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Famous Women Quotes

2. “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.” - Helen Keller

3. “You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” - Diane von Furstenberg

4. “I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.” - Joan Rivers

5. “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations can never effect a reform.” - Susan B. Anthony

6. “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” - Malala Yousafzai

7. “Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” - Golda Meir

8. “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” - Rosa Parks

9. “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.” - Estée Lauder

10. “Power’s not given to you. You have to take it.” - Beyoncé Knowles Carter

11. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” - Amelia Earhart

12. “The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.” - Barbara Corcoran

13. “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.” - Shonda Rhimes

14. “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” - Lucille Ball

15. “I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say ‘yes, women can.’” - Dilma Rousseff

16. “Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all the deadly sins.” - Edith Wharton

17. “If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” - Erica Jong

18. “I have stood on a mountain of no’s for one yes.” - B. Smith

19. “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” - Peggy O’Mara

20. “You can never leave footprints that last if you are always walking on tiptoe.” - Leymah Gbowee

21. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” - Dolly Parton

22. “If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don’t, you’re simply ducking your responsibilities.” - Ann Richards

23. “You can’t give up! If you give up, you’re like everybody else.” - Chris Evert

24. “No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.” - Martha Beck

25. “Done is better than perfect.” - Sheryl Sandberg

26. “One of the secrets to staying young is to always do things you don’t know how to do, to keep learning.” - Ruth Reichl

27. “Be first and be lonely.” - Ginni Rometty

28. “One cannot accomplish anything without fanaticism.” - Eva Perón

29. “Look your best - who said love is blind?” - Mae West

30. “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

31. “Don’t take too much credit for your children — or too much blame!” - Debora Spar

32. “You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.” - Benazir Bhutto

33. “Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.” - Oprah Winfrey

34. “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” - Jane Goodall

35. “I firmly believe you never should spend your time being the former anything.” - Condoleezza Rice

36. “I may be wearing makeup, but I can throw a fastball by you at the same time.” - Jennie Finch

37. “A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.” - Angela Merkel

38. “A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.” - Marge Piercy

39. “I choose to make the rest of my life the best of my life.” - Louise Hay

40. “Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper.” - Julia Child

41. “If your home environment is good and peaceful and easy, your life is better and easier.” - Lori Greiner

42. “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” - Coco Chanel

43. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” - Ayn Rand

44. “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” - Mother Teresa

45. “Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.” - Hillary Clinton

46. “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” - Audre Lorde


47. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

48. “Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

49. “Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” - Nora Ephron

50. “You should treat your marriage like a business that you wouldn’t want to let fail.” - Lisa Ling

51. “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.” - Maya Angelou

52. “Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” - Simone de Beauvoir

53. “If you’re not making some notable mistakes along the way, you’re certainly not taking enough business and career chances.” - Sallie Krawcheck

54. “A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.” - Sonia Sotomayor

55. “Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.” - Jennifer Lopez

56. “You can be the lead in your own life.” - Kerry Washington

57. “When you feel copied, remember that people can only go where you have already been, they have no idea where you are going next.” - Liz Lange*

58. “You can’t please everyone, and you can’t make everyone like you.” - Katie Couric

59. “No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed.” - Billie Jean King

60. “Hold your head and your standards high even as people or circumstances try to pull you down.” - Tory Johnson*

61. “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” - Audrey Hepburn

62. “Normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from.” - Jodie Foster

63. “I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.” - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

64. “I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that’s not pulling the trigger.” - Mia Hamm

65. “When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.” - Madonna

66. “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.” - Brene Brown

67. “I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.” - Arianna Huffington

68. “I’m always perpetually out of my comfort zone.” - Tory Burch

69. “If you can’t go straight ahead, you go around the corner.” - Cher

70. “If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.” - Angelina Jolie

71. “Everyone shines, given the right lighting.” - Susan Cain

72. “If you’re someone people count on, particularly in difficult moments, that’s a sign of a life lived honorably.” - Rachel Maddow

73. “When you embrace your difference, your DNA, your look or heritage or religion or your unusual name, that’s when you start to shine.” - Bethenny Frankel

74. “You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.” - Tina Fey

75. “If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” - Margaret Thatcher

76. “The challenge is not to be perfect...it’s to be whole.” - Jane Fonda

77. “Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.” - Anne Lamott

78. “There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” - Indira Gandhi

79. “All careers go up and down like friendships, like marriages, like anything else, and you can’t bat a thousand all the time.” - Julie Andrews

80. “If somebody can do something 80 percent as good as you think you would have done it yourself, then you’ve got to let it go.” - Sara Blakely

81. “This journey has always been about reaching your own other shore no matter what it is, and that dream continues.” - Diana Nyad

82. “You have trust in what you think. If you splinter yourself and try to please everyone, you can’t.” - Annie Leibovitz

