The Power of Words: 35 Quotes to Inspire Parents (Plus Free Printables!)

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

Always Remember – Milne

Nothing Can Dim the Light – Angelou

Hope – Tutu


 

Caroline
Caroline is an Arizona native who moved to Iowa in 2007 ‘for love.’ She and her husband live in Coralville with their 8-year-old daughter. Caroline works full-time at the University of Iowa and recently earned her MA in Higher Education Administration. Caroline is a self-taught sewer, fabric hoarder, Starbucks lover, wannabe graphic designer, and avid reader. Her greatest aspirations are to raise a kind, strong, and fearless girl and have a clean house.

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