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Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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“She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) said by 1546 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So the Church imitates the Lord’s mother — not in the bodily sense, which it could not do — but in mind it is both mother and virgin. In no way, then, did Christ deprive his mother of her virginity by being”
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) said by 430 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Abraham Lincoln once said, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my mother." I'm not sure I want to say it quite like that, but my mother, Sonya Carson, was the earliest, strongest, and most impacting force in my life. It would be impossible to tell about my accomplishments without starting with my mother's influence.”
Ben Carson (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her mother called to her. She said, "Where are you going, Flora Belle?" Flora didn't answer her. She never answered her mother when she called her Flora Belle. Sometimes she didn't answer her mother when she called her Flora either.”
Kate DiCamillo (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The healer must love the sufferer as his [surrogate] mother and be loved in return by the sufferer as his [surrogate] mother. For the ultimate healing is knowing the Love of one's own mother... However, only when the surrogate role is kept firmly in mind can the Love be true, be altruistic.”
John Diamond (doctor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Earth is our Mother. From her we get our life, and our ability to live. It is our responsibility to care for our Mother, and in caring for our Mother, we care for ourselves.”
Winona LaDuke (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 new.”
Mapaseka Koetle (born 1989) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the moment, I am busy being a mother and taking care of me. Strengthening my relationship with God. After losing our mother in November last year I realised 'Winnie, you have to take care of you'. I take each day as a gift from God. I've had to really focus on it because with my mother's death it was sudden. Today she was with us then the following day she was gone just like that”
Winnie Ntshaba (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m not motherly per se but I’m a mother. I want to be the best mother I can be. But, as a mother, I feel I’m more of a builder and a nurturer.”
Karen Davila (born 1970) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: https://www.philstar.com/other-sections/starweek-magazine/2006/12/24/376635/karen-davila-amp-world-vision-bless-children
“In the film Mia madre (My Mother), Nanni Moretti tells (well) the story of the depression that marked his mother’s life. What isn’t entirely clear is whether he is depressed because he is her son, or whether she was depressed because she is his mother. In any case, it’s a fine film.”
Giancarlo Magalli (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?”
Oscar Levant (1906–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Liz Smith in The Mother Book (1978).
“You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad New Year,-- Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be queen o' the May.”
Alfred Tennyson (active around 1809) bartlett, Public domain source
“We've educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate. Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences. We aren't. Grownups always say they protect their children, but they're really protecting themselves. Besides, you can't protect children. They know everything.”
Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Paternal Pride of Maurice Sendak" by Bernard Holland, in The New York Times (8 November 1987)
“More than a billion women around the world want to emulate western women’s lifestyles and are rapidly acquiring the material ability to do so. It is therefore vital that in our leadership we display some reserve and responsibility in our spending so that the world’s finite resources will be available for our children, their children and their children’s children.”
Louise Burfitt-Dons (born 1953) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the Hot Women Campaign at UK Aware (April 2008)
“The fate of… Jewish children has been different from all the children of the world throughout the generations. No more. We will defend our children. If the hand of any two-footed animal is raised against them, that hand will be cut off, and our children will grow up in joy in the homes of their parents.”
Menachem Begin (1913–1992) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Knesset address (June 8, 1982) per 4 October 2004 article "Exposing False Zionist Quotes II" by Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
“Little kid dancin' in the grass, legs like rubber band. It's summertime, summertime. There's a line at the candy stand. Keep an eye on them children, eye on them children in the pool. You'd better keep an eye on them children, eye on them children in the pool.”
Paul Simon (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be a child is something one learns, as one learns the names of rivers or the kings of France. Childhood, for a child, is a sort of falseness, woodenness, stoniness, a lesson recited. Many children are aware of this — that is, aware of being children as a special, prosy condition: "We can't do that! We're children!" Playing children is a long boring game with occasional exciting moments.”
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children.”
John Ruskin (1819–1900) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mornings in Florence, part III, section 49 (1875)
“Children are immortality. Children will have more children and therefore life never ends. Our body dies, but our DNA continues. *Children have the same flesh, the same metabolism, and so on. Death is only that of the body.”
Umberto Veronesi (1925–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others. Those who were there in the olden days, they told stories to the children so that the children would know, so that the children could tell stories to their children. And so on, and so on.”