83. “If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.” - Princess Diana

84. “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” - J.K. Rowling

85. “When you’re through changing, you’re through.” - Martha Stewart

86. “We need to start work with the idea that we’re going to learn every day. I learn, even at my position, every single day.” - Chanda Kochhar

87. “Cherish forever what makes you unique, cuz you’re really a yawn if it goes.” - Bette Midler

88. “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” - Rachel Zoe

89. “Dying seems less sad than having lived too little.” - Gloria Steinem

90. “When I believe in something, I’m like a dog with a bone.” - Melissa McCarthy

91. “Women asking for raises should not only know their value, but they should ask with the confidence that they’re helping the company to be successful.” - Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

92. “Whenever you are blue or lonely or stricken by some humiliating thing you did, the cure and the hope is in caring about other people.” - Diane Sawyer

93. “I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said.” - Thuli Madonsela

94. “I try to live in a little bit of my own joy and not let people steal it or take it.” - Hoda Kotb

95. “It’s not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it. Sometimes you’ve got to blast through and have faith.” - Emma Watson

96. “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anaïs Nin

97. “I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me has taught me compassion.” - Ellen DeGeneres

98. “When I’m tired, I rest. I say, ‘I can’t be a superwoman today.’” - Jada Pinkett Smith

99. “Don’t live life in the past lane.” - Samantha Ettus

100. “Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.” - Harper Lee

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-ettus/100-quotes-from-100-extraordinary-women_b_6483622.html

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“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” – Helen Keller

“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

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – Maya Angelou

“Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That’s what music is to me.” – Janis Joplin

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”– Anais Nin

“If you don’t like being a doormat then get off the floor.” – Al Anon

“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

“A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.” – Madonna

“A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” – Eleanor Roosevelt56

“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

“Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.” – 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Love is anterior to Life, Posterior to Death, Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth.” – Emily Dickinson
“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand

“Most people who meet my wife quickly conclude that she is remarkable. They are right about this. She is smart, funny and thoroughly charming. Often, after hearing her speak at some function or working with her on a project, people will approach me and say something to the effect of, you know, I think the world of you, Barack, but your wife, wow!” – Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

“People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me.”
– Princess Diana

“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

“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”
– Charlotte Whitton

“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

maya angelou
“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 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“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

“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

“When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win.”
– Steffi Graf

“You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame.”
– Erica Jong

“You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
– Byron Katie

“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.”
– Ruth Gordon

“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

“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

“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

“Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.”
– Rosalind Russell

“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

“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.” – Melinda Gates

“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

“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.”
– Melinda Gates

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t.”
– Rhonda Hansome

“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

“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.”
– Rosalynn Carter

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
– Simone de Beauvoir

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.' Anna Quindlen

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." 
—Louisa May Alcott

"Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."
—Susan B. Anthony

"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

"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, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876

"There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers." 
—Susan B. Anthony

"In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman." 
—Nancy Astor 
(British Politician)

"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women." 
—Elizabeth Blackwell 
(The first woman in the U.S. to become a physician)

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one "less traveled by"—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." 
— Rachel Carson

"The family unit plays a critical role in our society and in the training of the generation to come." 
—Sandra Day O'Connor

"We've chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around." 
—Geraldine Ferraro 
(The first woman to be nominated as Vice President of the United States)

"You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do." 
—Jane Fonda

  "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." 
— Margaret Fuller

  "My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong." 
—Mother Jones

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." 
—Janis Joplin

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." 
—Helen Keller

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place." 
—Margaret Mead

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead

"I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome." 
—Golda Meir

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade." 
— Constance Baker Motley
(First Black Woman in the U.S. to become a Federal Judge)

"I think the key is for women not to set any limits."
— Martina Navratilova

"People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me." 
—Princess Diana

"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." 
—Eleanor Roosevelt

"I think it's very important for everyone in America to realize right now the state of our country, not just on this issue but on a lot of issues, that it is time to get active again. People have just sat back and just sort of said, oh, let somebody else do it for a long time, and we're seeing what's happening to the country, even freedom of speech. It's not going well. So I think this is a real opportunity for people to see, yes, if you do get out and you do get active, there are other people there. You just have to seek them out."
—Mary Steenburgen

"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." 
—Gloria Steinem

"The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn." 
—Gloria Steinem

"I am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators—they fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals put an end to child labor and they gave us the five day work week! What's to be ashamed of?"
—Barbra Streisand

"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
(Nobel Prize-winning medical physicist)

"You can tell how high a society is by how much of its garbage is recycled." 
—Dhyani Ywahoo 
(Native American)

"It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower is to bloom." 
—Alice Walker

"I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances." 
—Martha Washington

"As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." 
—Virginia Woolf