Inspirational Poems, Prayers, Quotes, and Scriptures for Moms and Dads

The following inspirational poems, prayers, quotes, and scriptures can be used to create Mother's Day and Father's Day greetings, but you shouldn't wait until those times to use them. If you want to honor your parents, do it when they are on your heart. If you are a parent, take some time to relax and enjoy what's here for your encouragement and upliftment. Your job is one of the toughest in the world, and sometimes it makes a big difference to read or hear something that gives you the strength that keep going another day.

Being a mother or a father brings great joy, but it can also bring stress, frustration, and even grief. In those times, we all need to hear something that will open our understanding and give us hope. I hope that you can find some in the offerings below.

"All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."
- Abraham Lincoln

"The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children."
- Nancy Friday

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

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."
- Henry Ward Beecher

"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."
- Stevie Wonder

"My mother said to me, ""If you become a soldier you'll be a general; if you become a monk you'll end up as the pope."" Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."
- Pablo Picasso

"Nobody loves me but my mother,
And she could be jivin' too."
- B. B. King

"Mothers are the most instinctive philosophers."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"The watchful mother tarries nigh, though sleep has closed her infants eyes." - John Keble

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
- Erma Bombeck

"My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back."
- Denzel Washington

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."
- Honore de Balzac

"But the mother's yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man."
- George Eliot

"Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws."
- Barbara Kingsolver

Mothers are the gardeners
Of wind-blown wild flowers.
They water them with happy tears,
Happy with them many years,
Even as the hours
Ring with sweet, sad melodies
Sighing through their bowers.

by Nicholas Gordon

You painted no Madonnas
    on chapel walls in Rome
But with a touch divine
    you lived one in your home

You wrote no lofty poems
    that critics counted art
But with a nobler vision
    you lived them in your heart

You carved no shapeless marble
    into some high soul design
But with a finer sculpture
    you shaped this soul of mine

You built no great cathedrals
    that centuries applaud
But with a grace exquisite
    your life cathedraled God

Had I the gift of Raphael
    or that of Michelangelo
Oh, what a rare Madonna
    my mother's life would show

by Frances Johansan

John 16:21
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

Psalm 127:3
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Proverbs 1:8-9
8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.
- Pope John XXIII

"That is the thankless position of the father in the family -- the provider for all, and the enemy of all."
- J. August Strindberg

"Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fire blazes. No one ever thanked him."
- Robert Hayden

"Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Every body needs that."
- James Brown

"My father instilled in me the attitude of prevailing. If there's a challenge, go for it. If there's a wall to break down, break it down."
- Donny Osmond

"My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me."
- Jim Valvano

Every father expects his boy to do the things he wouldn't do when he was young.
- Kin Hubbard

"My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more."
- Pete Rose

"Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express."
- Joseph Addison

A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.
- Enid Bagnold

"Fathers and sons arrive at that relationship only by claiming that relationship: that is by paying for it. If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons."
- James Baldwin

"My father had always said there are four things a child needs: plenty of love, nourishing food, regular sleep, and lots of soap and water. After that, what he needs most is some intelligent neglect."
- Ivy Baker Priest

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
- Mark Twain

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love the most is soap-on-a-rope. "
- Bill Cosby

When I was a boy I used to do what my father wanted. Now I have to do what my boy wants. My problem is: When am I going to do what I want?
- Sam Levenson

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
- Theodore M. Hesburgh

"It's only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home it's only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love."
- Margaret Truman

As I ponder the love that I saw in his eyes,
A Godly love, given without compromise....
I recall many times that he stood by my side,
And prodded me on with great vigor and pride.

His voice ever confident, firm and yet fair,
Always speaking with patience, tenderness and care.
The power and might of his hands was so sure,
I knew there was nothing we couldn't endure.

It's true, a few others provided insight,
Yet, he laid the foundation that kept me upright.
He's the grandest of men to have lived on this earth,
Although he's not royal by stature or birth.

He's a man of great dignity, honor and strength.
His merits are noble, and of admirable length.
He's far greater than all other men that I know,
He's my Dad, he's my mentor, my friend and hero.

by Debbie Hinton Young

Fathers are wonderful people
Too little understood,
And we do not sing their praises
As often as we should...

For, somehow, Father seems to be
The man who pays the bills,
While Mother binds up little hurts
And nurses all our ills...

And Father struggles daily
To live up to "his image"
As protector and provider
And "hero of the scrimmage"...

And perhaps that is the reason
We sometimes get the notion,
That Fathers are not subject
To the thing we call emotion,

But if you look inside Dad's heart,
Where no one else can see
You'll find he's sentimental
And as "soft" as he can be...

But he's so busy every day
In the grueling race of life,
He leaves the sentimental stuff
To his partner and his wife...

But Fathers are just wonderful
In a million different ways,
And they merit loving compliments
And accolades of praise,

For the only reason Dad aspires
To fortune and success
Is to make the family proud of him
And to bring them happiness...

And like Our Heavenly Father,
He's a guardian and a guide,
Someone that we can count on
To be always on our side.

by Helen Steiner Rice

Proverbs 17:27
He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.

Ephesians 6:4
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Hebrews 12:7
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.