Yaa Gyasi (born 1989) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Muslims have eight children so that even if the police pick up two children as terrorists and two children die of coronavirus, then four children would be present in their house to take care of the parents and later perform their last rites in the graveyard.”
Munawwar Rana (1952–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I will use this opportunity to call on the parents to please look at the female children as they are looking after their male children, let them educate female children as they are educating male children, and they shouldn’t have the impression that females have lower intelligence level, because in some areas girls are even more intelligent than boys, and research has proved that.”
Aishatu Madawaki (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I chose to have my children look like my cousins, the children of my sister, and the children of my brother – all the same colour. I did what I needed to do to make that happen. My children bear Oshinowo. It’s a very good surname to have!”
Nike Oshinowo (born 1966) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nike during an interview in 2018.
“Last summer, 1.3m children had access to food support, through my relationship with Burberry children have a safe place to be after school where they will be fed, following the November investment vulnerable children have safe places to go this summer holiday, and due to my relationship with Macmillan 80,000 children now have a book to call their own.”
Marcus Rashford (born 1997) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why can’t we just do the right thing?’: Marcus Rashford defends charity deals The Guardia. Published on July 21, 2021
“There are also good friends of the children who bring us food and non-food items, nappis, second-hand clothes and our good staff who are calm. When you see the children, you just have to take care of them because they are our children and South Sudanese children. “What the kids eat is what we eat.”
Hellen Murshali wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I didn’t think about my children being Black children; I think of my children being children”
Phylicia Rashad (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There were two very beautiful blond children, the children of rich people: all the children of rich people are blond and look alike, while the children of Calabrian farm laborers are dark-skinned and look different from each other.”
Paolo Villaggio (1932–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bassett was a member of parliament and a cousin on my father's side of the family. My father delivered him and it became plain in later days that he must have dropped him.”
David Lange (1942–2005) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source: David Lange, My Life (2005), p. 98
“How would I feel if my father were to, say, get sick or die even? Would I be OK? And I realized that I wouldn't be OK. So I knew I needed to make an effort, because what is your life without your family? What's your life without a father?”
Tatum O'Neal (born 1963) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tatum in an interview with CNN in 2020.
“I was named after my father and I was knighted in his name because I love my father. I always kept my real name - I'm a very private and family-orientated person.”
Michael Caine (born 1933) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My late father, Dr M J Masango, is one of them. Nine years after his passing I still live by his teachings. He grew up in the apartheid era in a poor family without a father, but that didn’t stop him from achieving his dreams.”
Senamile Masango (1987–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My family were of good English peasant class from St. John's Wood. My father dealt in stocks and shares and my mother also had a lot of time on her hands.”
Hermione Gingold (1897–1987) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The World is Square [her autobiography], Pt. I. Pub. 1945 by Home & Van Thal Ltd.
“You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word “Negro” is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown. My father was a darker brown. My mother an olive-yellow.”
Langston Hughes (1901–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, V. 13, The Big Sea (2002), p. 36
“I have had two lives: when I was born in Puerto Rico in 1935 [sic] and when I came to play baseball in Pittsburgh in 1955. I have two loves: my family – my mother, my father and my wife and three sons – and my fans.”
Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Addressing reporters at post-game press conference on Roberto Clemente Day, as quoted in "Roberto Clemente's a Man of 2 Lives ... and 2 Loves" by the Associated Press, in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (July 26, 1970)
“What is most unconscionable is that there is not a shred of evidence to justify the certain loss of life. Do the generalized threats and half-truths of this administration give any one of us in Congress the confidence to tell a mother or father or family that the loss of their child or loved one was in the name of a just cause?”
Pete Stark (1931–2020) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, October 8, 2002, in opposition to the resolution authorizing military force against Iraq
“'Thank God for my good dinner. Thank Father and Mother. Amen' was the grace used in one family, and it certainly had the merit of giving credit where credit was due. — (ch. 1, Poor People's Houses)”
Flora Thompson (1876–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My mother's belief in spiritual healers grew stronger after our family went through a rough patch following my father's death. Sufi saint Karimullah Shah Kadri changed our lives and all of us converted to Sufism. But it wasn't an instantaneous decision — it took us 10 years to convert. The change in religion was like washing away the past.”
A. R. Rahman (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I well knew your present King’s father and pious mother. I was often admitted to the friendly intimacy of the royal family, and I have held the little Leopold, Duke of Brabant, in my arms. I remember that good Christian, Queen Marie Louise, asking me to give my benediction to her eldest son, then eight or nine years old, so that he might become a good king.”
Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pope Leo XIII: His Life And Work, Julien De Narfon, 1923 As King Leopold I belonged to the Protestant religion, the influence acquired by Mgr. Pecci over his Majesty was all the more remarkable. As for Queen Marie Louis…
“Every person has a first name, a middle name, and a last name. That person has a history. He has a family. He has a mother and a father, maybe a wife and a child. He has friends. Each time an American soldier dies, there is a long and powerful aftershock, rippling across continents, felt intimately by someone- maybe by many people- half a world away.”
Salvatore Giunta (born 1985) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I also come from a matriarchal family. My grandmother was left alone, not by choice. And then my mother as well. We lost my father when I was 16; he died. I was an adolescent figuring out that you’re not really worth much when cardi b’re all women'”
Lila Downs (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hollywood was a detour, although my mother was an aristocrat from Tokyo who ran away to join the theatre, so acting is in my genes. I've played a lot of bad guys, including a torturing acupuncturist in my first B-movie, but one of my favourite roles was a surfing grandfather from Hawaii in the film Johnny Tsunami. My father's family are Hawaiian, so it was the closest to my own personality.”
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (1950–2025) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his acting career in “Weekender: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, actor, 60” in The Guardian (2011 Aug 19)
“I was born over 58 years ago to an average family, my father was a teacher and my mother worked in the hospital. I was born in Ile Ogbo, Osun State.”
Oluwayemisi Oluremi Obilade (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I grew up amid two worlds, having close, continuous and frequent contact with each. These were two different and contrasting spheres that I inhabited, both full of life and vitality: my mother's Pākehā family and my father's Māori whānau. (chapter 2 p18)”
Patricia Grace (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On this basis, I also stayed with Vera Pojani and Elektra Samsuri, even there we experienced the murder of Vera’s father and brother, somewhere near the “Majestik” cinema in the center of the city. In Eleni Panduku’s family, I found warmth from my mother, whom I missed a lot; let’s not forget that I was only 20 years old then. There I found my classmate, Sofika, and her three sisters.”
Naxhije Dume (1921–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I arrived in France at the age of 10, with my mother and my little brother. She had divorced my father. She wanted to leave Algeria to join my grandmother here. We had a lot of family problems, we didn't have a house, we didn't know where we were going to live.”
Zahia Dehar (born 1992) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Zahia explains why she started prostituting herself at 16,By Anne-Charlotte Dancourt, retrieved on November 21 , 2017
“I’m the only girl in our home, and my father used to play football. So, I started playing football at the age of 6 with a boys’ team. To be honest, I’ve been lucky to have my family’s support. Even though they got scared for me at times, of getting injured, specially playing with boys, but they kept supporting me. My mother even used to take me to my trainings.”
Lerato Kgasago (born 1991) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In our profession, there is no gender on the robe: this is to tell you that there is nothing particular I want to bring as a woman, except my experience and professional maturity. It is true that I have the heart of a woman and a mother. But I will be the pater familias (from Latin: father of the family) to all lawyers.”
Rose Ntumba Kaja (born 1959) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rose Ntumba Kaja (October, 2014), in "République Démocratique du Congo: 'Me Rose Tumba Kaja, première femme bâtonnière en RDC'"", on the "Radio Okapi", author: 'Jean Ngandu', publication: 'Radio Okapi', October 21, 2014.
“I didn’t come from that kind of family. It’s only these online people that are not related to me that will be telling me to go and marry. Like you’re my father or mother.”
Nkechi Blessing Sunday (born 1989) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…I like to think that I am the product of a world of impossibilities. You know, my mother is where she should have never been. I think my mother made greater leaps than I have ever made. It's just that her leaps were made within her world and so maybe don't seem as grand. But I think my family, myself, my country, we come from a place where we have achieved the impossible…”
Trevor Noah (born 1984) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his family history in “Trevor Noah's Lesson To Young Readers: It's Freeing To Define Yourself On Your Own Terms” in WBUR (June 4th, 2019)
“Kingsley’s mother, Augustina discovers his wealth is derived from fraudulent 419 scams triggering a dramatic confrontation and profound emotional estrangement. Kingsley argues that his illegal actions were necessary sacrifices for his family's survival while his mother rejects this. In her own view, honorable poverty over tainted money.”
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source