Over the years I’ve compiled a bunch of quotes that have inspired and motivated me to keep going. I’ve listed many of my favorites below.
Please feel free to share them! Spread the word.
“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.”– Susan B. Anthony
“A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.”– Eleanor Roosevelt
“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.” – Mother Teresa
“We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.”– Rosalyn Sussman
“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you.” – Caroline Myss
“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.”– Elizabeth Gilbert
“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.”– Rosalynn Carter
“Forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion.” – Oprah.
“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”– Margaret Thatcher
“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”– Katharine Hepburn
“There was a time when men thought it was sexy to have a housewife waiting for him to come home from work in her slippers, but in modern society, I think an independent woman is even more sexy.” – Kat Graham
“One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go.”– Sheila Murray Bethel
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – Maya Angelou
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”– Anais Nin
“Whatever you do, be different – that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.” – Anita Roddick
“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.” – J. K. Rowling
“I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”– Eleanor Roosevelt
“We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.” – Susan B. Anthony
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union…. Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”– Susan B. Anthony
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.” – Maya Angelou
“Woman must not accept; she must challenge.She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.” – Margaret Sanger
“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.”– Oprah Winfrey
“A strong woman understands that the gifts such as logic, decisiveness, and strength are just as feminine as intuition and emotional connection. She values and uses all of her gifts.”– Nancy Rathburn
“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.”– Diane Mariechild
“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”– Ayn Rand
“You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.”– Marsha Evans
“I want to do is because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.” – Amelia Earhart
“Just watch, all of you men. I’ll show you what a woman can do…I’ll go across the country, I’ll race to the Moon… I’ll never look back.”– Edna Gardner Whyte
“The best protection any woman can have … is courage.”– Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”– Oprah Winfrey
“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.”– Melinda Gates
“We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”– Marie Curie
“Success breeds confidence.”– Beryl Markham
“Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, “She doesn’t have what it takes.” They will say, “Women don’t have what it takes.”– Clare Boothe Luce
“The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world see us and how we see ourselves successfully acknowledged by the world.”– Arlene Rankin
“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t.” – Rhonda Hansome
“Love is anterior to Life, Posterior to Death, Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth.” – Emily Dickinson
Your own words are the bricks and mortar of the dreams you want to realize. Your words are the greatest power you have. The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience. – Sonia Choquette.
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – Maya Angelou
“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” – Charlotte Whitton
“Everyone has inside of her a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!” – Anne Frank.
“I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne Frank.
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” – Diane Ackerman.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Sally Berger.
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.” – Helen Keller
“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.”– Ruth Gordon
“There are two ways of spreading light. To be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton.
“You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” – Diane von Furstenberg
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations can never effect a reform.” – Susan B. Anthony
“I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.” – Joan Rivers
“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” – Malala Yousafzai
Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen. – Sarah Ban Breathnach.
“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” —Madeleine Albright
“Women are the real architects of society.”—Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.”– Ruth Gordon
“We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.”—Beyoncé
“It’s not your job to like me, it’s mine.” – Byron Katie.
“Why has the word [feminism] become such an uncomfortable one? It is not the word that is important; it’s the idea and the ambition behind it.” —Emma Watson
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”– Helen Keller
“You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame.”– Erica Jong
“Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist — while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of wine, I drank it! Sincerely, the opportunist!” – Lori Greiner
“Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” – Sara Blakely
“The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.” – Barbara Corcoran
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
“One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.”– Virginia Woolf
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou
“Women are never stronger than when they arm themselves with their weaknesses.” – Madame Marie du Deffand