100+ Inspirational Quotes to Celebrate and Honor Your Mother

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

- Jill Churchill

"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

"A mother’s love liberates."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Jodi Picoult

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

- Mitch Albom

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

- Rudyard Kipling

"A mother’s love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking."

- Helen Steiner Rice

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

- Abraham Lincoln

"Motherhood: all love begins and ends there."

- Robert Browning

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

- Mitch Albom

"In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Cardinal Mermillod

"You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known—and even that is an understatement."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"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

"Behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first."

- Matthew L. Jacobson

"If I were asked to define Motherhood. I would have defined it as Love in its purest form. Unconditional love."

- Revathi Sankaran

"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. She is the beating of my heart."

- Kristin Hannah

"Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There’s no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving."

- Gail Tsukiyama

"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

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

- Karl Lagerfeld

"There will be so many times you feel like you’ve failed, but in the eyes, heart, and mind of your child, you are super mom."

- Stephanie Precourt

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

- Abraham Lincoln

"I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"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

"To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world."

- Dr. Seuss

"I tell my kids, ‘I am thinking about you every other minute of my day.’"

- Michelle Obama

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

- Charley Benetto

"Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they’re still holding the family together."

- Susan Gale

"My Mother: She is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her."

- Jodi Picoult

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."

- William Makepeace Thackeray

"My mother was my role model before I even knew what that word was."

- Lisa Leslie

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

- Maya Angelou

"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

"There are really places in your heart that you don’t know exist until you love a child."

- Anne Lamott

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

- Barbara Kingsolver

"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

"The highest and noblest work in this life is that of a mother."

- Russell M. Nelson

"The noblest thoughts my soul can claim, / The holiest words my tongue can frame, / Unworthy are to praise the name / More sacred than all other. / An infant when her love first came— / A man, I find it just the same; / Reverently I breathe her name, / The blessed name of mother"

- George Griffith Fetter

"Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed."

- Linda Wooten

"You have nothing in this world more precious than your children. When you grow old, when your hair turns white and your body grows weary, when you are prone to sit in a rocker and meditate on the things of your life, nothing will be so important as the question of how your children have turned out."

- Gordon B. Hinckley

"Who can justly measure the righteous influence of a mother’s love? What enduring fruits result from the seeds of truth that a mother carefully plants and lovingly cultivates in the fertile soil of a child’s trusting mind and heart? As a mother, you have been given divine instincts to help you sense your child’s special talents and unique capacities."

- Richard G. Scott

"When you’re in the thick of raising your kids by yourself, you tend to keep a running list of everything you think you’re doing wrong. I recommend taking a lot of family pictures as evidence to the contrary."

- Connie Schultz

"The truth is that no matter how old we are, as long as our mothers are alive, we want our mother."

- Goldie Hawn

"I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought, and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love."

- Leo Buscaglia

"No man is poor who has a Godly mother."

- Abraham Lincoln

"A queen could leave her throne. But a mother never leaves her son."

- V.E. Schwab

"If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much."

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

"Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy."

- Tina Fey

"If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother."

- Booker T. Washington

"[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

"Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Meryl Streep

"Having children just puts the whole world into perspective. Everything else just disappears."

- Kate Winslet

"Perhaps it takes courage to raise children."

- John Steinbeck

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’"

- Fred Rogers

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

- Jill Churchill

"A happy family is but an earlier heaven."

- George Bernard Shaw

"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

"Behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins."

- Mitch Albom

"Motherhood is a choice you make everyday, 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

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

- Jodi Picoult

"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

"A mother knows what her child’s gone through, even if she didn’t see it herself."

- Pramoedya Ananta Toer

"My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her."

- Jodi Picoult

"I chose not to lose my mom, and instead to gain an angel. In my mind, my heart, and my life, she is still completely present to this day — and as wise, compassionate and stubborn as ever."

- Kevin Hart

"Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity."

- Terri Guillemets

"A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again."

- Maya Angelou

"Whenever I am missing you, I also remember how fortunate I was that you were in my life. I wouldn't trade those moments for the world."

- Cindy Adkins

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

- Abraham Lincoln

"Mom, you are the most beautiful memory I kept locked inside my heart."

- Narin Grewal

"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

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

- Elizabeth Roxas

"Parents are not perfect, nor are they saints. Dads and moms make mistakes all the time. How you handle these situations will be an important life lesson for your children."

