Of all the moms in the world, there's none quite like yours.
She's there to brush off your knees when you fall, deliver the kind of advice that only a mother can, give you a hug when you need it the most and, well, she's simply the best.
That's why celebrating her, or any other special women in your life, including a grandmother, stepmom, aunt, wife or friend, means everything on Mother's Day.
To help find just the right words to let her know how much she means to you, we've gathered a collection of heartfelt and funny Mother's Day quotes to help put your feelings into words this year.
Celebrated on the second Sunday in May, Mother’s Day is the perfect opportunity to say “thank you” to your mom,” as well as shower her with love, flowers and other special gifts.
A special brunch or dinner is always appreciated, too. But, chances are good that what she wants most the Mother's Day is to spend time with you. Of course, a thoughtful message straight from the heart is an added bonus.
That's where these meaningful quotes come in. From heartfelt sayings from a daughter to her mom, to quotes that'll make her laugh out loud, this compilation of quotes covers all sorts of sentiments.
Below, you'll find the words of luminaries like Maya Angelou and Michelle Obama, as well as Hoda Kotb, Tina Fey and others.
Write them in a card, text or however you see fit. Whatever you decide on, one thing's for sure, your sweet words will bring a smile to her face and there's no better gift than that.
Short and sweet Mother's Day quotes
“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” — Maya Angelou
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” — David Viscott
“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” — Michael J. Fox
“The best place to cry is on a mother’s arms.” — Jodi Picoult, “House Rules”
“A mother’s love liberates.” — Maya Angelou
“He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark.” — J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
“A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend.” — Amit Kalantri, “Wealth of Words”
“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
“Motherhood: all love begins and ends there.” ― Robert Browning
“Only mothers can think of the future ― because they give birth to it in their children.” ― Maxim Gorky
“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” ― Honore de Balzac
“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness, and children sleep soundly in them.” ― Victor Hugo
“Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.” ― Erich Fromm
“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” ― William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair”
“A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.” ― Dorothy Canfield Fisher
“A mother is a mother from the moment her baby is first placed in her arms until eternity.” ― Sarah Strohmeyer, “Kindred Spirits”
“Such a mysterious business, motherhood. How brave a woman must be to embark on it.” ― M.L. Stedman, “The Light Between Oceans”
“Being a mother is like being a gardener of souls. You tend your children, make sure the light always touches them.” ―Karen White, “Sea Change”
“You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.” ― E.E. Cummings
“A mother’s love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking.” ― Helen Steiner Rice, “A Mother’s Love”
“There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one.” ― Sue Atkins
“To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.” ― Barbara Johnson
“Why don’t kids understand their nap is not for them, but for us?” ― Alyson Hannigan
“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.” — James Joyce
“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” ― Margaret Thatcher
“A mother’s love is more beautiful than any fresh flower.” ― Debasish Mridha
“The woman who is my best friend, my teacher, my everything: Mom.” ― Sandra Vischer
“A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.” ― Amy Tan, “The Bonesetter’s Daughter”
“The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children.” — Karl Lagerfeld
“No man is poor who has a Godly mother.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A queen could leave her throne. But a mother never leaves her son.” — V.E. Schwab, “A Conjuring of Light”
Heart-touching Mother's Day quotes
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” — Maya Angelou
“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 Nightingale”
“It’s the curse of motherhood. You’re required to love us even when we vex you.” — Julia Quinn, “The Duke and I”
“It’s one of those things where you think you’ve done it all, you think you’ve felt it all. But I just didn’t know that this kind of love existed.” — Hoda Kotb
“I’m a person of faith. It feels like the greatest embrace from God that I can imagine, to get to have a baby.” — Savannah Guthrie
“A mother’s arms are more comforting than anyone else’s.” — Princess Diana
“When your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you. Your mind floods with oxygen. Your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows.” —Amy Poehler
“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“My mother was the one constant in my life. When I think about my mom raising me alone when she was 20, and working and paying the bills, and, you know, trying to pursue your own dreams, I think is a feat that is unmatched.” — Barack Obama
“You can feel when your mom’s proud of you. You can feel the love.” — Jimmy Fallon
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” — Abraham Lincoln
“When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.” — Mitch Albom
“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
“God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.” — Rudyard Kipling
“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” — Barbara Kingsolver
“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.” — Marguerite Duras
“Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.” — Tina Fey
“If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.” — Booker T. Washington
“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” — George Washington
“My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart—a heart so large that everybody’s joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.” — Mark Twain
“I tell my kids, 'I am thinking about you every other minute of my day.'” — Michelle Obama
“[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
“My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind.” — Michael Jordan
“Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.” — Oprah Winfrey
"Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials." — Meryl Streep
