
„I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.“
— C.G. Jung Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology 1875 - 1961
Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
A collection of quotes on the topic of for men, for women, motivational, inspirational.
„I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.“
— C.G. Jung Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology 1875 - 1961
Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
„As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.“
— John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980
„It is never too late to be what you might have been.“
— George Eliot English novelist, journalist and translator 1819 - 1880
„The secret to getting ahead is getting started.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
„Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.“
— Viktor E. Frankl, book Man's Search for Meaning
Source: Quoted in Man's Search for Meaning and attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
„It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.“
— Marilyn Monroe American actress, model, and singer 1926 - 1962
Variant: Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
„Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.“
— Pablo Picasso Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer 1881 - 1973
„Do one thing every day that scares you.“
— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962
„You must do the thing you think you cannot do.“
— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
„We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.“
— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014
Total 190 quotes for women, filter:
„If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.“
— Dolly Parton American singer-songwriter and actress 1946
„What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.“
— Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934
— Simone de Beauvoir French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist 1908 - 1986
— Audre Lorde, book The Cancer Journals
The Cancer Journals, Special Edition, Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1997, p. 13.
„Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?“
— Virginia Woolf English writer 1882 - 1941
„Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.“
— Erica Jong Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic 1942
„Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.“
— Judy Garland actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States 1922 - 1969
As quoted in Business Etiquette for the Nineties : Your Ticket to Career Success (1992) by Lou Kennedy, p. 8
Variant: Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.
„A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.“
— Coco Chanel French fashion designer 1883 - 1971
As quoted in The Gospel According to Coco Chanel : Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman (2009) by Karen Karbo
„I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say "yes women can".“
— Dilma Rousseff 36th President of Brazil 1947
„Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.“
— Joseph Conrad, book Chance
Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5
„Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.“
— Nora Ephron Film director, author screenwriter 1941 - 2012
Variant: Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.
„The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.“
— Coco Chanel French fashion designer 1883 - 1971
As quoted in Believing in Ourselves (1992) by Armand Eisen, p. 39
„Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. “
— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962
„Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.“
— Audre Lorde writer and activist 1934 - 1992
Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
— Virginia Woolf, book A Room of One's Own
Variant: There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 4, p. 90
— Dolly Parton American singer-songwriter and actress 1946
Variant: If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.
— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
„One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.“
— Simone de Beauvoir, book The Second Sex
On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.
Bk. 2, Pt.. 4, Ch. 1: Childhood, p. 267
Source: The Second Sex (1949)
— George Carlin American stand-up comedian 1937 - 2008
Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)
Source: When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?
„Success is getting what you want..
Happiness is wanting what you get.“
— Dale Carnegie American writer and lecturer 1888 - 1955
Variant: Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
— Bell Hooks American author, feminist, and social activist 1952
Source: Communion: The Female Search for Love
— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Nigerian writer 1977
Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/
„I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me.“
— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014
— Thomas Hardy English novelist and poet 1840 - 1928
Variant: When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
„I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took any excuse.“
— Florence Nightingale English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing 1820 - 1910
As quoted in The Gigantic Book of Teachers' Wisdom (2007) by Frank McCourt and Erin Gruwell, p. 410
— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014
Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011
„I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.“
— Audre Lorde writer and activist 1934 - 1992
(1981) Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”
„Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.“
— Lois Wyse American advertising executive 1926 - 2007
„We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.“
— Isabel Allende Chilean writer 1942
Source: Island Beneath the Sea
„The secret of getting ahead is getting started.“
— Agatha Christie English mystery and detective writer 1890 - 1976
„There is no solution because there is no problem.“
— Marcel Duchamp French painter and sculptor 1887 - 1968
„Where there is a woman there is magic.“
— Ntozake Shange Contemporary African American writer and performance artist 1948 - 2018
„No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.“
— Red Symons Australian broadcaster and musician 1949
Attributed quotes
„Life's not about waiting for the storm to pass… it's about learning to dance in the rain. “
— Вивиан Грин American musician 1979
„In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.“
— Albert Camus French author and journalist 1913 - 1960
„You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.“
— Byron Katie American spiritual writer 1942
Source: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)
„my courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.“
— Jane Austen, book Pride and Prejudice
Source: Pride and Prejudice
„You never lose by loving, you lose by holding back.“
— Barbara De Angelis American psychologist 1951
Variant: You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.
Source: Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul
— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962
Preface (December 1960) to The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961), p. xix
„Better to be strong than pretty and useless.“
— Lilith Saintcrow, book Strange Angels
Source: Strange Angels
„What would men be without women? Scarce, sir… mighty scarce.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
— Anaïs Nin writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903 - 1977
Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
„Let nothing dim the light that shines from within“
— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014
Variant: Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.
