Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Quotes

It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.

I admire my mother. She raised four kids and worked and had no help.

A lot of mothers want to be with their children. They can't afford it for this reason or that reason.

When I decide to become a mother I will just be that. That will be really important to me.

My mother was a mother. She didn't really work, apart from bringing us up, which a job in itself, but at an age where lots of people are thinking of retiring, so is having up to 20 or 30 engagements a day, and she's brilliant at it - she has always been brilliant with people.

The things that are important to me - being a mother, a businesswoman, an activist - are all things that were borne out of great passion.

What she did have, after raising two children, was the equivalent of a PhD in mothering and my undying respect.

Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.

God knows that a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul. But because I happen to be a parent of almost fiercely maternal nature, I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of virtues. It is useful enough when children are small. It is useful to the point of necessity when they are adolescents.

So immense are the claims on a mother, physical claims on her bodily and brain vigor, and moral claims on her heart and thoughts, that she cannot ... meet them all and find any large margin beyond for other cares and work. She serves the community in the very best and highest way it is possible to do, by giving birth to healthy children, whose physical strength has not been defrauded, and to whose moral and mental nature she can give the whole of her thoughts.

Like every mother, my wish - every birthday - is for my children to stay healthy (and) for my family to remain healthy.

Who can justly measure the righteous influence of a mother's love? What enduring fruits result from the seeds of truth that a mother carefully plants and lovingly cultivates in the fertile soil of a child's trusting mind and heart? As a mother, you have been given divine instincts to help you sense your child's special talents and unique capacities.

People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be-both in their youth and in adulthood-intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience.

I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

Build your schools around concepts, not academic subjects: core concepts such as awareness, honesty, responsibility, freedom and diversity in oneness. Teach your children these things and you will have taught them grandly.

Authentic men aren't afraid to show affection, release their feelings, hug their children, cry when they're sad, admit it when they're wrong, and ask for help when they need it.

I find being a mother harder than I though it was going to be. That is a tremendous revelation for me personally. Much more time, more care, more attention and more effort needs to be spent on care for the children. That will save the world at large.

Do I regret getting married? It's hard for me to say anything because ultimately we're talking about the mother of my child.

Everyone always talks about how well mothers know their children. No one ever seems to notice how well children know their mothers.

I was kind of sweet kid, according my mother, and my recollections. Thoughtful and good, but kind of alone - although I didn't interpret it that way, as such. Children never interpret these things. They think they understand logically.

When it came down to it, he just wasn't that engaged. You had to be engaged to be a vegetarian; you had to be engaged to sing "Both Sides Now" with your eyes closed; when it came down to it, you had to be engaged to be a mother.

Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

The mother as a social servant instead of a home servant will not lack in true mother duty. From her work, loved and honored though it is, she will return to her home life, the child life, with an eager, ceaseless pleasure, cleansed of all the fret and fraction and weariness that so mar it now.