Love Quotes

"There are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child."

- Anne Lamott

"A mother’s love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible."

- Marion C. Garretty

"A mother’s love is everything. It is what brings a child into this world. It is what molds their entire being. When a mother sees her child in danger, she is literally capable of anything. Mothers have lifted cars off of their children and destroyed entire dynasties. A mother’s love is the strongest energy known to man."

- Jamie McGuire

"Children do not need us to shape them; they need us to respond to who they are."

- Naomi Aldort

"You must first teach a child he is loved. Only then is he ready to learn everything else."

- Amanda Morgan

"Speak with your children as if are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become."

- Brooke Hampton

"It’s time we stop buying the lie that we need to be hard on kids because ‘the world is hard.” Love them as hard as you can. That’s what they need."

- Tara Vogler

"If your children fear you, they cannot trust you. If they don’t trust you, they cannot learn from you."

- Lori Petro

"Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?"

- Jane Nelson

"It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."

- L.R. Knost

"The way we talk to children becomes their inner voice."

- Peggy O’ Mara

"It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself."

- Joyce Maynard

"What it’s like to be a parent: It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but in exchange, it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love."

- Nicholas Sparks

"Have we created a space in our families where our kids know that they belong. Where there are no prerequisites for worthiness, you don’t have to hustle here for me to believe you’re worthy of loving. You don’t have to perform here for me to think that you belong here. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get a certain grade on your test. You don’t have to hit so many home-runs. You belong here."

- Brené Brown

"I tell my daughter every morning, ‘Now, what are the two most important parts of you?’ And she says, ‘My head and my heart.’ Because that’s what I’ve learned in the foxhole: What gets you through life is strength of character and strength of spirit and love."

- Viola Davis

"I’ve never met a 2-year-old who is terrible. I’m so cool with every stage my daughter goes through. I just think she’s amazing. I hope she’s not looking at me thinking, ‘Mom, are the terrible 30s coming on with you?’"

- Katie Holmes

"Say yes to the feelings, even as you say no to the behavior."

- Daniel J. Siegel

"Even if I’m setting myself up for failure, I think it’s worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obsessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is. A mother who doesn’t fret over failings and slights, who realizes her worries and anxieties are just thoughts, the continuous chattering and judgment of a too-busy mind. A mother who doesn’t worry so much about being bad or good but just recognizes that she’s both, and neither. A mother who does her best, and for whom that is good enough, even if, in the end, her best turns out to be, simply, not bad."

- Ayelet Waldman

"If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent."

- Bette Davis

"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow."

- Maya Angelou

"Effective discipline means that we’re not only stopping a bad behavior or promoting a good one, but also teaching skills and nurturing the connections in our children’s brains that will help them make better decisions and handle themselves well in the future."

- Daniel J. Siegel

"As parents, we are wired to try to save our children from any harm and hurt, but ultimately we can’t. They’ll fall down, they’ll get their feelings hurt, and they’ll get scared and sad and angry. Actually, it’s often these difficult experiences that allow them to grow and learn about the world. Rather than trying to shelter our children from life’s inevitable difficulties, we can help them integrate those experiences into their understanding of the world and learn from them."

- Daniel J. Siegel

"As parents become more aware and emotionally healthy, their children reap the rewards and move toward health as well. That means that integrating and cultivating your own brain is one of the most loving and generous gifts you can give your children."

- Daniel J. Siegel

"It is not change that causes anxiety; it is the feeling that we are without defenses in the presence of what we see as danger that causes anxiety."

- Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey

"So often, children are punished for being human. They are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes. Yet, we adults have them all the time. None of us are perfect. We must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves."

- Rebecca Eanes

"By loving them for more than their abilities, we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments."

- Eileen Kennedy-Moore

"Trust children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we should not be trusted."

- John Holt

"Too much love never spoils our children. Children become spoiled when we substitute presents for presence."

- Anthony Withman

"When I had my children and I felt that type of love, which I know you understand and every mom out there understands, it made me understand that there was a purity to love. That there is an unconditional love."

- Jennifer Lopez

"My mother has always been my emotional barometer and my guidance. I was lucky enough to get to have one woman who truly helped me through everything."

- Emma Stone