least. I wasn't going to get pregnant in my teens.
  • Jane Roberts in The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto, p. 44

• In the hands of woman lies the salvation of humanity and of our planet... The mother suggests the first conscious thoughts to her child. She gives direction and quality to all his aspirations and abilities. But the mother who possesses no thought of culture can suggest only the lower expressions of human nature. But in her striving toward education, woman must remember that all educational systems are only the means for the development of a higher knowledge and culture. The true culture of thought is developed by the culture of spirit and heart. Only such a combination gives that great synthesis without which it is impossible to realize the real grandeur, diversity, and complexity of human life in its cosmic evolution. Therefore, while striving to knowledge, may woman remember the Source of Light and the Leaders of Spirit—those great Minds who, verily, created the consciousness of humanity. In approaching this Source, this leading Principle of Synthesis, humanity will find the way to real evolution.
  • Helena Roerich in Letters I, (1 March 1929)

• Eric Draven: Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children. Do you understand? Morphine is bad for you. Your daughter is out there on the streets waiting for you.
  • The Crow (1994 film) written by David J. Schow and John Shirley, based on The Crow by James O'Barr

• So loving to my mother
  That he might not esteem the winds of heaven
  Visit her face too roughly.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 2, line 140.

• And all my mother came into mine eyes
  And gave me up to tears.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act IV, scene 6, line 32

• I realized that while women may seem like regular individuals, mothers are nothing short of divine embodiment. They transcend the ordinary, not only navigating life's challenges but also contending with the forces of nature in relentless devotion to their children.
  • Sanu Sharma, Pharak

• The 2010 U.S. census found that 53 percent of working mothers rely on a grandparent to watch their preschoolers while they’re at work. But many of our former classmates’ jobs had taken them far from their families (which puts them in line with this 2012 study by Atlas Van Lines showing an increase nationwide in corporate relocation), and they had no one to call on in an emergency, never mind day-to-day childcare. As a result, many felt isolated when it came to childcare—and if they didn’t feel comfortable with daycare or a nanny, or couldn’t afford it, the obvious choice was to work less and parent more.
  • Hana Shank and Elizabeth Wallace, “Beyond Maternity Leave”, The Atlantic, (Dec 19, 2016).

• Just as the reward for honouring father and mother is very great, the punishment for transgressing it is very great. And the one who afflicts his parents causes the shechinah [presence of God] to separate from him and harsh decrees fall upon him and he is given many sufferings. And even if life smiles on him in this life, he will surely be punished in the World to Come.
  • Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 143:4

• The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts — Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be.
  • Starhawk, as quoted in Womanspirit Rising : A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979) by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow

• Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened.
  • Edith Stein, in The Significance of Woman's Intrinsic Value in National Life (1928).

• A crafty man does not transgress against his mother.
  • Sumerian proverb, Collection XIII at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BC.

• A child should behave with modesty toward his mother.
  • Sumerian proverb from Urim, Text online at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BC.

• You should not speak arrogantly to your mother; that causes hatred for you. You should not question the words of your mother and your personal god. The mother, like Utu, gives birth to the man.
  • Šuruppak, Instructions of Shuruppak (3rd millennium BC). [1]

Alphabetized by author

• The bearing and the training of a child
  Is woman's wisdom.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Princess (1847), Canto V, line 456.

• 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 Tennyson, The Princess (1847), Canto VII, line 308.

• Myra subsided into outraged and sulky silence. Her romantic dream of motherhood had been riven into sharp-edged fragments by late-night feedings, constant diaper washing, and a baby who persisted in looking and acting like a baby, not like a young hero.
  • Sheri S. Tepper, The Gate to Women’s Country (1988), Chapter 10

• Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, in Vanity Fair (1847-1848), Vol. II, Ch. 2

• I’ve always been interested in the Mother Goddess. Not long ago, a young person, whom I don’t know very well, sent a message to a mutual friend that said: “I’m an addict of Mary Poppins, and I want you to ask P. L. Travers if Mary Poppins is not really the Mother Goddess.” So, I sent back a message: “Well, I’ve only recently come to see that. She is either the Mother Goddess or one of her creatures — that is, if we’re going to look for mythological or fairy-tale origins of Mary Poppins.”
  I’ve spent years thinking about it because the questions I’ve been asked, very perceptive questions by readers, have led me to examine what I wrote. The book was entirely spontaneous and not invented, not thought out. I never said, “Well, I’ll write a story about Mother Goddess and call it Mary Poppins.” It didn’t happen like that. I cannot summon up inspiration; I myself am summoned.
  • P. L. Travers, in The Paris Review No. 86 (Winter 1982)

• I do not care who it is, any child that turns on their mother is living in a terrible, terrible confusion. The earth is our mother. We must take care of the earth.
  • John Trudell, "Take back the Earth," Thanksgiving 1980

• The child must be prayed for. Those children that come with curses, that slip into the world, just in a moment of inadvertence, because that could not be prevented - what can we expect of such progeny? Mothers of America, think of that! Think in the heart of your hearts, are you ready to be women? Not any question of race or country, or that false sentiment of national pride. Who dares to be proud in this mortal life of ours, in this world of woes and miseries? What are we before this infinite force of God? But I ask you the question tonight: Do you all pray for the children to come? Are you thankful to be mothers, or not? Do you think that you are sanctified by motherhood, or not? Ask that of your minds. If you do not, your marriage is a lie, your womanhood is false, your education is superstition, and your children, if they come without prayer, will prove a curse to humanity.
  • Swami Vivekananda, "Women of India", a lecture delivered at the Shakespeare Club House, in Pasadena, California, on 18 January 1900

• The modern mother who is beginning to find that the rearing of children is the most difficult of all professions, more difficult than engineering, than law, or even than medicine itself. But along with this conviction comes the search for facts which will help them.
  • John B. Watson. (1928). Psychological Care of Infant and Child. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. p.12.

• Wives haven't enough to do today. Scientific mass production has made their tasks so easy that they are overburdened with time. They utilize this time in destroying the happiness of their children.
  • John B. Watson as quoted in Buckley, K.W. (1989). Mechanical Man: John Broadus Watson and the Beginnings of Behaviorism. New York: The Guilford Press. p.162

• All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.
  • Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 531-32.

• Stabat mater, dolorosa
  Juxta crucem lacrymosa
  Que pendebat Filius.
  • At the cross, her station keeping,
    Stood the mournful mother, weeping,
    Where He hung, the dying Lord.
  • Anon. Translation by Dr. Irons.

• Alma mater.
  • Fostering mother.
  • Applied by students to the university where they have graduated.

• [Milton] calls the university "A stony-hearted step-mother."
  • Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta. Phrase used also by De Quincey, Confessions of an Opium Eater, Part I. Referring to Oxford Street, London.

• A mother is a mother still,
  The holiest thing alive.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Three Graves, Stanza 10.

• The mother of all living.
  • Genesis, III. 20.

• * There is none,
  In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
  Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
  A mother's heart.
  • Felicia Hemans, Siege of Valencia, scene Room in a Palace of Valencia.

• The mother said to her daughter, "Daughter, bid thy daughter tell her daughter that her daughter's daughter hath a daughter."
  • George Hakewill, Apologie, Book III, Chapter V, Section 9.

• Mater ait natæ die natæ filia natum
  Ut moneat natæ plangere filiolam.
  • The mother says to her daughter: Daughter bid thy daughter, to tell her daughter, that her daughter's daughter is crying.
  • See Greswell, Account of Runcorn, p. 34. Another translation.: Rise up daughter, and go to thy daughter, For her daughter's daughter hath a daughter. Another old form in Willets' Hexapla, in Leviticum, Chapter XXVI. 9.

• I arose a mother in Israel.
  • Judges. V. 7.

• If I were hanged on the highest hill,
  Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  I know whose love would follow me still,
  Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
  • Rudyard Kipling, Mother O' Mine.

• No mother should be ashamed to admit that the joys of motherhood start when the kids are either asleep, away, or well married.
  • Sam Levenson, Everything but Money

• There was a place in childhood that I remember well,
  And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did tell.
  • Samuel Lover, My Mother Dear.

• * A woman's love
  Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,
  And by its weakness overcomes.
  • James Russell Lowell, Legend of Brittany, Part II, Stanza 43.

• The bravest battle that ever was fought;
  Shall I tell you where and when?
  On the maps of the world you will find it not;
  It was fought by the mothers of men.
  • Joaquin Miller, The Bravest Battle, Mothers of Men.

• Her children arise up and call her blessed.
  • Proverbs, XXXI. 28.

• They say man rules the universe,
  That subject shore and main
  Kneel down and bless the empery
  Of his majestic reign;
  But a sovereign, gentler, mightier,
  Man from his throne has hurled,
  For the hand that rocks the cradle
  Is the hand that rules the world.
  • William Stewart Ross ("Saladin"). Poem in Woman: Her Glory, her Shame, and her God, Volume II, p. 420. 1894.

• And say to mothers what a holy charge
  Is theirs—with what a kingly power their love
  Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind.
  • Mrs. Sigourney, The Mother of Washington, line 33.

• Who ran to help me when I fell,
  And would some pretty story tell,
  Or kiss the place to make it well?
  My mother.
  • Anne Taylor, My Mother, Stanza 6.

• Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of children.
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Volume II, Chapter XII.

• They say that man is mighty,
  He governs land and sea,
  He wields a mighty scepter
  O'er lesser powers that be;
  But a mightier power and stronger
  Man from his throne has hurled,
  For the hand that rocks the cradle
  Is the hand that rules the world.
  • William Ross Wallace, What Rules the World. Written about 1865–6.

• Sure I love the dear silver that shines in your hair,
  And the brow that's all furrowed, and wrinkled with care.
  I kiss the dear fingers, so toil-worn for me,
  Oh, God bless you and keep you, Mother Machree.
  • Rida Johnson Young, Mother Machree.

• Children
• Fathers
• Parenting

• Mothers Day Quotes