Having a daughter is undoubtedly a blessing. However, raising a girl with high self-esteem can be quite challenging. Between social media's filtered reality of perfect women and society's shifting expectations, parents face the daunting task of nurturing authentic self-worth in their daughters.
These carefully selected daughter quotes help provide a starting point. They're simple reminders that whatever accomplishments you may have to date, raising a daughter is probably your biggest one.
Let these words inspire you to nurture raise and nurture a daughter who defines herself through her strength, not by society's impossible standards. Offer genuine praise for their efforts, passions, and personal growth. This way, we’ll make sure our daughters understand their true value without looking for validation in a fashion magazine.
Heartwarming Quotes About Daughters
"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be."
-- Clementine Paddleford
“Little girls are the nicest things that happen to people. They are born with a little bit of angelshine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes there is always enough left to lasso your heart.”
-- Alan Beck
"When I come home, my daughter will run to the door and give me a big hug, and everything that’s happened that day just melts away."
-- Hugh Jackman
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"A daughter is just a little girl who grows up to be your best friend.”
-- Unknown
"A daughter is a bundle of firsts that excite and delight, giggles that come from deep inside and are always contagious, everything wonderful and precious and your love for her knows no bounds."
-- Barbara Cage
"A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart." - Unknown
"Who can describe the transports of a beam truly parental on beholding a daughter shoot up like some fair and modest flower, and acquire, day after day, fresh beauty and growing sweetness, so as to fill every eye with pleasure and every heart with admiration?"
-- George Fordyce
"My daughter makes me laugh with her incredibly humorous take on the world. Everything makes her laugh, and I aspire to take in the world the same shoes she does."
-- Unknown
"To my beautiful daughter. If I could only give you one thing in this life, I would give you the ability to see yourself how I see you every single day. Your beauty, your kindness, how happy you make me and how proud I am of you. Perhaps then you would be able to understand just how special you are to me."
-- Dave Hedges
“Having a little girl has been like following an old treasure map with the important paths torn away.”
-- Heather Gudenkauf
"Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak."
-- Victor Hugo
Empowering Quotes About Daughters
From world leaders to artists, parents across different walks of life share a common vision. These quotes celebrate raising fierce, independent girls who define their own paths.
"I never, ever grew up as a young woman believing that my gender would stand in the way of doing anything I wanted."
-- Jacinda Ardern
"Absolutely, I don't believe in rules. As I tell my daughter when she is mischievous, ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history."
-- Nia Vardalos
“And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
-- William Shakespeare
"I hope that my daughter grows up empowered and doesn't define herself by the way she looks but by qualities that make her a intelligent, strong and responsible woman."
-- Isaiah Mustafa
"I will let my daughter do whatever her heart wants. I will support her and guide her and give her all the knowledge that I have because I want her to succeed in whatever she loves."
-- The Miz
"We gotta start teaching our daughters to be somebodies instead of somebody's." - Kifah Shah
"What's important for my daughter to know is that... if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well."
-- Kamala Harris
"Women are in a position now to voice their opinion... women are getting empowered. The more power they get, the more voice they get to shift certain things around. Now I have a daughter, I understand. When I didn't have a daughter, I didn't understand."
-- Snoop Dogg
Father-Daughter Quotes That Reveal Their Special Bond
"We like to think we are so smart and we have all the answers. And we want to pass all that on to our children, but if you scratch beneath the surface you don’t have to dig very deep to find the kid you were.”
-- Phil Dunphy
“I thought I’d never be that annoying person, but as soon as Winnie was born, I was showing iPhone snaps to a cab driver.”
-- Jimmy Fallon
"Behind every great daughter is a truly amazing dad."
-- Unknown
"Every day is Father's Day to me when I'm with her: when I'll be able to hold my daughter and see her grow and see her smile. That's Father's Day to me every day."
-- Saquon Barkley
“It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping.”
-- John Sinor
"To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter." - Euripides
“Daddy, thanks for being my hero, chauffeur, financial support, listener, life mentor, friend, guardian and simply being there every time I need a hug."
-- Agatha Stephanie Lin
"No matter how old my daughter gets, she'll always be my baby girl."
