Mother Quotes: Celebrating the Love & Wisdom of Mothers (Page 3)

"My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso"

Pablo Picasso, Artist

"My mother loved children - she would have given anything if I had been one"

Groucho Marx, Comedian

"A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror"

Sigmund Freud, Psychologist

"Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms"

Kahlil Gibran, Poet

"A fluent tongue is the only thing a mother don't like her daughter to resemble her in"

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Playwright

"Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process"

John F. Kennedy, President

"Mothers don't want to pinch me or put me in their purse"

Paul Lynde, Comedian

"His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork"

Mae West, Actress

"As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by "survival of the fittest.""

Bill Cosby, Comedian

"My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors"

Maya Angelou, Poet

"Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself"

Eric Hoffer, Writer

"My mother was watching on television and she doesn't want me to hurt anyone"

George Foreman, Athlete

"Well-behaved: he always speaks as if his mother might be listening"

Mason Cooley, Writer

"Hatred of the mother is familiar, but the mother's hatred still comes as a surprise"

Mason Cooley, Writer

"Mothers are all slightly insane"

J.D. Salinger, Novelist

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child"

Dan Quayle, Vice President

"A mother who is really a mother is never free"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist

"It gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother"

Georg Brandes, Critic

"When the baby dies, On every side Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud. The baby was not wrapped in any shroud. The mother made no sound. Her head was bowed That men's eyes might not see Her misery"

Helen Hunt Jackson, Writer

"Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety"

Aeschylus, Playwright

"The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet

"A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet

"Until 1943 I received no stipend. I was able to support myself as my mother was the daughter of a relatively wealthy cotton manufacturer"

Frederick Sanger, Scientist

"I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli"

George H. W. Bush, President

"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, President

"I'm not Mother Teresa, but I'm not Charles Manson, either"

Mike Tyson, Athlete

"Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory"

Will Durant, Historian

"The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between"

Mother Teresa, Leader

"Mothers are the people who love us for no good reason. And those of us who are mothers know it's the most exquisite love of all"

Maggie Gallagher, Writer

"You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never"

Tony Dungy, Coach

"Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together"

Pearl S. Buck, Novelist

"At about 40, the roles started slowing down. I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers"

Kathleen Turner, Actress

"A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by a mother who sees that the others get it"

Marcelene Cox, Writer

"I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars"

E. M. Forster, Novelist

"As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life"

Mary J. Blige, Musician