The Maternal Quotes

Maternal/child attachment is mostly eroded in increments. The separation begins in hospitals, where mothers are not only made to feel inferior to medical professionals in relation
to their infants, but regularly separated from their infants. ~ Antonella Gambotto-Burke

I became a mother before becoming sick, but i never expected sickness to take away my independent mothering, so i plant trees to sooth my soul from the aching pains of losing the maternal ability to mother another child. My first born will be my only treasure, the one who knew who i was before the mess entered our lives and also the one who adapted with me to a reality we weren't certain of oh and lots of plants and plants and plants. ~ Nikki Rowe

Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

I'm not going to defile my fingers with him,' said I, in answer to the maternal intercession. 'I wouldn't touch him with the tongs.' I ~ Anne Bronte

Oxytocin is an amino acid peptide. A hormone. They call it the love chemical. "So?" Kelsey gave him a dead-eyed stare. "So when you're further along in your pregnancy, more oxytocin receptors will be created in your uterine muscles. When the baby's big enough, your oxytocin level will rise, triggering labor, and will help your muscles contract so you can give birth." "Gross," said Cory. "No," Jack said. "Miraculous. Without the oxytocin, your muscles wouldn't be strong enough to push that baby out. But because of that chemical, you are. You'll be superhero strong." He smiled right into Kelsey's eyes. "Then, when you see your baby, that rush of oxytocin will help you bond. That's why they call it the love drug. And if you breast-feed, more oxytocin gets released, strengthening that bond. The maternal instinct is the strongest instinct in the world. Chemistry is definitely part of that. ~ Kristan Higgins

Unless you make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God: for the like is not intelligible save to the like. Make yourself grow to a greatness beyond measure, by a bound free yourself from the body; raise yourself above all time, become Eternity; then you will understand God. Believe that nothing is impossible for you, think yourself immortal and capable of understanding all, all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being. Mount higher than the highest height; descend lower than the lowest depth. Draw into yourself all sensations of everything created, fire and water, dry and moist, imagining that you are everywhere, on earth, in the sea, in the sky, that you are not yet born, in the maternal womb, adolescent, old, dead, beyond death. If you embrace in your thought all things at once, times, places, substances, qualities, quantities, you may understand God. ~ Giordano Bruno

She had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her lot as a brood animal for the masculine civilizations of the world. ~ Margaret Sanger

Once becoming a mother, a woman might be radicalized in her feminism. She had a greater stake in saving the earth from male politicians. She had a greater stake in education and health, in the environment, in all social policy. She finally understood the way our society makes children and mothers the lowers of priorities.
...
I was hardly mellowed by the maternal transformation. If anything, my feminism grew more fierce. ~ Erica Jong

There is a danger in the repudiation of the feminine when the daughter who rejects the aspects of the negative feminine embodied by her mother also denies positive aspects of her own feminine nature, which are playful, sensuous, passionate, nurturing, intuitive, and creative. Many women who have had angry or emotional mothers seek to control their own anger and feelings lest they be seen as destructive and castrating. This repression of anger often prevents them from seeing the inequities in a male-defined system. Women who have seen their mothers as superstitious, religious, or old-fashioned discard the murky, mysterious, magical aspects of the feminine for cool logic and analysis. A chasm is created between the heroine and the maternal qualities within her; this chasm will have to be healed later in the journey for her to achieve wholeness. ~ Maureen Murdock

Unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Children make that big a difference to you? He asked. I nodded. Yeah, they do. I never figured you as the maternal type. I'm not, but kids are people, Edward, little people trapped by the choices the adults around them make. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

The notion that the maternal wish and the activity of mothering are instinctive or biologically predestined is baloney. ~ Betty Rollin

People say that when a baby is crying the paternal grandmother will say, "The baby is crying, you should feed her," and the maternal grandmother will say, "Why is that baby crying so much, making her mom so tired? ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Babies did not attract me, and I was altogether without the maternal sense so highly developed in small and adolescent girls. ~ Rita Levi-Montalcini

The subtle working of ki is the maternal source that affects changes in breath. It is also the source of martial art as love. When one unifies mind and body by virtue of ki and manifests ai-ki (harmony of ki), delicate changes in breath-power occur spontaneously and "waza" (proper technique) flows freely. ~ Kisshomaru Ueshiba