-- Anonymous
"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
“Being a daddy’s girl is like having permanent armor for the rest of your life.” - Marinela Reka
“They say that from the instant he lays eyes on her, a father adores his daughter. Whoever she grows up to be, she is always to him that little girl in pigtails. She makes him feel like Christmas. In exchange, he makes a secret promise not to see the awkwardness of her teenage years, the mistakes she makes or the secrets she keeps.”
-- Unknown
"Having a daughter makes you see things in a different way. This is my only girl. So I don't care what it takes to protect her. You can call it what you want to call it. As long as you treat her the same way I treat her, like my princess, I don't mind."
-- Tracy Morgan
Moving Quotes About the Mother-Daughter Relationship
Mother Daughter Quotes to remind you how special the mother daughter bond really is!
"The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way."
-- Joyce Carol Oates
"A mother's treasure is her daughter."
-- Catherine Pulsifer
"Mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to be reckoned with." - Melia Keeton-Digby
"They both began to giggle and then... fell into a side-splitting round of laughter, the cleansing, complete sort of laughter only a mother and daughter can share."
-- Karen Kingsbury
“Having a little girl has been like following an old treasure map with the important paths torn away.”
--Heather Gudenkauf
"I tell my daughter every morning, 'Now, what are the two most important parts of you?' And she says, 'My head and my heart'."
-- Viola Davis
“Find it within you to love exactly who you are and to know you’re capable, you’re loved and you’re beautiful. The world is a better place, because of you. You are unique because there is only ONE of you.”
-- Shantel VanSanten
"Having a daughter is God's way of saying, 'Here, thought you could use a lifelong friend'."
-- Unknown
"A mother is the only person in the world who can turn her daughter’s worries and fears into happiness."
-- Anonymous
"The thing I'm the most proud of in my personal life is that my daughter actually thinks that I'm fabulous."
-- Brooke Shields
"Our daughters are the most precious of our treasures, the dearest possessions of our homes and the objects of our most watchful love."
-- Margaret E. Sangster
"The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life… the stronger the daughter."
-- Anita Diamant
"I am not a perfect mother and I will never be. You are not a perfect daughter and you will never be. But put us together and we will be the best mother and daughter we would ever be.”
-- Zoraida Pesante
"A daughter Is a mother's best friend. Every time you smile, she loves you more; every time you laugh or cry, she cries too and every time you hold her close, she holds you tight."
--Anonymous
“Life is tough, my darling daughter, but so are you.”
-- Stephanie Bennet Henry
Quotes for Parents Raising Teenage Daughters
“All I know is that I carried you for nine months. I fed you, I clothed you, I paid for your college education. Friending me on Facebook seems like a small thing to ask in return.”
-- Jodi Picoult
“Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.”
-- Margaret Atwood
"A daughter is a treasure and a cause of sleeplessness."
-- Ben Sirach
“Many a man wishes he were strong enough to tear a telephone book in half — especially if he has a teenage daughter.”
-- Guy Lombardo
"My daughter is the biggest gift; I've said it so many times and it sounds like a cliche, but the thing about being a parent is when you think you've cracked it, and you're on top of your game, they change again and you have to catch up and adjust. I feel such a responsibility to instill good values in her, to be polite, to have discipline."
-- Geri Halliwell
"I've come to understand that art is awesome and beautiful because it's a reflection of life - but it's just a reflection, and the real thing is my daughter."
"Patience, my daughter, learn patience, and life will be easier." - Catherine Pulsifer
"A daughter is a miracle that never ceases to be miraculous... full of beauty and forever beautiful... loving and caring and truly amazing."
-- Deanna Beisser
"So, after much observation, I realized that our daughters needed the same things we lacked in our younger years… wisdom. Without wisdom we continue to blunder through life repeating the same mistakes."
-- Laura Alexander
"To my daughter: Never forget that I love you. Life is filled with hard times and good times. Learn from everything you can. Be the woman I know you can be."
-- Unknown
Quotes for When Your Little Girl Is All Grown Up
“Missing someone is part of loving them. Not until you are apart do you realize how much they mean to you.”
-- Nikhil Saluja
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
-- Terry Pratchett
"Your daughter will remember when you sat for her to put makeup on you and braided her hair more than she will remember material gifts. These will be the memories she cherishes forever." -- Dotjay
“The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave, and it feels even better to come back.”
