40 powerful motherhood quotes that celebrate all moms (2024)

There is no 'hood quite like motherhood, right? For centuries, moms have been praised for going above and beyond in the love, wisdom and strength they offer their kids — and there have been plenty of powerful motherhood quotes to accompany those sentiments.

Everyone from actors to poets have publicly lauded their own mothers with memorable quotes, and celebrity mothers have shared their own thoughts on motherhood.

Abraham Lincoln famously said, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother" about his mom, Nancy, who died when he was 9-years-old.

In 2017, Halle Berry tweeted, "For me, motherhood is learning about the strengths I didn’t know I had, and dealing with the fears I didn’t know existed."

Even Aristotle is said to have had some wisdom about motherhood: "Mothers are fonder thanfathersof their children because they are more certain they are their own."

From authors to celebrities, there is no denying the love of moms and the power in motherhood.

40 Motherhood Quotes

Whether you're seeking a nice motherhood quote to share with your own mom, an inspiring caption for a social media post or just a little motivation when you're in the trenches of parenting, these 40 motherhood quotes fit the bill:

• "Motherhood is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you would have." —Joan Ryan, "The Water Giver: The Story of a Mother, a Son, and Their Second Chance"
• “I can imagine no heroism greater than motherhood.” —Lance Conrad, "The Price of Creation"
• “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, "At Home On Ladybug Farm"
• “Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.” —Howard W. Hunter
• “Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by motherhood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit from that.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions"
• “This is motherhood for you,' said my own mother. ‘Going through life with your heart outside your body.'” —Jennifer Weiner
• “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, “The Four Winds”
• “(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that’s the only shift they offer.” —Jodi Picoult, "My Sister's Keeper"
• “Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.” —Robert Browning
• “I’m blessed and I couldn’t be more grateful. Do you want to know why? Because I’m a mother, but that’s only half of it. I’m blessed because, when I need to, I can still just be a daughter. I get the feeling that there is nothing more precious than to have both of these roles, simultaneously.” —Adrianna Stepiano
• “I can imagine no heroism greater than motherhood.”—Lance Conrad
• "Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws." —Barbara Kingsolver,"Homeland and Other Stories"
• “The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness.” — Jessica Lange
• “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
• “Motherhood was the great equalizer for me; I started to identify with everybody.” —Annie Lennox
• "I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults." —Kristin Hannah, "The Nightingale"
• “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
• “Motherhood has relaxed me in many ways. You learn to deal with crisis. I’ve become a juggler, I suppose. It’s all a big circus, and nobody who knows me believes I can manage, but sometimes I do.” —Jane Seymour
• “Becoming a mother has made me next-level confident. I’ve never felt more empowered.”—Kelly Clarkson
• “There is no role in life that is more essential than that of motherhood.”—Elder M. Russell Ballard
• “Motherhood is hard enough without judgement from others who don’t know the whole story.” —Sarah Addison Allen, "First Frost"
• “There is eternal influence and power in motherhood.” —Julie B. Beck
• "If I were asked to define Motherhood. I would have defined it as Love in its purest form. Unconditional love." —Revathi Sankaran
• “You don’t take a class; you’re thrown into motherhood and learn from experience.”—Jennie Finch
• “Motherhood is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy.” —Barbara Walters
• “Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” —Barbara Kingsolver
• “Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.” —Ricki Lake
• “Motherhood changes everything.”—Adriana Trigiani
• “Motherhood is the greatest potential influence either for good or ill in human life. The mother’s image is the first that stamps itself on the unwritten page of the young child’s mind. It is her caress that first awakens a sense of security; her kiss, the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world.” —David O. McKay
• “Thus far the mighty mystery of motherhood is this: How is it that doing it all feels like nothing is ever getting done.” —Rebecca Woolf
• “Chosen motherhood is the real liberation. The choice to have a child makes the whole experience of motherhood different, and the choice to be generative in other ways can at last be made, and is being made by many women now, without guilt.” —Betty Friedan, "The Feminine Mystique"
• “I think motherhood is the noblest task of all, because you cannot do it at your convenience, or tailor it to suit your preferences. You have to be ready to give up everything when you take on this task: your time, restful nights, your hobbies, your pursuit of physical fitness, any beauty you may have had, and all of the private little pleasures you might have counted as a right, from late dinners and long soaks in the tub to weekend excursions and cycling trips … I’m not saying you can’t have any of these things, but you have to be ready to let them all go if you’re going to have children and put them first.” —Johann Christoph Arnold, "Endangered: Your Child in a Hostile World"
• "It’s the curse of motherhood. You’re required to love us even when we vex you." —Julia Quinn, "The Duke and I"
• “Such a mysterious business, motherhood. How brave a woman must be to embark on it.” —M.L. Stedman
• “Motherhood is a Sisyphean task. You finish sewing one seam shut, and another rips open. I have come to believe that this life I’m wearing will never really fit.” —Jodi Picoult
• “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
• “Burnt toast is actually fairly symbolic of Motherhood. If you are the one who burned the toast, you scrape if off and eat it yourself. If they burned it, you eat it because the burned it specially for you.” —Emily Watts
• “Real motherhood is different. It’s better and it’s messier and it’s more complicated. It will break your heart and make you laugh harder than you ever imagined." —Melanie Shankle,"Sparkly Green Earrings: Catching the Light at Every Turn"
• “'You have suffered enough.' That became my mantra for motherhood from there on out. You have suffered enough. If you can make it easier, make it easier, and don’t feel guilty about it.” —Ali Wong
• "Motherhood seems to be a no-win battle: however you decide to do (or not do) it, someone’s going to be criticizing you." —Celeste Ng, "Little Fires Everywhere"

Related video: