Mother’s Day 2014 Quotes: 25 Inspirational Sayings To Celebrate Mom And Motherhood

Whether she changed your diapers, forced you to eat your vegetables or somehow cured your “owies” – Mother’s Day is the holiday to show how much your mom means to you.

The international holiday, which is celebrated on different days in many parts of the world, turns 100 years old this year. The holiday has more somber beginnings than its modern form. The idea of commemorating mothers began in the 1850s when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis formed Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions in order to decrease infant-mortality rate due to milk contamination, Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College told National Geographic.

Jarvis died in 1905. Three years later, her daughter, Anna, decided to organize the first Mother's Day observances. On May 10, families gathered at events in Jarvis's hometown of Grafton, West Virginia. Later in 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson officially decided the second Sunday in May would mark the holiday.

Anna Jarvis envisioned the holiday as a day of personal celebration between mothers and families by donning a white carnation as a badge and visiting one’s mother or attending church services. Once Mother’s Day became a national holiday, it soon became heavily commercialized and businesses encouraged people to buy flowers, cards and candy. At the time of her death in 1948, she rejected the holiday and even lobbied for it to be removed from the American calendar.

In the United States, Mother’s Day is celebrated by giving mothers gifts, flowers and cards. In Thailand, Mother’s Day is held in August on the birthday of the current queen, Sirikit. In Ethiopia, families gather in the fall to sing songs and eat a large feast as part of Antrosht, a multi-day celebration honoring motherhood.

To celebrate the mom in your life, below are 25 quotes to share this Mother’s Day:

“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” — Abraham Lincoln

“God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.” -- Rudyard Kipling

“Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.” — Robert Browning

“Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.” — George Eliot

“A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.” -- Honore de Balzac

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.” -- Maya Angelou

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

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” -- Calvin Trillin

“Being a full-time mother is one of the highest-salaried jobs … since the payment is pure love.” -- Mildred B. Vermont

“The phrase “working mother” is redundant.” -- Jane Sellman

“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.” -- Harriet Beecher Stowe

“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” -- W. R. Wallace

“Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.” -- Oprah Winfrey

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” -- Meryl Streep

“Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease.” -- Lisa Alther

“Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother.” -- Beverly Jones

“With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood.” -- Isadora Duncan

“One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.” -- George Herbert

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.” -- James Joyce

“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.” —Robert A. Heinlein

“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes

“I unapologetically and unabashedly am deeply biased toward my mother.” -- Chelsea Clinton

“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.” — Michael Jordan

“You sacrificed for us. You’re the real MVP.” — Kevin Durant

“Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.” — Tina Fey