We handpicked 179 women empowerment quotes for inspiration and motivation. Most of the personalities quoted on this page are well-known successful women around the world with empowering and powerful stories.
Women Empowerment Quotes
“A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman.”
Melinda Gates, American Philanthropist, Melinda Gates Foundation
“I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.”
Estée Lauder
“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.”
Roseanne Barr
“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”
Oprah Winfrey
Strong Women Quotes
“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer.”
Rihanna
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.”
Michelle Obama
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.”
Amelia Earheart
“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”
Amelia Earheart
“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”
Margaret Thatcher
Quotes About Powerful Women
“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
“Feminism isn’t about making women strong. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.”
G.D. Anderson
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
Nora Ephron
“You can’t please everyone, and you can’t make everyone like you.”
Katie Couric
“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
Ayn Rand
“I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.”
Madonna
“To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful, and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”
Hillary Clinton
Morning Dose of Wise Words
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
Gloria Steinem
“I am a woman. Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman. That’s me.”
Maya Angelou
“So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“Tears mess up your makeup.”
Julia Child
“If you want to be a true professional, do something outside yourself.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Female Empowerment Quotes
“Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”
Julia Child
“When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man; when a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch.”
Bette Davis
“You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be 100% committed.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
“We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.”
Beyoncé
“We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.”
Sheryl Sandberg
“I am a woman with thoughts and questions and shit to say. I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story—I will.”
Amy Schumer
Quotes to Read on International Women’s Day
“No woman should be told she can’t make decisions about her own body. When women’s rights are under attack, we fight back.”
Kamala Harris
“Women have discovered that they cannot rely on men’s chivalry to give them justice.”
Helen Keller
“Women’s freedom is the sign of social freedom.”
Rosa Luxemberg
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”
Helen Keller
“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
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
Audre Lodre
“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
Audre Lorde
“So please ask yourself: What would I do if I weren’t afraid? And then go do it.”
Sheryl Sandberg
“Women need to shift from thinking “I’m not ready to do that” to thinking “I want to do that- and I’ll learn by doing it.”
Sheryl Sandberg
Quotes to Read When You Need Motivation
“I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls.”
Malala Yousafzai
“No one ever became a success without taking chances… One must be able to recognize the moment and seize it without delay.”
Estée Lauder
“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”
Irina Dunn
“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”
Malala Yousafzai
“Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with.”
Emma Watson
“Girls should never be afraid to be smart.”
Emma Watson
“If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative.”
Betty Eadie
Quotes About Women’s Empowerment
“If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”
Erica Jung
“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens”
Michelle Obama
“In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths.”
Betty Eadie
“I am not ashamed to dress ‘like a woman’ because I don’t think it’s shameful to be a woman.”
Iggy Pop
“Women don’t need to find a voice, they have a voice, and they need to feel empowered to use it, and people need to be encouraged to listen.”
Meghan Markle
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”
Maya Angelou
“Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.”
Judy Garland
Women Empowerment Quotes for Spark of Creativity
“A huge part of being a feminist is giving other women the freedom to make choices you might not necessarily make yourself.”
Lena Dunham
“Women have always been the strong ones of the world.”
Coco Chanel
“Every woman’s success should be an inspiration to another. We’re strongest when we cheer each other on.”
Serena Williams
“Focus on your skills, whether it’s working in a kitchen, working on a trading floor, running a household. You can go do anything.”
Stacey Cunnigham
“The biggest barrier for women is the thought that they can’t have it all.”
Cathy Engelbert
“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.”
Ruth Gordo
Quotes About Equal Rights
“It’s not about how many times you get rejected or fall down or are beaten up, it’s about how many times you stand up and are brave and you keep on going.”
Lady Gaga
“Power is not given to you. You have to take it.”
Beyoncé
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.”
Helen Keller
“Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyone’s responsibility.”
Ban Ki-Moon
“We’ve heard a lot about the Internet of Things – I think we need an Internet of Women.”
Christine Lagarde
“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”
Mary Shelley
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
Maya Angelou
“The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.”
Iyanla Vanzant
Best Quotes About Women’s Empowerment
“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”
Hillary Clinton
“One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.”
Michelle Obama
“Women are always saying,’We can do anything that men can do’ but men should be saying,’We can do anything that women can do.”
Gloria Steinem
“Freedom is to live with dignity.”
Manal-Al-Sharif
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
Oprah Winfrey
“There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.”
NK. Jemisin
“You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”
Shonda Rhimes
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
Alice Walker
“Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you.”
