112 Short Motherhood Quotes For The Days That Feel Impossible

Motherhood is nothing like you imagine.

It’s harder. More exhausting. More overwhelming than anyone prepares you for.

But it’s also more beautiful. More meaningful. More full of love than you knew was possible.

Some days you’re running on empty. Other days you look at your kids and can’t believe they’re yours. It’s both at the same time somehow.

These motherhood quotes get it. They’re for the messy, tired, grateful, overwhelmed reality of raising tiny humans.

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Short Motherhood Quotes

“There will always be people who can’t see your worth, don’t let one of those people be you.”

“There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.” — Jill Churchill

“Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are.” — Jodi Picoult

“It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t.” — Barbara Kingsolver

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” — Barbara Kingsolver

“Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.” — Ricki Lake

“Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

“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

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.” — Maya Angelou

“A mother’s arms are more comforting than anyone else’s.” — Princess Diana

“Paradise is at the feet of the mother.” — Hadith

“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 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.” — Washington Irving

“Successful mothers are not the ones who have never struggled. They are the ones who never give up, despite the struggles.” — Sharon Jaynes

“Birth takes a woman’s deepest fear about herself and shows her that she is stronger than them.”

“Everything has changed and yet, I’m more me than I’ve ever been.” — Iain Thomas

“The most important work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own mind.”

“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

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

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

“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

“But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.” — Mitch Albom

“Motherhood: all love begins and ends there.” — Robert Browning

“Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. And may we raise them.”

“She quietly stepped out of the race she never wanted to be in, finding her own lane and proceeded to win.”

“Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.” — Elaine Heffner

“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” — W.R. Wallace

“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

“Having kids – the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings – is the biggest job anyone can embark on.” — Maria Shriver

“Talk to yourself like someone you love.” — Brene Brown

“Mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” — Emily Dickinson

“Having children is my greatest achievement. It was my saviour. It switched my focus from the outside to the inside. My children are gifts, they remind me of what’s important.” — Tina Fey

“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

“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.” — Victor Hugo

“There are really places in your heart that you don’t know exist until you love a child.” — Anne Lamott

“This is the beginning of loving yourself… Welcome home.”

“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

“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.” — Morgan Harper Nicholls

“Women have always been the strong ones of the world.” — Coco Chanel

“She was brave and strong and broken all at once.”

“Whatever you do, be different – that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.” — Anita Roddick

“If you’re a mum, you’re a superhero. Period.” — Rosie Pope

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten and the future worth living for.”

“A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.” — Amy Tan

“Always my mother; forever my friend.”

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes … including you.” — Anne Lamott

“Trust in the timing of your life.”

“If you can dance and be free and be embarrassed, you can rule the world.” — Amy Poehler

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” — Billie Jean King

“I’ve learned the value of absorbing the moment.” — Thandie Newton

“As a mum, you may see me struggle, but you will never see me quit.”

“Some days she has no idea how she will do it, but every day she gets it done.”

“The best protection any woman can have… is courage.” — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“For a mother is the only person on earth who can divide her love among 10 children and each child still have all her love.”

“At the end of the day my most important job is still mom-in-chief.” — Michelle Obama

“Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.” — Tina Fey

“There is such a special sweetness in being able to participate in creation.” — Pamela S. Nadav

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.” — Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

“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

“Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown. In my heart it don’t mean a thing.” — Toni Morrison

“Kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.” — Barbara Kingsolver

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

“No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother’s love.” — Edwin Chapin

“A mother understands what a child does not say.” — Jewish Proverb

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” — Meryl Streep

“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

“Motherhood is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy.” — Barbara Walters

“Motherhood was the great equalizer for me; I started to identify with everybody.” — Annie Lennox

“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Mother is a verb. It’s something you do. Not just who you are.” — Cheryl Lacey Donovan

“The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children.” — Elaine Heffner

“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

“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

“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?” — Milton Berle

“Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.” — Louisa May Alcott

“A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.” — Honoré de Balzac

“There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

“A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.” — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“A mother’s love liberates.” — Maya Angelou

“I know how to do anything—I’m a mom.” — Roseanne Barr

“Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.” — Marion C. Garretty

“Mother’s love grows by giving.” — Charles Lamb

“Motherhood is not for the faint-hearted. Frogs, skinned knees, and the insults of teenage girls are not meant for the wimpy.” — Danielle Steel

“One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.” — George Herbert

“She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn’t take them along.” — Margaret Culkin Banning

“Having children just puts the whole world into perspective. Everything else just disappears.” — Kate Winslet

“There is nothing as sincere as a mother’s kiss.” — Saleem Sharma

“Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.” — Erich Fromm

“No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.” — Florida Scott-Maxwell

“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

“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

“If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” — Ferrell Sims

“There are so many times you will feel you have failed, but in the eyes, heart and mind of your child, you are supermom.” — Stephanie Precourt

“The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children.” — Karl Lagerfeld

“He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark.” — J.K. Rowling

“A mother’s love endures through all.” — Washington Irving

“It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?” — Mahatma Gandhi

“For when a child is born the mother also is born again.” — Gilbert Parker

“There is nothing in the world of art like the songs Mother used to sing.” — Billy Sunday

“My mom smiled at me. Her smile kind of hugged me.” — R.J. Palacio

“The best place to cry is on a mother’s arms.” — Jodi Picoult

“I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.” — Mitch Albom

“Compassion is like mother giving love to her children. Mother’s ways are higher than others, even when everyone rejects, mother accepts with her arms open and wide.” — Amit Ray

“I think in a lot of ways unconditional love is a myth. My mom’s the only reason I know it’s a real thing.” — Conor Oberst

“In the end…I am the only one who can give my children a happy mother who loves life.” — Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard

“I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.” — Phyllis Diller

“The hand that rocks the cradle usually is attached to someone who isn’t getting enough sleep.” — John Fiebig

“I’d like to be the ideal mother, but I’m too busy raising my kids.” — Anonymous

“Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.” — Oprah Winfrey

“Call your mother. Tell her you love her. Remember, you’re the only person who knows what her heart sounds like from the inside.” — Rachel Wolchin