16 Beautiful Mother's Day Quotes to Share with Your Mom

"Over the years, I learned so much from Mom," Martha Stewart once said. "She taught me about the importance of home and history and family and tradition." She is talking, of course, about Martha R. Kostyra, who's also lovingly referred to as "Big Martha." She was the mother to six children—including Martha herself—in Nutley, New Jersey, and taught her family many of the traditions, techniques, and methods of homekeeping that we all benefit from today.

Martha isn't the only person who has found a mentor in her mother. Mothers share a connection with their children that goes beyond the biological: They're the women who raised and shaped us, supported our wildest dreams, and comforted us during the hardest of times. Every year in May, we celebrate our moms on Mother's Day. How can we give back to the one person who has given us so much? A bouquet of flowers, a handmade gift, or some quality time spent together over brunch are all wonderful gifts, but well-spoken words are what truly give us the chance to show our moms what they mean to us.

We don't always have the words to express the love and gratitude that we feel for our moms, or the forgiveness that we may need to share if we are repairing that relationship. Quotes give us an option to express ourselves through the eloquent words of another. The following quotes come from letters, poems, books and interviews that you can use in your Mother's Day cards and crafts.

"Over the years, I learned so much from Mom. She taught me about the importance of home and history and family and tradition. She also taught me that aging need not mean narrowing the scope of your activities and interests or a diminution of the great pleasures to be had in the everyday."

"A child is your legacy. What better thing can you do in life than put a really good person in the world who’s going to make it a better place?"

"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."

"Mom could make small things seem miraculous. That was her talent."

"It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings."

"Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends—but only one mother in the whole world."

"The phrase 'working mother' is redundant."

"A mother's arms are more comforting than anyone else's."

"Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love, and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love."

"Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs, since the payment is pure love."

"Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they're still holding the family together."

"Mother is a verb. It's something you do. Not just who you are."

"She raised us with humor, and she raised us to understand that not everything was going to be great, but how to laugh through it."

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

"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."

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."