Viola Davis
Inspirational Quotes for Women
“We need to live in a culture that values and respects and looks up to and idolizes women as much as men.”
Emma Watson
“I hate to hear you talk about women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm water all our lives.”
Jane Austen
“A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.”
Diane Mariechild
“Women have to harness their power – it’s absolutely true. It’s just learning not to take the first ‘no’. And if you can’t go straight ahead, you go around the corner.”
Cher
“If women understood and exercised their power they could remake the world.”
Emily Taft Douglas
“There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.”
Kofi Annan
“Women are the real architects of society.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Don’t just stand for the success of other women – insist on it.”
Gail Blanke
“Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to be themselves.”
Betty Friedan
Inspiring Women Empowerment Quotes
“Women are not the problem. They’re the solution.”
Sheryl Wudunn
“Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version.”
Carolyn See
“A really strong woman accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars.”
Carly Simon
“A strong woman is a woman determined to do something that others are determined not to be done.”
Marge Piercy
“There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.”
Hannah Gadsby
“Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Malala Yousafzai
“I am a woman / Phenomenally / Phenomenal woman / That’s me.”
Maya Angelou
“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.”
Maya Angelou
“You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.'”
Erin McKean
“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. … It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“I always wanted to be a femme fatale. Even when I was a young girl, I never really wanted to be a girl. I wanted to be a woman.”
Diane von Furstenberg
Women’s Empowerment Quotes
“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.”
Michelle Obama
“Feminism is for everybody.”
Bell Hooks
“When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit. So let’s keep going—let’s keep going until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves to have.”
Hillary Clinton
“The more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.”
Emma Watson
“Women are leaders everywhere you look—from the CEO who runs a Fortune 500 company to the housewife who raises her children and heads her household. Our country was built by strong women, and we will continue to break down walls and defy stereotypes.”
Nancy Pelosi
“Whether I am meant to or not, I challenge assumptions about women. I do make some people uncomfortable, which I’m well aware of, but that’s just part of coming to grips with what I believe is still one of the most important pieces of unfinished business in human history—empowering women to be able to stand up for themselves.”
Hillary Clinton
“Words have power. TV has power. My pen has power.”
Shonda Rhimes
“You could make a case that, along with the technological revolution, the most provocative upending destabilizing thrilling change in the course of human history is that we’re finally in it. … We’re here now, women are in the world, and we will not be bullied.”
Meryl Streep
“Women must learn to play the game as men do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual and serious—or whatever we please. We are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.
Naomi Wolf
“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”
Sheryl Sandberg
“I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Justice is about making sure that being polite is not the same thing as being quiet. In fact, often times, the most righteous thing you can do is shake the table.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
“Women’s speech—and the fact that we are now listening to it—has enraged men in a way that makes them determined to reëstablish the longstanding hierarchy of power in America. … And yet this awful truth will not stop women from speaking, and I do not think that it will turn a movement into a moment. It has become clear that there is not nearly enough left to lose.”
Jia Tolentino
“Maybe it just boils down to: I’m a woman who’s really into her career, so I’m obsessed with the craft of my work. … There’s a romance in that for me.”
Mitski
“They cannot stand that a refugee, a black woman, an immigrant, a Muslim, shows up in Congress thinking she’s equal to them. But I say to them, ‘How else did you expect me to show up?'”
Ilhan Omar
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Toni Morrison
“In my opinion, the most exciting potential of women of color formations resides in the possibility of politicizing this identity—basing the identity on politics rather than the politics on identity.”
Angela Davis
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
Arundhati Roy
“I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawingroom, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes.”
Edith Wharton
“I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.”
Jane Austen
“‘It is impossible for you to do it,’ was the terrible verdict. ‘In the first place you are a woman and would need a protector, and even if it were possible for you to travel alone you would need to carry so much baggage that it would detain you in making rapid changes. Besides you speak nothing but English, so there is no use talking about it; no one but a man can do this.’ “‘Very well,’ I said angrily, ‘Start the man, and I’ll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him.'”
Nellie Bly
“Around the world there are countless examples of women rising, taking leadership, taking their destiny into their own hands, inspiring all of us. But women and girls are still the majority of the victims of war. They are over half of all refugees, and the vast majority of the victims of rape and other sexual and gender-based violence.”
Angelina Jolie
“Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe you must become its soul.”
Coretta Scott King
“More and more women are realizing that only collective strength and action will allow us to be free to fight for the kind of society that meets basic human needs.”
Roxanne Dunbar
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?”
Sojourner Truth
“By propagating women’s nature as non-violent they are discouraging women from becoming fighters in the struggle for their own liberation and that of society.”