"Having children just puts the whole world into perspective. Everything else just disappears." — Kate Winslet
“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children." — John Steinbeck
"Your heart feels like it’s outside your body and you’re too old to drink the feelings away like you used to." — Amy Schumer
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'" — Fred Rogers
Mother’s Day quotes from a daughter
“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” — Oscar Wilde
“The truth is that no matter how old we are, as long as our mothers are alive, we want our mother.” — Goldie Hawn
“There are really places in your heart that you don’t know exist until you love a child.” — Anne Lamott
“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.” — Dr. Seuss
See Also60 Deep Meaningful Quotes
“There’s no way to be a perfect mother, and a millions ways to be a good one.” — Jill Churchill
“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
“Behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.” — Mitch Albom
“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
“I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.” — Maya Angelou
“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
“Even as a small child, I understood that women had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.” — Alice Hoffman
“The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.” — Jodi Picoult
“No one worries about you like your mother, and when she is gone, the world seems unsafe, things that happen unwieldy. You cannot turn to her anymore, and it changes your life forever.” — Adriana Trigiani
“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
“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 knows what her child’s gone through, even if she didn’t see it herself.” — Pramoedya Ananta Toer
“My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.” — Jodi Picoult
“As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart.” — Kristin Hannah, “Summer Island”
“If I were asked to define Motherhood. I would have defined it as Love in its purest form. Unconditional love.” — Revathi Sankaran
Funny Mothers' Day quotes
“Once you sign on to be a mother, 24/7 is the only shift they offer.” — Jodi Picoult
“If youhave neverbeen hatedbyyour child,youhave neverbeenaparent.” — Bette Davis
“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.” — Mark Twain
“My mother used to say, ‘The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.’” — Betty White
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” ― Charles M. Schulz
“If evolution really works, how come mother’s only have two hands?” — Milton Berle
“As I learned from growing up, you don’t mess with your grandmother.” — Prince William
“I’d like to have a kid, but I’m not sure I’m ready to spend 10 years of my life constantly asking someone where his shoes are.” — Damien Fahey
“Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.” ― P.J. O’Rourke, “All the Trouble in the World”
“The more I go through parenting, the more I say I owe my mother an apology.” ― Ray Romano
“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.” — Jerry Seinfeld
“Sooner or later we all quote our mothers.” ― Bern Williams
“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” ― Erma Bombeck
“In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.” — Fran Lebowitz
“It’s a funny thing about mothers... Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.” — Roald Dahl
“Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.” ― P. J. O’Rourke
“When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ It’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.” — Erma Bombeck
“I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.” — Phyllis Diller
“I’m not insane. My mother had me tested.” — Sheldon Cooper, “The Big Bang Theory”
“Having children is like living in a frat house — nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.” — Ray Romano
“The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.” — Clarence Darrow
“Don’t try and make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it.” — Russell Baker
“Having a child is like getting a tattoo ... on your face. You better be committed.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
Beautiful words for your mom
“It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?” — Mahatma Gandhi
“Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they’re still holding the family together.” — Susan Gale
“That strong mother doesn’t tell her cub, ‘Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you.’ She says, ‘Toughen up, this is the reality we are living in.’” — Lauryn Hill
“My mother taught me empathy — the basic concept of standing in somebody else’s shoes and looking through their eyes. If I did something messed up, she’d just say, ‘How would that make you feel if somebody did that to you?’” — Barack Obama
“Every day when you’re raising kids, you feel like you could cry or crack up and just scream ‘This is ridiculous!’ because there’s so much nonsense, whether it’s what they’re saying to you or the fact that there’s avocado or poop on every surface.” — Kristen Bell
“I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is.” — Oprah Winfrey
“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
“Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.” —Ricki Lake
“Mothers have the ability to liberate by love or, by neglect, to imprison. They’re our first teachers; they are our first loves.” — Maya Angelou
“Just because you become a mother, it doesn’t mean you lose who you are.” — Beyoncé
“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.” — Gaspard Mermillod
“A mother is the truest friend we have.” — Washington Irving
“Life doesn’t come with a manual; it comes with a mother.” — Unknown
“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.” — Linda Wooten
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.” — Osho
“My mom smiled at me. Her smile kind of hugged me.” — R.J. Palacio, “Wonder”
“It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.” — L.R. Knost
“Mother is a verb. It’s something you do. Not just who you are.” — Cheryl Lacey Donovan
“The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.” — Anna Quindlen
“I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty, but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.” — Rose Kennedy
“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
“Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on.” — Maria Shriver
“Once you’re a mom, you’re always a mom. It’s like riding a bike, you never forget.” — Taraji P. Henson
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
