88 Empowerment Quotes

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

My problem was that I felt ashamed of feeling sad or angry. Now, I don't hide my vulnerability in my lyrics. There's no way I was going to get raped and not get something out of it. I learned about power and hope and forgiveness. I like who I am now and I wouldn't be who I am if that hadn't happened.

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

We are no longer puppets being manipulated by outside powerful forces: we become the powerful force ourselves.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

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.

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.

And many of the people who buy or found banks have had no experience in banking at all. If they can learn it, so can we.

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.

The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.

We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.

I've continued to recognize the power individuals have to change virtually anything and everything in their lives in an instant. I've learned that the resources we need to turn our dreams into reality are within us, merely waiting for the day when we decide to wake up and claim our birthright.

And, because of the life that I shared with these two amazing women [her mother and maternal grandmother] and the hardships and struggles that I saw them overcome, I learned an invaluable lesson: and that is that women can do anything we set our minds to . . . and then some!

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.

Because these fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up.

The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.

Your liberators tell you that that your suppressors are Wilhelm, Nikolaus, Pope Gregory the Twenty Eighth, Morgan, Krupp or Ford. And your 'liberators' are called Mussolini, Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin. I tell you: 'Only you yourself can be your liberator!'

See the kind seed-receiving earth To every grain affords a birth: On her no showers unwelcome fall, Her willing womb retains 'em all, And shall my Caelia be confined? No, live up to thy mighty mind, And be the mistress of Mankind!

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind. Have no fear for atomic energy, cos none of them can stop the time.

Stand up for your rights.

Going to spring break at Ft. Lauderdale, getting drunk and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of a patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to know she is even in distress.

I give away something up to $500 million a year throughout the world promoting Open Society. My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It's their work that I'm supporting. So it's not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.

'Some Christians carry their religion on their backs. It is a packet of beliefs and practices which they must bear. At times it grows heavy and they would willingly lay it down, but that would mean a break with old traditions, so they shoulder it again. But real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight, it is wings. It lifts them up, it sees them over hard places. It makes the universe seem friendly, life purposeful, hope real, sacrifice worthwhile. It sets them free from fear, futility, discouragement, and sin---the great enslaver of men's souls. You can know a real Christian when you see him, by his bouyancy.'

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. [2]

If you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard for us to find messages of self-love and support anywhere.... If you don't have self-esteem, you will hesitate to do anything in your life.... You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

Harmony exists no less in difference than in likeness, if only the same key-note govern both parts. Woman the poem, man the poet; woman the heart, man the head; such divisions are only important when they are never to be transcended. If nature is never bound down, nor the voice of inspiration stifled, that is enough.

What I learned at a very early age was that I was responsible for my life. And as I became more spiritually conscious, I learned that we all are responsible for ourselves, that you create your own reality by the way you think and therefore act. You cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because you are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything.

To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that place. To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of things. To do these things is to make fairy tales come true.

I am a firm believer in women-in their ability to do things & in their influence & power. Women set the standards for the world, and it is for us, women of Canada, to set the standards high.

Chomsky's truly great contribution to the struggle for human freedom is that he has taken what we have been persuaded to believe is an insane idea, a product only of individual neurosis - the idea that society is not free and quite possibly not even sane - and shown it to be empirically, demonstrably true; he has provided the vital support for the individual to be able to declare him - and herself - sane against the insanity of society, despite a million voices declaring that it is the occasional doubter who is mad. --David Edwards, Burning All Illusions, 1996 [197]

She's -- her great strength, if anybody watches the show -- and I think everybody does in Iowa; it's the number one show in Iowa -- she's instructive. She's empowering. Every time you watch an Oprah broadcast, at the end of it, you know more than you started and you feel stronger. That's her strength.

I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Thrones, Through confession of the Oneness Towards the Creator.

We absolutely love women, we are passionate about what we do and we get great results. Women see that our rules are manageable and make a real difference. I don't think we are being bossy, no one is forced to follow the rules.

