Mother quotes
11.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside mother — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Not everyone is comfortable with the kissing ritual. My husband is one of them. Her refuses to press lips with anyone except his wife, mother, and dog. If someone wanted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he would refuse until he had been formally introduced."
"I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to ... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors."
"Mothers and daughters are part of each other's consciousness, in different degrees and in a different way, but still with the mutual sense of something which has always been there. A real mother is just a habit of thought to her children."
"My father has a beautiful, beautiful voice. His father was a pastor of a church. He sang in church. My mother sang in a church choir. I can take no credit for my vocal talent, because, both my father, and mother have beautiful, beautiful voices."
"I asked my mother I said, "You divorced my dad, how did you decide? She said, "I decided twelve years before he knew it." I was like wow; I'm learning something new every day."
"I didn't want to audition the kids so much; I just wanted to talk to them because I like seeing how they are because their mothers usually mess them up with practice. So, I'd rather talk to them and see how they respond. I just throw things at them and see how they can hit the ball back, and Saniyya Sidney was good."
"Mother's Day is coming up soon. If you're lucky enough to still have your mother, tell her you're grateful to her [...] at some point, we must forgive each other for being flawed human beings. Many of us have trouble putting love or gratitude into words, but keep in mind that out actions always reveal our feelings. Always."
"Most people don't realize that when we violate the natural order of things when we pollute the air, when we pollute the water, we are destroying mother nature and that's a violent act. If we don't first and foremost come to some peaceful terms, none of us are going to be able to survive."
"When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I'd go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor."
"I wanted a good relationship with my mother, and I realized I had a choice: Either I could spend all my time angry that she didn't give me the hugs I thought I needed, or I could understand that she hugs differently. It's not a spread-open-the-arms, 'come here' hug. She hugs by sheltering me from her worries."
"Now I am in the garden at the back . . . a very preserve of butterflies as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate . . . where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket while I stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look unnerved."
"I was always moved by all of the music. As a young man, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and all these great musicians would come through our town of Memphis. There wasn't adequate hotels, so these musicians - the lady who ran the theater knew my mother, who had a large house, and many of them would stay with us. So that was another great blessing, so I'm always around these great geniuses, and to realize their humanity is such a touching thing."
"I don't trust anybody in my life except my mother and my dogs."
"In particular, with climbing, we're climbing on these surfaces that Mother Nature has created. We search out the most perfect pieces of rock. It's so amazing that these formations are so perfect for climbing on. It's almost as if they were created for climbing."
"Oh northern mothers wives and sisters, all unconscious of the hour, would to Heaven that I could bear for you the concentrated woe which is so soon to follow, would that Christ would teach my soul a prayer that would plead to the Father for grace sufficient for you, God pity and strengthen you every one."
"An ethic of maternalism was central to the utopianism of 19th century feminists. I don't think that today's women see motherhood as a source of personal power, let alone political power. I don't think that women now have that same sense that their lives as mothers gives them any special power or virtue. I think women see their lives as mothers as an adjunct to their working lives - a fulfilling and important adjunct, to be sure - but something they do in addition to working in the public realm, not because being a wife and mother gives them a distinct edge in improving the world as we know it."
"A father's and a mother's age must be borne in mind; with joy on the one hand, fear on the other."
"I had blackouts, fallen out, of course, the death threats, people showing up, putting guns to my wife's head with mask, and people having shot guns in the driveway, looking for me or announcing that I've already died before lectures and sending it through newspaper - sending it to newspaper columns they send my mother and so on. There's a real night side to my particular calling, which is try to bear witness to love and truth."
"I just never saw my mother in any other room but the kitchen. There were always pots going."
"I have so much admiration for women who are mothers, who balance family and work."
