50 Inspirational Quotes for New Mothers: Embrace the Journey

"Motherhood is a choice you make every day, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is … and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong."

- Donna Ball

"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."

- Jamie McGuire

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

- Amanda Morgan

"The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means you already are one."

- Jodi Picoult

"Successful mothers are not the ones who have never struggled. They are the ones who never gave up despite the struggles."

- Sharon Jaynes

"Even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you’d be okay."

- Jojo Moyes

"A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take."

- Cardinal Mermillod

"The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation."

- James E. Faust

"If you're a mom, you're a superhero. Period."

- Rosie Pope

"At the end of the day, my most important job is still mom-in-chief."

- Michelle Obama

"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."

- Jennifer Lopez

"When you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know."

- Mitch Albom

"Making a decision to have a child — it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

- Elizabeth Stone

"Motherhood is the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary — it’s an act of infinite optimism."

- Gilda Radner

"The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly — indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection."

- Arianna Huffington

"A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dates all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."

- Agatha Christie

"Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work."

- C.S. Lewis

"Successful mothers are not the ones that have never struggled. They are the ones that never give up, despite the struggles."

- Sharon Jaynes

"Parenting is the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion about, but the hardest thing in the world to do."

- Matt Walsh

"When you look into your mother's eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth."

- Mitch Albom

"For when a child is born the mother also is born again."

- Gilbert Parker

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

- Erich Fromm

"Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were here, I would die for you. This is the miracle of Mother’s love."

- Maureen Hawkins

"Motherhood was the great equalizer for me; I started to identify with everybody."

- Annie Lennox

"It’s ok to be grumpy sometimes, to have bad days to struggle, to make mistakes, to say the wrong thing, feel overwhelmed and under-appreciated, to be out-of-sorts and sort-of-over-it all. It’s ok for us big humans, and it’s ok for our little humans, too. After all, we’re all humans, right? How else will our little humans learn that it’s okay to be human? Remember, we’re imperfect humans growing imperfect humans in an imperfect world, and that’s perfectly okay."

- L.R. Knost

"The choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Discipline is helping a child solve a problem. Punishment is making a child suffer for having a problem. To raise problem-solvers, focus on solutions not retribution."

- L.R. Knost

"I wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred."

- Brene Brown

"Being a mom means choosing to show up day after day and love day after day and give day after day and try day after day and not having all the answers and not being perfect but simply doing your best."

- Rachel Martin

"A mother needs only step into the shower to be instantly reassured she is indispensable to every member of her family."

- Lynne Williams

"To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today."

- Barbara Johnson

"Mother is a verb. It’s something you do. Not just who you are."

- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"I’m not a good mom. I’m not a bad mom. I’m the mama I am, and I try very hard, and when I fail, that’s ok."

- Kristen Bell

"Motherhood is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you would have."

- Joan Ryan

"A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them."

- Victor Hugo

"The biggest surprise, which is also the best, is that I didn’t know I would love motherhood as much as I do."

- Deborah Norville

"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."

- Ayelet Waldman

"A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me."

- Kristin Hannah

"I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is."

- Oprah

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own."

- Marguerite Kelly

"A baby is like the beginning of all things: wonder, hope a dream of possibilities. In a world that is cutting down its trees to build highways, losing its earth to concrete, babies are almost the only remaining link in nature, with the natural world of living things from which we spring."

- Eda J. Leshan

"As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong."

- Kristin Hannah

"I see myself as mom first. I’m so lucky to have that role in life. The world can like me, hate me or fall apart around me and at least I wake up with my kids and I’m happy."

- Angelina Jolie

"A baby is something you carry inside you for nine months, in your arms for three years and in your heart till the day you die."

- Mary Mason

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

- Elizabeth Stone

"A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."

- Agatha Christie

"Motherhood is the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism."

- Gilda Radner

"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."

- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

"To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and distressingly inhabited. Soul and spirit are stretched – along with body – making pregnancy a time of transition, growth, and profound beginnings."

- Anne Christian Buchanan

"Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws."

- Barbara Kingsolver

"Having kids—the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings—is the biggest job anyone can embark on."

- Maria Shriver

"There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one."

- Jill Churchill

"Giving birth and being born brings us into the essence of creation, where the human spirit is courageous and bold and the body, a miracle of wisdom."

- Harriette Hartigan

"You never understand life until it grows inside of you."

- Sandra C. Kassis

"The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children."

- Jessica Lange

"No influence is so powerful as that of the mother."

- Sarah Josepha Hale

"I like to think of motherhood as a great big adventure. You set off on a journey, you don’t really know how to navigate things, and you don’t exactly know where you’re going or how you’re going to get there."

- Cynthia Rowley

"Birth is the epicenter of women’s power."

- Ani DiFranco

"Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing."

- Ricki Lake

"It’s not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings."

- Ann Landers

"What children take from us, they give… We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply."

- Sonia Taitz

"I think of motherhood as a great big adventure. You set off on a journey, you don’t really know how to navigate things, and you don’t exactly know where you’re going or how you’re going to get there."

- Cynthia Rowley

"We are born of love; love is our mother."

- Rumi

"Your words as a parent have great power. Use them wisely and make sure they come from the heart."

- Carolina King

"Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."

- Rumi

"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

"There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children."

- Marianne Williamson

"The golden rule of parenting is to always show your children the kind of person you want them to be."

- Elizabeth Roxas

"One generation of deeply loving parents would change the brain of the next generation, and with that, the world."

- Charles Raison

"Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child. There should be a song for women to sing at this moment or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name the moment."

- Anita Diamant

"You’re always going to wonder if you’re doing things wrong, but that’s what it means to be a mom, to care so much about someone else that you just want to be perfect as possible."

- Naya Rivera

"What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all."

- Benjamin Spock

"Whether your pregnancy was meticulously planned, medically coaxed, or happened by surprise, one thing is certain – your life will never be the same."

- Catherine Jones

"The best place to cry is on a mother's arms."

- Jodi Picoult

"Motherhood changes everything."

- Adriana Trigiani

"You don't take a class; you're thrown into motherhood and learn from experience."

- Jennie Finch

"I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars."

- E.M. Forster

"Feeling fat lasts nine months, but the joy of becoming a mom lasts forever."

- Nikki Dalton

"Motherhood is wonderful, but it’s also hard work. It’s the logistics more than anything. You discover you have reserves of energy you didn’t know you had."

- Deborah Mailman

"Being a mother is the highest paid job in the world. Since the payment is in pure love."

- Amina Sambo

"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers."

- Rudyard Kipling

"Your most valuable parenting skill is learning to manage yourself first."

- Dr. Laura Markham

"Finding balance as a mother means accepting your imperfections."

- Mary Organizes

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will find forgiveness."

- Honore de Balzac

"Live in the moment and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering."

- Fanny Crosby

"Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever-fresh and radiant possibility."

- Kate Douglas Wiggin

"Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

- Riney Jordan

"Imagine what might happen if women emerged from their labor beds with a renewed sense of the strength and power of their bodies, and of their capacity for ecstasy through giving birth."

- Dr. Christiane Northrup

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

- Anthony Withman

"I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a know which I do not wish to unite."

- Mary Wollstonecraft

"I think a lot about teaching my kids to work hard. I’ve learned something about kids — they don’t do what you say; they do what you do."

- Jennifer Lopez

"The one thing you’ve got to be prepared to do as a parent is not to be liked from time to time."

- Emma Thompson

"Acceptance, tolerance, bravery, compassion. These are the things my mom taught me."

- Lady Gaga

"So often, children are punished for being human. They are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes."

- Rebecca Eanes

"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

- William Ross Wallace

"You are creating a legacy of love that will live on in your child's heart forever."

- Anonymous

"Having a baby is like falling in love again, both with your husband and your child."

- Tina Brown

"You are writing the story of your child's life with every cuddle, every kiss, and every whispered 'I love you.'"

- Anonymous

"My body has given me the greatest gift of my life."

- Hilary Duff

"In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves."

- Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

"Loving a baby is a circular business, a kind of feedback loop. The more you give the more you get and the more you get the more you feel like giving."

- Penelope Leach

"You never know how much your parents loved you until you have a child to love."

- Jennifer Hudson

"Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials."

- Meryl Streep

"In the end, I am the only one who can give my children a happy mother who loves life."

- Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard

"While we try to teach our children all about life, they teach us what life is all about."

- Angela Schwindt

"Everything grows rounder and wider and weirder, and I sit here in the middle of it all and wonder who in the world you will turn out to be."

- Carrie Fisher

"A happy mother is a good mother, and if work makes you hum, your whole family sings along."

- Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober

"During labor, let your voice be strong and unhindered. Women have been silenced in the birth room for too long."

- Lauralyn Curtis

"There is such a special sweetness in being able to participate in creation."