- Bethany Bridges

"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

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

- Charles Raison

"There are few things more powerful than the faithful prayers of a righteous mother."

- Boyd K. Packer

"The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

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

- George Washington

"The joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction."

- M. Russell Ballard

"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 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."

- Anonymous

"A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled."

- Emily Dickinson

"A miracle is really the only way to describe motherhood and giving birth. It’s unbelievable how God has made us women and babies to endure and be able to do so much. A miracle indeed. Such an incredible blessing."

- Jennie Finch

"All those clichés—those things you hear about having a baby and motherhood—all of them are true. And all of them are the most beautiful things you will ever experience."

- Penélope Cruz

"There is eternal influence and power in motherhood."

- Julie B. Beck

"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

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

- Victor Hugo

"I don’t know about changing my perspective, because motherhood is such a glorious blessing and I am very thankful for that. It is such a beautiful experience. I so strongly recommend it. It’s bliss, love, and fulfillment of another level."

- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

"Perhaps the reason we respond so universally to our mothers’ love is because it typifies the love of our Savior."

- Bradley D. Foster

"Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in, it is what God gave you time for."

- Rachel JanKovic

"Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate."

- Charlotte Gray

"There is no role in life more essential and more eternal than that of motherhood."

- M. Russell Ballard

"Motherhood has taught me the meaning of living in the moment and being at peace. Children don’t think about yesterday, and they don’t think about tomorrow. They just exist in the moment."

- Jessalyn Gilsig

"Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels."

- First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

"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 arms are more comforting than anyone else’s."

- Princess Diana

"All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

- Abraham Lincoln

"A mother’s love is more beautiful than any fresh flower."

- Debasish Mridha

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

- Erich Fromm

"Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had."

- Linda Wooten

"Mothers possess a power beyond that of a king on his throne."

- Mabel Hale

"No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother’s love."

- Edwin Chapin

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

- Sharon Jaynes

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

- Jill Churchill

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

- Michelle Obama

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

- Jojo Moyes

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

- Joan Ryan

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

- Carolina King

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

- Barbara Johnson

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

- Rumi

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

- Riney Jordan

"Mothers and children are in a category all their own. There’s no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving."

- Gail Tsukiyama

"Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. … To have been loved so deeply … will give us some protection forever."

- J. K. Rowling

"I feel that in the heavens above, the angels whispering to one another can find among their burning terms of love, none so devotional as that of ‘mother.’"

- Edgar Allan Poe

"If you try your best to be the best parent you can be, you will have done all that a human being can do and all that God expects you to do."

- Jeffrey R. Holland

"The bond between mothers and their children is one defined by love. As a mother’s prayers for her children are unending, so are the wisdom, grace, and strength they provide to their children."

- George W. Bush

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you ... I could walk through my garden forever."

- Alfred Tennyson

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."

- David Viscott

"Family is not an important thing. It’s everything."

- Michael J. Fox

"A mother is a mother from the moment her baby is first placed in her arms until eternity."

- Sarah Strohmeyer

"You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars."

- e.e. cummings

"The woman who is my best friend, my teacher, my everything: Mom."

- Sandra Vischer

"You can feel when your mom’s proud of you. You can feel the love."

- Jimmy Fallon

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

- Ricki Lake

"A mother is the truest friend we have."

- Washington Irving

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born."

- Osho

"My mom smiled at me. Her smile kind of hugged me."

- R.J. Palacio

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

- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Once you’re a mom, you’re always a mom. It’s like riding a bike, you never forget."

- Taraji P. Henson

"It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family."

- Menachem Begin

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary."

- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Being a mother is like being a gardener of souls. You tend your children, make sure the light always touches them."

- Karen White

"The most important thing in the world is family and love."

- John Wooden

"Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making."

- Dan Pearce

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

- Jodi Picoult

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

- Oprah

"Only mothers can think of the future ― because they give birth to it in their children."

- Maxim Gorky

"Such a mysterious business, motherhood. How brave a woman must be to embark on it."

- M.L. Stedman

"There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one."

- Sue Atkins

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not."

- James Joyce

"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

"A mother is clothed with strength and dignity, laughs without fear of the future. When she speaks her words are wise and she gives instructions with kindness."

- Proverbs

"Motherhood: All love begins and ends there."

- Robert Browning

"Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible."

- Marion C. Garretty

"I can imagine no heroism greater than motherhood."

- Lance Conrad

"My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Bette Davis

"Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind."

