Motherly love: adorable animal moms and their babies

"Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face." Novelist George Eliot wrote these words in Victorian-era England, about a century and a half ago, but they will always ring true. Very few things are as visceral as the bond between a mother and a baby, regardless of species. To celebrate this special bond, click through the gallery and check out these beautiful animal mothers loving on their babies.

Mama Joy, Zurich

"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path." - Agatha Christie

Sea lions, Munich

"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers." - Rudyard Kipling

Mama Elli and two-day-old Inge, Berlin

"Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you." - Louisa May Alcott

Mama Yang Yang and cub Fu Hu, Vienna

"I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." - Abraham Lincoln

Mama Hua Zui Ba and baby Chulina, Madrid

"A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them." - Victor Hugo

Mama and baby fox

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not." - James Joyce

Mama macaque and baby, Sofia

"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow." - Maya Angelou

Mama and baby elephant, Sri Lanka

"My mother is a walking miracle." - Leonardo DiCaprio

Mama kangaroo and her joey, Australia

"I unapologetically and unabashedly am deeply biased toward my mother." - Chelsea Clinton

Mama sheep and her lamb, Poland

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child." - Sophia Loren

Mama lioness and cub

"Because I feel that, in the Heavens above
The angels, whispering to one another, 
Can find, among their burning terms of love
None so devotional as that of 'Mother.'" - Edgar Allen Poe

Mama and baby cheetah, Maasai Mara National Reserve

"[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point." - Lupita Nyong’o

Mama and kitten

"Men are what their mothers made them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Kittens

And to everyone out there who didn't have to give birth to become mothers: "Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother." - Oprah Winfrey

Momma and newborn ring-tailed lemur, Italy

"My favorite thing about being a mom is just what a better person it makes you on a daily basis." - Drew Barrymore

Mama carries albino red-necked wallaby joey, Czech Republic

"Having kids—the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings—is the biggest job anyone can embark on." - Maria Shriver

Walrus Dyna and her calf, Germany

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother." - Lin Yutang

Mama Sulli plays with her baby, Spain

"I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know." - Mitch Albom

Polar bear mama Valeska and her cub, Germany

"Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything." - William Macneile Dixon

Monkey lovin, Guangzhou

"Motherhood: all love begins and ends there." - Robert Downing

Otter pup and its mother, USA

"There is such a special sweetness in being able to participate in creation." - Pamela S. Nadav

Baby hippo swims with its mother, Maruska, in Czech Republic

"Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved." - Eric Fromm

Baby Debbie swims next to momma Delphi, Germany

"It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?" - Mahatma Gandhi

Mother Keren Peles and her newborn, Israel

"The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Manatee calf and its mom, USA

"All those cliches, those things you hear about having a baby and motherhood - all of them are true. And all of them are the most beautiful things you will ever experience." - Penélope Cruz

Baby elephant and its mother, Nepal

"Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody." - Annie Lennox

A lioness plays with her cub, Bosnia and Herzegovina

"That strong mother doesn’t tell her cub, Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you. She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in." - Lauryn Hill