You have got to stop seeing yourself as a victim, take control and take responsibility.

Every one of you is the leader.

Taking responsibility gives me a sense of control.

'Ignorance has taken over, we gotta take the power back!'

Education is equipping our children to walk through doors of opportunity.

She almost reluctantly learns to admire her strength and convictions as another powerful, determined woman.

Inclusiveness is disguised by the ability to offer a sometimes disturbed community a vision of themselves and the means to achieve it together.

It (education) broadens our minds and creates opportunities, equipping us with the skills and the knowledge to participate in the world beyond the classroom.

I'm a Voodoo Child, Voodoo Child, Lord knows I am a Voodoo Child

Make the decision that you can be who you can be You can be Tasting the fruit come to the Liberty Tree

The true woman will not be exponent of another, or allow another to be such for her. She will be her own individual self... Stand or fall by her own individual wisdom and strength... She will proclaim the 'glad tidings of good news' to all women, that woman equally with man was made for her own individual happiness, to develop... every talent given to her by God, in the great work of life.

N.I.G.G.A stands for Never Ignorant about Getting Goals Accomplished or No Ignorance Got Goals Accomplished

'Use your voice.'

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

It is high time that the people are given back the flexibility and power to select and install their leaders who will be accountable to them if they are to prosper and forge ahead in the present modern and increasingly global context.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.

I think one of the great, great problems... is confusing people to the point where they become immobile. In fact, the more things people can find out for themselves, the more vigor the organization is going to have.

'Don't give up! I believe in you all. A person's a person, no matter how small! And you very small persons will not have to die If you make yourselves heard! So come on, now, and TRY!'

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go.

The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.

I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I lead you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has-or ever will have-something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

Don't terrorize. Organize. Don't burn. Give kids a chance to learn ... The real answer to race problems in this country is education. Not burning and killing. Be ready. Be qualified. Own something. Be somebody. That's Black Power.

The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life.

'You'll never be wanted,' [a draft board official] said, and thrust at me a smaller piece of paper. This described me as being incapable of being graded in grades A, B, etc., because I suffered from sexual perversion. When the story of my disgrace became one of the contemporary fables of Chelsea, a certain Miss Marshall said, 'I don't much care for the expression 'suffering from.' Shouldn't it be 'glorying in'?'

'To share responsibility with the people of the province should be, in my view, the proudest bequest of a chief to his people.'

When an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior. But the significance of the verb to be must be rightly understood here; it is in bad faith to give it a static value when it really has the dynamic Hegelian sense of 'to have become.' Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should that state of affairs continue? Many men hope that it will continue; not all have given up the battle.

Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it. Psychiatrists have told me that they give The Second Sex to their women patients to read, and not merely to intellectual women but to lower-middle-class women, to office workers and women working in factories. 'Your book was a great help to me. Your book saved me,' are the words I have read in letters from women of all ages and all walks of life. If my book has helped women, it is because it expressed them, and they in their turn gave it its truth. Thanks to them, it is no longer a matter for scandal and concern. During these last ten years the myths that men created have crumbled, and many women writers have gone beyond me and have been far more daring than I. Too many of them for my taste take sexuality as their only theme; but at least when they write about it they now present themselves as the eye-that-looks, as subject, consciousness, freedom.

The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to elevate this power is the only way to counteract this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of that power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity. Only it is clear we cannot call it giving freedom, when fetters are unloosed which are not felt as such by him who wears them. But of no man on earth-however neglected by nature, and however degraded by circumstances-is this true of all the bonds which oppress and enthral him. Let us undo them one by one, as the feeling of freedom awakens in men's hearts, and we shall hasten progress at every step. There may still be great difficulties in being able to recognize the symptoms of this awakening. But these do not lie in the theory so much as in its execution, which, it is evident, never admits of special rules, but in this case, as in every other, is the work of genius alone.

?Si se puede!