Words have amazing power. They convey love, cause laughter, and spread joy. They break hearts, bestow shame, and start wars. Words entertain me when I am bored, help shape my worldview, call me to action, and inspire me to be a better person. All my life I have loved to collect words – from shelves filled with books, an iPod filled with songs, and prints on my walls, I am surrounded.
Words inspire me in many ways, especially as a parent. Parenting is tough, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need a good dose of laughter, sound advice, or a gentle reminder of what is really important in life. I thought it would be fun to collect quotes that inspire me as a parent, as a mother, and as a human being. I’ve also included some free printables, just in case you are inspired to surround yourself with words, too. (Links to full-size pdf printables can be found at the end of the post.)
Parenting
By loving them for more than their abilities, we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments. – Eileen Kennedy-Moore
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
Children learn more from what you are than what you teach. – W.E.B. DuBois
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. – Maya Angelou
Family
What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family. – Mother Theresa
The best thing to hold onto in life is each other. – Audrey Hepburn
Motherhood
We have a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong. – Laura Stavoe Harm
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there. – Robert Browning
The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. – Rajneesh
There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one. – Jill Churchill
Love
You will never be this loved again. So on those days when you are feeling stressed out, touched out, and depleted, just remember that you will never be this loved again. One day you will long for their affection. So choose a soft voice, choose gentle hands, choose love. – Ashley Kagan
The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that – a parent’s heart bared, beating forever outside its chest. ― Debra Ginsberg
When someone else’s happiness is your happiness, that is love. – Lana Del Rey
Laughter
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. – Franklin P. Adams
If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. – Bette Davis
Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them. – P.J. O’Rourke
Be nice to your children, for they will choose your rest home. – Phyllis Diller
A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it. – Jerry Seinfeld
Usually the triumph of my day is, you know, everybody making it to the potty. – Julia Roberts
Adoption/Foster Parenting
Children born to another woman call me ‘Mom.’ The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me. – Jody Landers
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. – Oprah Winfrey
We should not be asking who this child belongs to, but who belongs to this child.” – James L. Gritter
Little souls find their way to you, whether they’re from your womb or someone else’s. – Sheryl Crow
Adoption has the dimension of connection — not only to your own tribe, but beyond, widening the scope of what constitutes love, ties and family. It is a larger embrace. By adopting, we stretch past our immediate circles and, by reaching out, find an unexpected sense of belonging with others. – Isabella Rossellini
Happiness
Maybe one day we’ll finally learn to love ourselves and stop apologizing for the things that make us who we are. – R.M. Drake
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. – Eleanor Roosevelt
Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things. – Kurt Vonnegut
Inspiration
Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world. – Roald Dahl, Matilda
You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody. – Maya Angelou
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. (Often quoted as “Be the change you want to see in the world.”) – Mahatma Gandhi
You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today’s world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms. – Neal A. Maxwell
There are so many amazing quotes that I would have liked to include in this list, but there just wasn’t enough room. What are some quotes that inspire you? Please feel free to share in the comments section!
Links to printables (for personal use only):
No Such Thing as Perfect Parent – Atkins
If I Know What Love Is – Hesse
Nothing Can Dim the Light – Angelou
Thanks for great collection of quotes about love and power.