36 Inspirational Birth Quotes

Welcoming a new life into the world is an awe-inspiring experience that transcends words, yet these moments often call for words that capture their profound beauty and significance. Whether you're a new parent, a friend, or a loved one sharing in the joy of a baby's arrival, inspirational birth quotes can provide comfort, hope, and perspective. In this carefully curated collection of 36 inspiring quotes, you'll find timeless wisdom and heartfelt reflections that celebrate birth as both a personal milestone and a universal miracle. These quotes serve not only to honor the newborn but also to uplift and encourage those who are embarking on the incredible journey of parenthood.

1. “On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.” - Simone de Beauvoir

2. “There are those wonderful moments of clarity in life when one is reminded how irreparably flawed we humans are. Once, when I was nineteen, on the subway in Boston I lost my balance slightly and bumped into an elderly woman. I quickly apologized and she replied, "Well, hold on to something, stupid." There it is. That's it. That's it in a nutshell. I don't want to sound negative, but I think every fetus should be shown a film of that incident, maybe projected up on the uterine wall, and then asked if it wants to come out. I am a strong believer in a woman's right to choose, but I also think that in the last trimester, the kid should be given every opportunity to back out.” - Paula Poundstone

3. “$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding.” - Frank Oski

4. “Among industrialized countries, the U.S. ranks 29th in infant survival.” - Jennifer Block

5. “Of course, if 40% of women need oxytocin to progress normally, then something is wrong with the definition of normal.” - Henci Goer

6. “The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.” - E. M. Forster

7. “Have you ever seen the dawn? Not a dawn groggy with lack of sleep or hectic with mindless obligations and you about to rush off on an early adventure or business, but full of deep silence and absolute clarity of perception? A dawning which you truly observe, degree by degree. It is the most amazing moment of birth. And more than anything it can spur you to action. Have a burning day.” - Vera Nazarian

8. “Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers--strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.” - Barbara Katz Rothman

9. “Man begets, but land does not beget. ” - Cecil Rhodes

10. “It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.” - Anne Lamott

11. “Imagine that the world had created a new 'dream product' to feed and immunize everyone born on earth. Imagine also that it was available everywhere, required no storage or delivery, and helped mothers plan their families and reduce the risk of cancer. Then imagine that the world refused to use it.” - Frank Oski

12. “It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn't be so many humans on the planet.” - Ina May Gaskin

13. “He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

14. “The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God.” - Hans Urs von Balthasar

15. “COSMIC DANCER""I was dancing when I was twelveI was dancing when I was aaahI danced myself right out the wombIs it strange to dance so soonI danced myself right out the wombI was dancing when I was eightIs it strange to dance so lateI danced myself into the tombIs it strange to dance so soonI danced myself into the tombIs it wrong to understandThe fear that dwells inside a manWhat's it like to be a loonI liken it to a balloonI danced myself out of the wombIs it strange to dance to soonI danced myself into the tombBut then again once moreI danced myself out of the wombIs it strange to dance so soonI danced myself out of the womb.” - Marc Bolan

16. “Yes, contractions can be intense,' Noura continues. 'But your bodies are designed to handle it. And what you must remember is, it's a positive pain. I'm sure you'll both agree?' She looks over at Mum and Janice.POSITIVE?' Janice looks up, horrified. 'Ooh, no, dear. Mine was agony. 24 hours in the cruel summer heat. I wouldn't wish it on any of you poor girls.'But there are natural methods you can use,' Noura puts in quickly. 'I'm sure you found that rocking and changing position helped with the contractions.I wouldn't have said so,' Mum says kindly.Or a warm bath?' Noura suggets, smile tightening.A bath? Dear, when you're gripped by agony and wanting to die, a bath doesn't really help!'As I glance around the room I can see that all the girls' faces have frozen. Most of the mens' too.” - Sophie Kinsella