The patriarchal authoritarian sexual order that resulted from the revolutionary processes of latter-day matriarchy (economic independence of the chief's family from the maternal gens, a growing exchange of goods between the tribes, development of the means of production, etc.) becomes the primary basis of authoritarian ideology by depriving the women, children, and adolescents of their sexual freedom, making a commodity of sex and placing sexual interests in the service of economic subjugation. From now on, sexuality is indeed distorted; it becomes diabolical and demonic and has to be curbed. In terms of patriarchal demands, the innocent sensuousness of matriarchy appears as the lascivious unchaining of dark powers. The Dionysian becomes "sinful yearning," which patriarchal culture can conceive of only as something chaotic and "dirty." Surrounded by and imbued with human sexual structures that have become distorted and lascivious, patriarchal man is shackled for the first time in an ideology in which sexual and dirty, sexual and vulgar or demonic, became inseparable associations. ~ Wilhelm Reich

It is in the encounter of the maternal guiding instincts with the sensitive periods of the newly born that conscious love develops between parent and child. ~ Maria Montessori

It's special, grandparents and grandchldren. So much simpler. Is it always so, I wonder? I think perhaps it is. While one's child takes a part of one's heart to use and misuse as they please, a grandchild is different. Gone are the bonds of guilt and responsibility that burden the maternal relationship. The way to love is free. ~ Kate Morton

That's what you might call the normal pattern of female life. I've seen many girls and women, with strong maternal instincts, keen on getting married but mainly, though they mayn't quite know it themselves - because of their urge to motherhood. And the babies come; they're happy and satisfied. Life goes back into proportion for them. They can take an interest in their husbands and in the local affairs and in the gossip that's going round, and of course in their children. But it's all in proportion. The maternal instinct, in a purely physical sense, is satisfied, you see. ~ Agatha Christie

I connect with kids easily. They bring out the maternal side in me. ~ Malaika Arora Khan

I KNOW THAT I CAN'T SOLVE ALL THE MATERNAL HEALTH CHALLENGES IN THE WORLD BY MYSELF. I NEED AND WANT OTHERS TO JOIN ME. ~ Christy Turlington

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people. ~ Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

The first path a human being ever travels is the path that leads out of the maternal womb. Every human being's first labyrinth is that of a woman. ~ Jacques Attali

Lucy could see that love unconfined, love outside convention, might well make a woman an unfit mother; you were one kind of woman or another: you were good or you were bad, as the world saw it, and no stations in between. They allowed you to choose; you could be the maternal or the erotic, but not a bit of both. The latter made you forget the former. Men married the maternal and then longed for the erotic. Or they married the erotic by mistake, and set about making it into the maternal, and then were just as disappointed. ~ Fay Weldon

The wild gods live with the wild plants. Once, all of our gods were plants and animals. The allies are the ancient gods, their wisdom is the ancient substrate of our volition; they are the maternal transmitters of our vision and dreams. Anthropomorphic gods were the children of the plant gods. That is why destroying wild habitat is parricide, because the gods cannot live without their habitat, and it was the gods that made us, and gave us our culture. ~ Dale Pendell

My God, she's good-looking!" said Mr. Sandwood, who was just over thirty.
"Good-looking!" cried Mr. Hedrick contemptuously, "she always looks as if she wanted to be kissed! Turning those big cow-eyes on every calf in town!"
It was doubtful if Mr. Hedrick intended a reference to the maternal instinct. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder that can significantly alter the maternal and in utero environment, leading to complications. Optimizing ~ T. Murphy Goodwin

The maternal duty of suckling her own children, prescribed to mothers by hygienists, is based on a physiological principle: the mother's milk nourishes an infant more perfectly than any other. ~ Maria Montessori

To the former child migrants, who came to Australia from a home far away, led to believe this land would be a new beginning, when only to find it was not a beginning, but an end, an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise, and we are sorry. ~ Malcolm Turnbull

diverted him from the maternal side. If he did happen just now to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for in his many wanderings - I believed ~ Henry James

[Short Talk on Sylvia Plath] Did you see her mother on television? She said plain, burned things. She said I thought it an excellent poem but it hurt me. She did not say jungle fear. She did not say jungle hatred wild jungle weeping chop it back chop it. She said self-government she said end of the road. She did not say humming in the middle of the air what you came for chop. ~ Anne Carson

Be patient, my friends; time rolls rapidly away; our longing has its end. The hour will strike, who knows how soon?- when the maternal lap of everlasting Love shall be opened to us, and the full peace of God breathe around us from the palmy summits of Eden. ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher

Right now I'm still only 25 and I don't think the maternal bug has hit me yet. ~ Karrie Webb

We know God by cultivating a relationship, not by understanding a concept.
The relation constitutes the very subjectivity of of our existence. We participate in existence consciously and rationally, with subjective self-knowledge and identity, because the erotic drive of our nature is transformed into a personal relation when there arises in the space of the Other the first signifier of desire: the maternal presence. The subject is born with love's first leap of joy. ~ Christos Yannaras

Because sanitation has so many effects across all aspects of development - it affects education, it affects health, it affects maternal mortality and infant mortality, it affects labor - it's all these things, so it becomes a political football. Nobody has full responsibility. ~ Rose George

