Mothers are special. And while Sunday is a day set aside to recognize their importance, we all on a daily basis are influenced by our mothers.

Mothers aren’t perfect. The act of bearing a child does not automatically make saints out of them. But it often comes close.

None of us would be who we are today without our mothers. Below are a few quotes that encompass just how special mothers are.

• “There is more power in a mother’s hand than in a king’s scepter.” — Billy Sunday

• “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.” — Henry Ward Beecher

• “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” — George Washington

• “The impression that a praying mother leaves upon her children is life-long. Perhaps when you are dead and gone your prayer will be answered.” — Dwight L. Moody

• “Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.” — Billy Graham

• “Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.”— Harriet Beecher Stowe

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

• “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” — William Makepeace Thackeray

• “Life doesn’t come with a manual, it comes with a mother.” —  Unknown

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

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