- Kahil Gibran

"A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories."

- Honore de Balzac

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

- Victor Hugo

"Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease."

- Lisa Alther

"Mothers can look through a child’s eyes and see tomorrow."

- Reed Markham

"Mother—that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries."

- T. Dewitt Talmage

"In the mother’s eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child reads the message: ‘You are there!’"

- Adrienne Rich

"The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children."

- Elaine Heffner

"If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman."

- Margaret Thatcher

"Mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled."

- Emily Dickinson

"Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs since the payment is pure love."

- Mildred B. Vermont

"Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face."

- George Eliot

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

- Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober

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

- Rumi

"Home is people. Not a place."

- Robin Hobb

"If love is as sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love."

- Stevie Wonder

"There is no velvet so soft as a mother’s lap, no rose as lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps."

- Archibald Thompson

"There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."

- Jill Churchill

"We have a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong."

- Laura Stavoe Harm

"The mother’s heart is the child’s school-room."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother."

- St. Therese of Lisieux

"A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place."

- Amy Tan

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

- Lady Gaga

"To a child’s ear, ‘mother’ is magic in any language."

- Arlene Benedict

"A mother is a mother still, the holiest thing alive."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother."

- Sara Josepha Hale

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."

- Lin Yutang

"It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?"

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Only mothers can think of the future because they give birth to it in their children."

- Maxim Grosky

"There is no role in life that is more essential than that of motherhood."

- Elder M. Russell Ballard

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

- James E. Faust

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

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does."

- Oscar Wilde

"My mother is a walking miracle."

- Leonardo DiCaprio

"What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"I have found being a mother has made me emotionally raw in many situations. Your heart is beating outside your body when you have a baby."

- Kate Beckinsale

"No society will long survive without mothers who care for their young and provide that nurturing care so essential for their normal development."

- Ezra Taft Benson

"Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated."

- Alphonse de Lamartine

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."

- C.S. Lewis

"The world needs our mothers."

- Liya Kebede

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

- Matthew 5:4

"One day we will remember how lucky we were to have known their love, with wonder, not grief."

- Elizabeth Postle

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

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces, all day through."

- Billie Holiday

"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."

- Robert J. Quillen

"Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life."

- Anne Roiphe

"A mother understands what a child does not say."

- Jewish Proverb

"Mother is the heartbeat in the home; and without her, there seems to be no heartthrob."

- Leroy Brownlow

"There is nothing as sincere as a mother’s kiss."

- Saleem Sharma

"When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway."

- Erma Bombeck

"The phrase ’working mother’ is redundant."

- Jane Sellman

"A mom forgives us all our faults, not to mention one or two we don’t even have."

- Robert Brault

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

- Milton Berle

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

- Chinese Proverb

"In the end, mothers are always right. No one else tells the truth."

- Randy Susan Meyers

"It’s not easy being a mother. If it were, fathers would do it."

- The Golden Girls

"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

"An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest."

- Spanish Proverb

"I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then, I want to move in with them."

- Phyllis Diller

"In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ."

- Ocean Vuong

"Mother was comfort. Mother was home. A girl who lost her mother was suddenly a tiny boat on an angry ocean. Some boats eventually floated ashore. And some boats, like me, seemed to float farther and farther from land."

- Ruta Sepetys

"We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world — the company of those who have known suffering."

- Helen Keller

"A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend."

- Unknown

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

- Unknown

"Make the most of today because it is right here. Play that game, sing that song, read one more book, and enjoy those cuddles. Treasure all those precious little moments. Because at the end of your life, you’ll never look back and think, ‘I spent too much time with my kids.’"

"All mothers are working mothers."

"Life doesn’t come with a manual; it comes with a mother."

"We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love."

"To the world, you are a mother, but to your family, you are the world."

- Unknown

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

"Mom, I love you, even though I’ll never accept your friend request."

- Unknown

"A mother’s hug lasts long after she lets go."

"Motherhood is the exquisite inconvenience of being another person’s everything."

- Unknown

"Whenever you feel like you are failing, look in the eyes of your child and know your value."

"I have an angel watching over me. She is my mom."

"Mom, sometimes I wish you could come back, but I don't want you to suffer again. I know you are with me and I will always love and miss you with all my heart. Until we meet again!"

"To my mother in heaven, thank you for always loving me and guiding me. Even though you are no longer here with me I can still feel your love guiding me. You are always in my heart. I love you and miss you dearly."