Sourced

• The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men — from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table" in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1859), p. 618

• Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.
  • James Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

• Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, in Vanity Fair (1847-1848), Vol. II, Ch. 2

Unsourced

• Heaven is under the feet of mother.
  • Muhammad (PBUH)

• 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

• A mother is a woman who shows you the light when you just see the dark.
  • Grimaldos Robin

• All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
  • Oscar Wilde

• Him whose mother is no more, distress carries off.
  • Anonymous

• Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.
  • Brandon Lee in The Crow

• Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chaps bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills.
  • Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1.

• When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
  • Anonymous

• When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
  • Erma Bombeck

• You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool mom.
  • Captain Penny - Cleveland Kid Show Host 1950s

• If women choose to have children into their sixties and seventies, we should make sure that they are informed of any potential health risks entailed. And then we should do what we always do when devoted parents give birth: We should offer them our congratulations and our best wishes. In this regard, the ethics of parenting are surprisingly simple. Mothers should be judged on their love and commitment, not their chronological ages.
  • Jacob M. Appel, bioethicist and medical historian, Motherhood: Is It Ever Too Late?, Huffington Post, July 15, 2009.