Anuradha Ghandy
“Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women’s liberation … none was more alarming than the suggestion that women would eventually become just like men.”
Barbara Ehrenreich
“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”
Audre Lorde
“Black women have had to develop a larger vision of our society than perhaps any other group. They have had to understand white men, white women, and black men. And they have had to understand themselves. When black women win victories, it is a boost for virtually every segment of society.”
Angela Davis
“When a woman is assaulted, one of the first questions people ask is, Did you say no? This question assumes that the answer was always yes, and that it is her job to revoke the agreement. To defuse the bomb she was given. But why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?”
Chanel Miller
“A revolutionary woman can’t have no reactionary man.”
Assata Shakur
“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
“There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
Virginia Woolf
“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”
Coco Chanel
“Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.”
Arianna Huffington
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
Coco Chanel
“I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.”
Marissa Mayer
“If you’re one of those people who has that little voice in the back of her mind saying, ‘Maybe I could do [fill in the blank],’ don’t tell it to be quiet. Give it a little room to grow, and try to find an environment it can grow in.”
Reese Witherspoon
“Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.”
Mae West
“I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights.”
Oprah Winfrey
“Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn’t mean it does not exist.”
Margaret Cho
“If you want to run for Prime Minister, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don’t shave them, wear flats one day, heels the next. These things are so irrelevant and surface to what it is all really about, and I wish people wouldn’t get caught up in that. We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop. Women should feel free.”
Emma Watson
“I found that ultimately if you truly pour your heart into what you believe in — even if it makes you vulnerable — amazing things can and will happen.”
Emma Watson
“In life there is no real safety except for self-belief.”
Madonna
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!”
Dolly Parton
“Women have to harness their power—it’s absolutely true. It’s just learning not to take the first no. And if you can’t go straight ahead, you go around the corner.”
Cher
“Never be ashamed of what you feel. You have the right to feel any emotion that you want, and to do what makes you happy. That’s my life motto.”
Demi Lovato
“As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other’s worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by.”
Madonna
“I’m learning how to drown out the constant noise that is such an inseparable part of my life. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I only have to follow my heart and concentrate on what I want to say to the world. I run my world.”
Beyoncé
“To all the little girls who are watching, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”
Hillary Clinton
“With each generation, women’s ability to live the lives they choose reaches a place their grandmothers never thought possible. But that doesn’t mean everything is perfect or that our work is finished.”
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
“I think that passion is the secret ingredient that drives hard work and excellence.”
Kelly Ayotte
“Success, they taught me, is built on the foundation of courage, hard-work and individual responsibility. Despite what some would have us believe, success is not built on resentment and fears.”
Susana Martinez
“You could certainly say that I’ve never underestimated myself. There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious.”
Angela Merkel
“Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume. When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying. And that can make a world of difference.”
Nikki Haley
“There is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
Jane Austen
“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
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
Maya Angelou
“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.”
J.K. Rowling
“Like art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before.”
Gloria Steinem
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
Jane Goodall
“Sí se puede!” (“Yes we can!”)
Dolores Huerta
“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave – to embrace the strength within themselves and realize their full potential. ”
Malala Yousafzai
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”
Gloria Steinem
“If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.”
Princess Diana
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Mary Anne Radmacher
“Women, we endure those cuts in so many ways that we don’t even notice we’re cut. We are living with small tiny cuts, and we are bleeding every single day. And we’re still getting up.”
Michelle Obama
“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
Jane Austen
“Figure out who you are separate from your family, and the man or woman you’re in a relationship with. Find who you are in this world and what you need to feel good alone. I think that’s the most important thing in life. Find a sense of self because with that, you can do anything else.”
Angelina Jolie
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations can never effect a reform.”
Susan B. Anthony
“No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed.”
Billie Jean King
“From the time I was a child, I tried to protest against disrespectful treatment.”
Rosa Parks
“That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me.”
Amy Poehler, Yes Please
“You’re stronger, and you’re better, and you’re ready for whatever.”
Alicia Keys
“I believe it’s time that women truly owned their superpowers and used their beauty and strength to change the world around them. Becoming a CoverGirl is truly and honor and a gift: it opens up a new platform for me to inspire women to feel stronger, braver and more beautiful inside and out.”
Janelle Monáe
“There are lots of opportunities out there for women to work in these fields. Girls just need support, encouragement, and mentoring to follow through with the sciences.”
Sally Ride
I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody’s passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn’t mind leading.”
Amy Poehler
Do you know more women empowerment quotes? Share with us!