She gave Mother Beal a look I couldn't, at that age, interpret but I have since come to think of as profound maternal compassion, a strength emanating from a deep well of endurance that, across my life, I've come to understand was not particular to Sarah Schofield. I've witnessed it in other women who have suffered much without losing their hope or their gift for embracing with forgiveness those who are broken. ~ William Kent Krueger

I had a great mother, and I'm very comfortable with that maternal element. ~ Greg Bryk

I hate how long it takes to feel radical, militantly maternal self-acceptance. ~ Anne Lamott

If being a decent soul is being maternal, then fine. I'll call it human. ~ Mary Beard

He bit his lip in a manner which immediately awakened my maternal sympathy, and I helped him bite it. ~ S.J Perelman

Success took me to her bosom like a maternal boa constrictor. ~ Noel Coward

I was like a ten-year-old kid who had been scraped off a mother's love so sudden and surreal that I kept hoping I could chant a few magical words and slowly, Mama Jas would materialise in front of me. ~ Diyar Harraz

Some mothers need happy children; others need unhappy ones-otherwise they cannot prove their maternal virtues. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I've never been particularly maternal. ~ Clare Balding

Right ain't changed in all these years. From my maternal grandmother, Pearl C. Parker ~ Deborah L. Parker

Turning, she held her arms out to him in a maternal gesture. McKenna went to her at once, his black head lowering to her soft, round shoulder as he wept. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Trey Gate's maternal grandmother, Adelle Maxwell, was also an important influence on him, encouraging him to read as much as possible, pushing him to excel in all that he did, challenging him to use his mind. They played card games together frequently, especially games like Concentration that required mental agility. ~ James Wallace

I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me. ~ Helen Mirren

But as a matter of strict fact, did Agnes have any "maternal" in her? When she set her mouth that way, it was hard to see it. Oh shucks, all women had maternal instincts; science had proved that. Well, hadn't they? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

In a contest of wills between John and his mother, he did not think John would prevail, indeed he hoped he would not. But he did not care to be a witness to their confrontation; he suspected Eleanor's methods would be neither maternal nor merciful. ~ Sharon Kay Penman

Looking down at her fingernails, she also asked me had I not in my family a certain strange strain. I countered by inquiring whether she would still want to marry me if my father's maternal grandfather had been, say, a Turk. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

My maternal grandmother had what might be described in a school report as a 'lively imagination.' She told us that she was a direct descendant of Sir Christopher Wren. ~ Jeremy Hardy

Rose blanched but complied, earning laughter in return from Dimitri. Rose Hathaway, notorious rebel, showing her maternal side. ~ Richelle Mead

Not one day of my mother's adult life passed without some critical demand on her maternal role, without some urgent response from her. ~ Rosemary Mahoney

Not," Caroline had said, "that I disapprove of your moniker. It is simply that my husband's name is also Henry, and it's rather disconcerting for me to use it on a girl of your tender years."
Henry had only smiled and told her that that was just fine. It had been so long since she had had a maternal figure that she would have been inclined to let Caroline call her Esmerelda if she so desired. ~ Julia Quinn

You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion. ~ Hillary Clinton

Young women who live in areas with high maternal mortality change their behavior less in response to HIV than young women who live in areas with low maternal mortality. ~ Emily Oster

Sydney had to call Jackie back, and since my hands were full, she handed Declan off to Rose. "Just rock him," I said, seeing her panic.
Rose blanched but complied, earning laughter in return from Dimitri. "Rose Hathaway, notorious rebel, showing her maternal side."
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Enjoy it while you can, comrade. This is as close as you'll ever get to it. ~ Richelle Mead

Now I know. If God himself stood before me and said, "Give me that child, that I might slaughter him," I would tell him, "BITE ME! ~ Julie McGalliard

I wanted to get a taste of what it would feel like to be a mum. I've always had a strong maternal instinct and ideally I would love one of my own. ~ Samantha Fox

I'm a quasi-only child. With my brother and sister, I've more of a tendency to be semi-maternal. So, yes, I spent a lot of time talking to myself - I had this big dressing-up box and would just dress up as lots of characters and talk back to myself ... Verging on schizophrenia, I suppose, if you analyse it carefully. ~ Natalie Dormer

Children are sacred beings. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I can be maternal with my friends. ~ Audrey Tautou

Woman naturally seeks to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole. To cherish, guard, protect, nourish and advance growth is her natural, maternal yearning. ~ Edith Stein

I hated her as I had never hated anyone before - with her easy answers and maternal fussing. I wanted to slap her face, to make her crawl, and then to hold her in my arms and kiss her. ~ Daniel Keyes