Gentle Discipline

My favourite motherhood & parenting quotes


Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, 
than the raising of the next generation.
- C. Everet Koop, M.D.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

The formative period for building character for eternity 
is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm 
and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests.
 - Author Unknown

Children are the sum of what mothers contribute to their lives.
-  Unknown

Men are what their mothers made them.
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, where mother is.  
- Keith L. Brooks

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

Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. 
 - Moorish Proverb

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

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world.
 It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things 
and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.
-  Agatha Christie

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

The commonest fallacy among women is that 
simply having children makes one a mother—
which is as absurd as believing that having a piano
makes one a musician.
-  Sydney J. Harris

 One woman will brag about her children, 
while another complains about hers; 
they could probably swap children without swapping tunes.

Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it.
- Harold Hulbert

Parenting is not something perfect people do, 
but something that perfects the person. 
- Frank Pittman (edited)

There will always be a struggle between a parent and child 
when one aims at power and the other at independence.
- Ibid (edited)


The most important thing a father can do for his children
is to love their mother.
-  Theodore Hesburgh

A person soon learns how little he knows
when a child begins to ask questions.
- Richard L. Evans

Taking time and sharing is the essence of teaching. 
- Author Unknown

Parents can tell but never teach, unless they practice what they preach.
- Arnold Glasow

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

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. 
One is roots. The other is wings.
- Hodding Carter, Jr.

Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life 
and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.
- Gary Smalley

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, 
they are watching us to see what we do with ours. 
I can't tell my children to reach for the sun.
All I can do is reach for it, myself.
- Joyce Maynard

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging and less tugging.
- Diane Loomans

We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if 
children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, 
if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.
- Alice Miller

We have a cultural notion that if children were not engineered, 
if we did not manipulate them, they would grow up as beasts in the field. This is the wildest fallacy in the world.
- Joseph Chilton Pearce

A baby's cry is precisely as serious as it sounds. 
- Jean Liedloff

This generation of mothers labors under dubious pronouncement that 
babies sleep best in isolation. Every infant knows better. 
His protest at nocturnal solitude contains the wisdom of millennia.
- Thomas Lewis, M.D.

Children raised with love and compassion will be free to use their time
 as adults in meaningful and creative ways, 
rather than expressing their childhood hurts.
- Quote by Jan Hunt

It is my pleasure that my children are free and happy, 
and unrestrained by parental tyranny.
- Abraham Lincoln

*Feel free to add any great quotes you love.

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5 comments

  1. I so loved reading these. Some I've heard, others were new to me. I'd like to put these quotes onto little canvases around my home, so beautiful and inspiring. Thank you x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Sarah, that's a fantastic idea! I used to have a sheet of my favourite quotes I'd read whenever the day got tough, it was so helpful, but it got pretty tatty by the end of it! I also thought it'd be great to get a little book of quotes bound.

    So glad you enjoyed them :)

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  3. Very beautifull and correct words. I love it!

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  4. Glad you appreciated them!

    ReplyDelete
  5. nice collection of parenting quotes =)

    ReplyDelete