Quotations for Mother's Day

-William Makepeace Thackeray

I admit to being a little bit of a quote hound. I have a several notebooks filled with all my favorite quotations and over the last four years, most the quotes I have filed are about mothers and motherhood. Motherhood takes on a whole new aspect once your firstborn is cradled in your arms. I love and respect my mother but when I became a mother, I saw my mom in a whole new light. Finding just the right sentiment to tell her this became harder.

If you are looking for just the right sentiment for Mother's Day, here is listing of some of my favorite quotes. They are categorized by Biblical Quotations, Emotional Sentiments, and Witty Rejoinders.

Mother's Day Quotes- Biblical Quotations

There are many beautiful examples of motherhood in the Bible. Eve, the first mother; Hannah, the barren woman blessed with a son; Mary, the mother of Jesus; and even the apostle, Timothy's mother and grandmother were credited with his upbringing in Scripture. Picking out just the right sentiment for your own mother may deserve a little digging in the Bible, but here are a few verses to help you.

The Commandment- Exodus 20:12
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you."

The Love and Care for a Mother-in-law- Ruth 1:16-17

"But Ruth replied, 'Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me'."

This is commonly used with married couples. In fact, I have this Scripture passage reference engraved in my husband's wedding band. But it all started with Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. There are so many jokes about mothers-in-law but I know a few of you have great ones! I know I do.

The Virtuous Woman- Proverbs 31:28-29

"Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all'."

This a beautiful passage of advice written in Proverbs from a mother to a son. In this, the famous "Virtuous Woman" speech is given and this is where we find the verses listed above.

The Faith of our Mothers- II Timothy 1:5

"I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also."

The Apostle Paul is writing to his protégé, Timothy, in this passage. He mentions that the women who raised Timothy were godly, faithful women and deserved acknowledgement. Much has been speculated about these women but one thing is very clear- women were not mentioned in the Bible unless there was significance. There are so many nameless mothers, but apparently, Lois and Eunice went above and beyond in training young Timothy in the faith.

Mother's Day Quotes- Emotional Sentiments

Moms of Young Children

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. -Sophia Loren

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

Women know the way to rear up children (to be just). They know a simple, merry, tender knack of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, and stringing pretty words that make no sense. And kissing full sense into empty words. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom. -Henry Ward Beecher

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

That best academy, a mother's knee. -James Russell Lowell

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

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. -Rajneesh

You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back. -William D. Tammeus

Moms of Grown Children

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest. -Irish Proverb

A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. -George Eliot

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 who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken 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. -Washington Irving

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. -Abraham Lincoln

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

Now that... my kids are grown, I understand how much work and love it takes to raise and to keep a family together. The example of your strength, devotion, and patience is now rippling through the generations. Thank you! ~Forest Houtenschil

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. -Honore de Balzac

Miscellaneous/General Mom Quotes
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. -Dinah Craik

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the Promised Land. She prepares a worldshe will not see. -Pope Paul VI

No gift to your mother can ever equal her gift to you - life. -Anonymous

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over. -George Cooper

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden. -Attributed to Claudia Ghandi

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven. -William Goldsmith Brown

All mothers are working mothers. -Author Unknown

Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. -T. DeWitt Talmage

Are we not like two volumes of one book? -Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. -Charles R. Swindoll, The Strong Family

This heart, my own dear mother, bends,
With love's true instinct, back to thee! -Thomas Moore

Mother's Day Quotes- Witty Rejoinders

A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after. -Peter De Vries

Woman in the home has not yet lost her dignity, in spite of Mother's Day, with its offensive implication that our love needs an annual nudging, like our enthusiasm for the battle of Bunker Hill. -John Erskine

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. -Author Unknown

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. -Ambrose Bierce

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. -Oscar Wilde from The Importance of Being Earnest

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. -Aristotle

A man's work is from sun to sun, but a mother's work is never done. -Author Unknown

Children are a great comfort in your old age - and they help you reach it faster, too. -Lionel Kauffman

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

Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age. -William Feather, The Business of Life

I hope you find just the right sentiment for your own dear mother this holiday. If not, you may want to try these lines from Forest Houtenschil: "On Mother's Day I have written a poem for you. In the interest of poetic economy and truth, I have succeeded in concentrating my deepest feelings and beliefs into two perfectly crafted lines: You're my mother, I would have no other!"