-- Wendy Wunder
“My wish for you is that this life becomes all that you want it to; your dreams stay big and your worries stay small; you never need to carry more than you can hold.”
-- Rascal Flatts
"It's a beautiful thing, watching another adult walking around out there in the world with my heart beating inside them."
-- Anonymous
The 3 Most Overrated Personal Development Habits
“How to Do Everything You’ve Ever Wanted in Half the Time and with Less Effort”
The personal development sphere is known for its rather sensational claims, even if a lot of it really does work.
However, there are some personal development habits that are pretty overrated, be it something that’s preached to be the perfect productivity vehicle for all or an exercise that isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems.
It’s important to work on yourself but it’s also important to know what the truth is. And, with the advent of digital media, it’s become harder to tell between what’s real and what’s marketing.
Here are the most overrated development habits:
1. Meditation isn’t a panacea
As someone who has taught meditation for several years, I can attest to its power.
Sometimes, that power appears almost mystical in nature. However, images abound of blissed-out 20-somethings sitting serenely on top of a giant freaking hill.
How they get there apparently with full makeup and without breaking a sweat we’ll never know but one thing is for certain: this, often, isn’t what meditation feels like (and, no, I don’t advise you to climb a hill or mountain just to meditate).
Sometimes, meditation is great and truly instills in you a sense of peace and serenity. However, often, it feels like you’re being dragged out of your own skin.
The purpose of meditation is the realization of truth, much in the same way that a scientist studies the connection between basic elements of reality to find out how things work.
First and foremost, the realization of truth requires you get past yourself and that means overcoming years of subconscious programming and an internal dialogue that is often almost villainous in nature. So, when you sit down to meditate you have to deal with a lot of crappy things that rise up from below the surface including past trauma and issues of low self-worth.
But more than just the fact that meditation isn’t this perfectly wonderful experience, it isn’t a panacea.
Do a quick search online and you’ll find pages of articles on the benefits of meditation, the first and most prominent of which have a laundry list of positive effects. But everyone responds differently to meditation itself and each meditation style. While some might find serenity, others find nothing but struggle. Plus, some of the purported benefits, depending on where you read, are outright myth.
The practice is always worthwhile, more worthwhile than almost anything else you can do for your mental well-being, but it’s not always easy and it’s not some perfect cure for all of life’s ailments.
2. Rising early isn’t best for everyone
One of the most popular ideas in modern personal development culture is that of rising early. Early rising, many will tell you, is the meditation of productivity.
Wake up an hour or two earlier and you’ll evolve into a higher lifeform, one which doubles its speed and amplifies its mental faculties several times over. At least, that’s what most articles online make it sound like.
Waking up early is said to not just give us some extra time each morning but offer a perfect kind of solace, the ideal environment for productivity and creative thinking.
And it’s hard to argue against when countless big-thinkers and notable authorities rep the habit and said benefits, from Tony Robbins to Oprah Winfrey and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
However, the problem is the assumption that just because something works for others that you admire or would like to emulate the success of, it will work for you.
But there’s ample anecdotal evidence that, if you take the time to look around, some people just work better as night owls.
I’ve done both and even purposely shifted between the two to study the effects on my body and mind. And I can say from personal experience that both have their benefits and drawbacks.
All you can is test out each and see what feels better for your own body and mind and, most specifically, how they affect your productivity and creative thinking.
3. Making personal development too much about you
Personal development is about improving, well, yourself. In case you didn’t already know that.
However, one of the most prevalent mistakes is to make your own personal development all about making yourself better isolated from the rest of the world.
In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about the habit of making personal development only about yourself and ignoring how effectively you perform with others.
The pursuit of personal excellence isolated from others is a somewhat egotistical fantasy as true progress requires that you work closely with others at almost every stage of your development.
Sure, there are domains and skills which require strictly self-improvement in terms of your own individual productivity (perhaps more than ever), such as focus and maximizing your ability to tune into your creative voice.
However, you can’t accomplish any great goal or dream on your own and the better you work together with others, from your communication to collaboration, the more likely you are to be successful. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if you don’t work well together with others and work to improve your ability to do so, you’ll be severely handicapped.