- Pamela S. Nadav

"Embrace the messiness of motherhood. It's in those chaotic moments that the most beautiful memories are made."

- Anonymous

"Take time for yourself, mama. Self-care is not selfish; it's essential for your well-being and the well-being of your family."

- Anonymous

"You are enough, just as you are. Your presence and love are the greatest gifts you can give to your child."

- Anonymous

"Birth matters. It brings us into being, on many levels."

- Ananda Lowe

"Having kids feel like that first seventh-grade crush that overwhelms every molecule in your body, but it’s permanent."

- Kristen Bell

"Motherhood is basically finding activities for children in three-hour pockets of time for the rest of your life."

- Mindy Kaling

"With every newborn baby, a little sun rises."

- Irmgard Erath

"For this child, I prayed and the Lord has granted the desires of my heart."

- 1 Samuel 1:27

"You are capable, resilient, and overflowing with love. Trust yourself, mama."

- Anonymous

"Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born."

- George Bernard Shaw

"You are not alone on this journey. Lean on your tribe, and let them lift you up when you need it most."

- Anonymous

"Babies are bits of stardust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star."

- Larry Barretto

"Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it."

- Harold Hulbert

"Part of being a parent is rolling with the punches, so consider an unexpected pregnancy the universe’s way of helping you to learn to do that."

- Heather Wittenberg

"In this way, every birth is a natural birth: each of us is part of nature, not separate from it, and nature is always stunning in its variety. Your birth, then, is part of the natural world, however it unfolds."

- Lauralyn Curtis

"Birth is as safe as life gets."

- Harriette Hartigan

"You just have to be gentle with yourself."

- Reese Witherspoon

"Carrying a baby is the most rewarding experience a woman can enjoy."

- Jayne Mansfield

"Think of stretch marks as pregnancy service stripes."

- Joyce Armor

"A mother continues to labor long after the baby is born."

"A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin."

- Unknown

"Being a mother is not about what you gave up to have a child but what you’ve gained from having one."

"Nothing in life will ever make you as happy, as sad, as exhausted, or as incredibly proud as motherhood."

"Remember when you found out you were pregnant and thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’ You did. Remember when you had a crying newborn and thought, ‘How am I going to get through this?’ You did. Remember when you had a strong-willed, defiant toddler and thought, ‘How am I going to make it through? You did. When days are hard, just remember…You have. You can. You will."

"As a mama, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. I forget things. I lose my cool. And somedays I go a little crazy. But, it’s okay because in the end, no one could ever love my child the way I do."

"Motherhood: The only place you can experience Heaven and Hell at the same time."

"There are many things in life that I have taken for granted, but the opportunity and ability to be a mama will never be one of them."

"From the moment I became a mother, my purpose has been to love and protect my children with everything I have."

"The most precious jewels you’ll ever have around your neck are the arms of your children."

"I’m a mother. Life can be tough. But I am tougher."

"Enjoy every moment, Mama, they grow up before you know it."

"It is within the journey of motherhood that a woman will discover how strong she really is."

"A baby fills a place in your heart that you never knew was empty."

"Having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most sweetest and peaceful feelings in the world."

"The sweet smell of a baby must be one of the best smells in the whole world."

"There will never be a day, like a day your baby was born."

"A sleeping baby is the new happy hour."

"A mother’s joy begins when new life is stirring inside; when a tiny heartbeat is heard for the first time, and a playful kick reminds her that she is never alone."

- Unknown

"All mothers are working mothers."

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

"I am not a bad mom because I work, and I am not a bad employee because I am a mom."

"Motherhood: if you think my hands are full, you should see my heart."

"You’re doing a great job, mom, even when you don’t feel like it."

"A baby arrives, and just like that everything changes. The world gets bigger, heart grows fuller, and life means more."

"I am brave and courageous for even trying, when I think I can’t do it."

"Never limit yourself. You can be a mom and pursue your dream simultaneously."

"Being a mother is the most rewarding blessing in the world, just knowing you can love someone so much, and get that same love in return is wonderful."

"Motherhood is messy and challenging, and crazy, and sleepless, and giving, and unbelievably beautiful."

"Be patient with yourself. You and your baby are both learning new things each day."

"You will never have this day with your children again tomorrow. They will be a little older than they were today. This day is a gift just breathe and notice, smell and touch them, study their faces and little feet, pay attention, relish the charm of the present. Enjoy today."

"Behind every great child is a mom who’s pretty sure she’s screwing it all up."