17. “Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.” - May Sarton

18. “It was no accident, no coincidence, that the seasons came round and round year after year. It was the Lord speaking to us all and showing us over and over again the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It was like a best-loved story being told day after day with each sunrise and sunset, year after year with the seasons, down through the ages since time began.” - Francine Rivers

19. “When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.” - Gautama Buddha

20. “Why should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained?” - Ina May Gaskin

21. “For that half-hour in the hospital delivery room I was intimate with immensity, for that half-minute before birth I held her hands and for that duration we three were undivided, I felt the blood of her pulse as we gripped hands, felt her blood beat in the rhythm that reached into the baby as she slipped into the doctor's hands, and for a few days we touched that immensity, we saw through her eyes to an immense intimacy, saw through to where she had come from, I felt important being next to her, and the feeling lasted when we entered our car for the drive home, thinking to myself that we weren't to be trusted with our baby, the feeling lasting while I measured us against the landscape, the February rain, the pewter sky, and then the rain freezing to the roadway, the warmth of the interior of the car with its unbreakable transparent sky dome and doors, until the car spun on the ice in the lane and twirled so that I could take an hour to describe how I threw up my hands in anguish as the baby slipped from her arms and whipped into the face of her mother reflected in the glass door, and she caught the baby back into her arms as the car glided to a stop in its usual place at the end of the drive, and nothing but silence and a few drops of blood at a nostril suggested that we would now be intimate with the immensities of death ("Interim")” - William S. Wilson

22. “I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!” - Roman Payne

23. “Precarious, life is. A flying leap. A sweep of hand. A star flung across the night. A lucky catch in this whirling juggling circus act.From Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars” - Rivera Sun

24. “Movement turns dead dogs into maggots and daisies, and flour butter sugar an egg and a tablespoon of milk into Abernethy biscuits, and spermatozoa and ovaries into fishy little plants growing babyward if we take no care to stop them.” - Alasdair Gray

25. “Where is an intimate friend who’ll hear the secret from me straight out– of what human beings have been from the moment they began? They are born of toil and molded from the clay of sorrow.They wander the world for a time, then set off.” - Omar Khayyám

26. “If birth is a manifestation of life, death is another.” - Dejan Stojanovic

27. “They didn’t fly out of my body, I actually had to push the little fuckers out.” - Sonia Clement on Tegan and Sara

28. “I can see her, chin to chest, straining to push Junior out, and Junior snagging on her insides, grabbing hold of what he caught on to try to stay inside her, but instead he pulled it out with him when he was born.” - Jesmyn Ward

29. “A gardin is where you can find a whole spectrum of life, birth and death” - Tiffany Baker

30. “Quixote shines from Lorca and Picasso, From Dalí and El Greco, From the gloomy 'View of Toledo.' He was born before Cervantes.” - Dejan Stojanovic

31. “We live in a country where you can electively have your nose broken to reshape it, inject fat from your butt into your face to look younger, but pushing a baby out of your own vagina can be restricted.” - Ann Brasco

32. “Een geboorte of een huwelijk mag dan een belangrijke gebeurtenis zijn, maar het garandeert geen plaats in het geheugen.' De hersens, een zeef.'Knoop dat in uw oren: niets is zeker. Zeker is niets.” - Judith Schalansky

33. “As Miriam released my hand I felt that she and Midwife Bell had returned to a more primitive world, where men never intruded and even their role in conception was unknown. Here the chain of life was mother to daughter, daughter to mother. Fathers and sons belonged in the shadows with the dogs and livestock, like the retriever growling at Midwife Bell's unfamiliar car from the window of my neighbours' living room.” - J.G. Ballard

34. “Between each inhale and exhale we die and are reborn.” - Micheal Tsarion wordslessspoken

35. “Ne scapă mereu câte ceva în viaţă, de aceea trebuie să ne naştem mereu.” - Marin Sorescu

36. “Agitation gives birth to creation.” - Terry Tempest Williams