„The best protection any woman can have… is courage.“
— Elizabeth Cady Stanton Suffragist and Women's Rights activist 1815 - 1902
„Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.“
— Ingrid Bergman Film actress from Sweden 1915 - 1982
„There is no such thing as 'too late' in life.“
— Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie
„good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere“
— Helen Gurley Brown American author, editor, publisher, and businesswoman 1922 - 2012
„No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.“
— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962
Disputed
Variant: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Source: Sometimes claimed to appear in her book This is My Story, but in The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes (2006), Keyes writes on p. 97 that "Bartlett's and other sources say her famous quotation can be found in This is My Story, Roosevelt's 1937 autobiography. It can't. Quotographer Rosalie Maggio scoured that book and many others by and about Roosevelt in search of this line, without success. In their own extensive searching, archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, have not been able to find the quotation in This Is My Story or any other writing by the First Lady. A discussion of some of the earliest known attributions of this quote to Roosevelt, which may be a paraphrase from an interview, can be found in this entry from Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/.
— Virginia Woolf, book Three Guineas
Source: Three Guineas (1938), Ch. 3, p. 109
Context: The outsider will say, "in fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." And if, when reason has said its say, still some obstinate emotion remains, some love of England dropped into a child's ears by the cawing of rooks in an elm tree, by the splash of waves on a beach, or by English voices murmuring nursery rhymes, this drop of pure, if irrational, emotion she will make serve her to give to England first what she desires of peace and freedom for the whole world.
„A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.“
— D.H. Lawrence, book Lady Chatterley's Lover
Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover
„A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.“
— Gloria Steinem American feminist and journalist 1934
„The challenge is not to be perfect…it’s to be whole“
— Jane Fonda American actress and activist 1937
„How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.“
— A.A. Milne British author 1882 - 1956
Source: The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh
„Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.“
— Harriet Beecher Stowe Abolitionist, author 1811 - 1896
„Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.“
— Elizabeth Gilbert, book Eat, Pray, Love
This derives from a folk proverb sometimes attributed to Clementine Paddleford, but in use as an "old proverb" as early as 1908, when Paddeford was only 10 years old.
Misattributed
Source: Eat, Pray, Love
„Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them.“
— Bill Maher American stand-up comedian 1956
„You are what you believe yourself to be.“
— Paulo Coelho, book The Witch of Portobello
Source: The Witch of Portobello (2007), p. 152.
Context: You are what you believe yourself to be.
Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it — which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution — do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.
Believe.
„If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.“
— Mo Willems American children's illustrator and writer 1968
Source: Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
„No matter where you go, there you are“
— Yogi Berra American baseball player, manager, coach 1925 - 2015
Source: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes
„Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.“
— Emily Dickinson American poet 1830 - 1886
„You should never let your fears prevent you from doing what you know is right.“
— Aung San Suu Kyi State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy 1945
„In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.“
— Margaret Thatcher British stateswoman and politician 1925 - 2013
Speech to members of the National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds, delivered at the Royal Albert Hall (May 20, 1965) ; as quoted in Why Women Should Rule the World, HarperCollins (2008), Dee Dee Myers, p. 227 : ISBN 0061140406, 9780061140402 . The Margaret Thatcher Foundation http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101374 gives the following additional information : MT spoke on the theme ‘Woman – No Longer a Satellite.’ The Evening News report of this speech is the origin of a phrase often attributed to her : ‘In politics, ... (etc., as above).’
Backbench MP
„Well-behaved women seldom make history.“
— Laurel Thatcher Ulrich American historian 1938
Source: Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
— Gillian Anderson American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer 1968
Excerpt from the foreword in Girl Boss: Running the Show Like the Big Chicks http://www.gilliananderson.ws/transcripts/99_00/99girlboss.shtml, by Stacy Kravetz (1999)
1990s
— Margaret Thatcher British stateswoman and politician 1925 - 2013
The Times (1980), as cited in [Dale, 2012]
First term as Prime Minister
„Like art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before.“
— Gloria Steinem American feminist and journalist 1934
Part 4 : The Masculinization of Wealth, p. 196
Moving Beyond Words (1994)
„…if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.“
— Arnold Schoenberg, book Style and Idea
from New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea (1946); as quoted in Style and Idea (1985), p. 124
1940s
„A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.“
— Marilyn Monroe American actress, model, and singer 1926 - 1962
Attributed to Monroe in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date.
Misattributed