Empowerment Quotes

“When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins. At that moment, you will finally see the door of self acceptance opened.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
― Martha Graham

“If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.”
― Elizabeth I, Collected Works

“Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“How would your life be different if…You didn’t allow yourself to be defined by your past? Let today be the day…You stop letting your history interfere with your destiny and awaken to the opportunity to release your greatest self.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“The most important thing is this: to sacrifice what you are now for what you can become tomorrow.”
― Shannon Alder

“[M]en, though they know full well how much women are worth and how great the benefits we bring them, nonetheless seek to destroy us out of envy for our merits. It's just like the crow, when it produces white nestlings: it is so stricken by envy, knowing how black it is itself, that it kills its own offspring out of pique.”
― Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men

“There always comes a time in life where you can either give up or step up.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, The Crane War

“Celebrate who you are in your deepest heart. Love yourself and the world will love you.”
― Amy Leigh Mercree

“What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“You are not an option, a choice or a soft place to land after a long battle. You were meant to be the one. If you can wrap yourself around the idea that you are something incredible, then you will stop excusing behavior that rapes your very soul. You were never meant to teach someone to love you. You were meant to be loved.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Men were created before women. ... But that doesn't prove their superiority – rather, it proves ours, for they were born out of the lifeless earth in order that we could be born out of living flesh. And what's so important about this priority in creation, anyway? When we are building, we lay foundations on the ground first, things of no intrinsic merit or beauty, before subsequently raising up sumptuous buildings and ornate palaces. Lowly seeds are nourished in the earth, and then later the ravishing blooms appear; lovely roses blossom forth and scented narcissi.”
― Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men

“I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

“When you hear men talking," said Cornelia, "all they ever do is speak ill of women. ... And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame?”
― Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men

“Affirmations are our mental vitamins, providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.”
― Tia Walker, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

“The only thing that stands between a person and what they want in life is the will to try it and the faith to believe it is possible.”
― Rich DeVos

“Stop in somebody's shadow to rest and cool down, and you are lost. No one can make anyone else happy.”
― Peter Deunov

“The world seems full of men who are initially infatuated by our eccentricities, but who ultimately expect them to be temporary.”
― Christina Lauren, Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

“We grow up with such an idealistic view on how our life should be; love, friendships, a career or even the place we will live ~ only to age and realise none of it is what you expected & reality is a little disheartening, when you've reached that realisation; you have learnt the gift of all, any new beginning can start now and if you want anything bad enough you'll find the courage to pursue it with all you have. The past doesn't have to be the future, stop making it so.”
― Nikki Rowe

“I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- they only. Know this at last.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“It hurts to let go, to say goodbye for the final time and remain distant in your closure, it may even tear your heart out to the point of insanity; but somehow in it all you find the pieces of your worth and you start creating yourself again, and in that journey of transformation you find the essence of what truly matters, inner happiness. It's life, we all fall at some stage but it's up to you, to decide how long you want to stay there.”
― Nikki Rowe

“You do not win by struggling to the top of a caste system, you win by refusing to be trapped within one at all.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“I am a woman and a warrior. If you think I can't be both, you've been lied to.”
― Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, The Map of Salt and Stars

“Let there be room left in your heart for the unimaginable ~ serendipity has a way of showing itself just when you feel like giving up.”
― Nikki Rowe

“Remember that self-doubt is as self-centered as self-inflation. Your obligation is to reach as deeply as you can and offer your unique and authentic gifts as bravely and beautifully as you're able.”
― Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World

“Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it's time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.”
― Bill Moyers

“What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Passion can transform the mind, body and spirit...
Passion can align you with the wisdom of nature and the power of what is in your heart.”
― Jo Lynne Valerie

“The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues.”
― Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies

“What I condemn are our system of values and the men who don't acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women's share in society is.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl