In need of some strong women quotes to add flame to your fire?
Whether you’re feeling down, need inspiration, or are just looking for some words of encouragement, perusing through some of these quotes from strong women are powerful vessels for inciting positive action.
Whenever you need a pick-me-up or are doubting your feminine power, check out this treasure trove of strong women quotes from trailblazing women throughout history, celebrities, actresses, musicians, and of course, women writers.
Here are the types of strong women quotes we include:
- What are strong women quotes?
- What makes a strong woman?
- Must-have Strong Women Quotes
- Powerful Women Quotes from History
- Strong Women Quotes from Celebs
- Powerful Women Quotes from Writers
- Strong Women Quotes from Artists
What are strong women quotes?
Strong women quotes are quotes from strong women, literally. They are basically words – whether said verbally, or through writing – that come directly from powerful women throughout history and in the modern day.
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While any powerful women quotes you come across are likely to be from famous historical figures, celebrities, authors, and the like, they don’t necessarily have to be well-known women.
There are everyday women who share their insights, wisdom, and experience with other women in everyday life – it’s just a matter of not being well-known to where their words affect the masses.
That isn’t to say these women don’t have words worthy of being in this post, but rather they are not known (yet).
What makes a strong woman?
When we think of strong women, examples, rather than a definition, comes to mind. We think of strong women, and we think of female historical figures, women artists and authors, activists, women authorities, and actresses and celebrities.
We also think of the women around us that we know on a personal basis – those that raised us like our mothers, grandmothers, or caretakers, those that taught us like our teachers and mentors, and those that we’ve come to lean on for support like our community of friends, sisters, and coworkers.
We often know a strong woman when we see them or learn about them, but coming up with a dictionary definition for them is a bit more complex than that.
[su_quote]In their essence, strong women are those that uplift others, that use their personal strengths for good, that are driven to accomplish their goals, that have experienced their fair share of pain and setbacks, but have not been broken by them.[/su_quote]
Strong women are those that possess the power of resilience, compassion, and ambition.
The definition of a strong, powerful woman is elusive, and complex, depending on who is answering the question, and who is asking. Your idea of a powerful woman can be significantly different from another person’s idea of a strong woman, and vice versa.
There really isn’t a right or wrong answer: A strong woman is a woman that you admire, and that inspires you.
Must-Have Strong Women Quotes
The strong women quotes featured in this ultimate list of quotables, and depending on your situation, not all of them may resonate with you.
In an effort to provide a “short list” of essential quotes that you should peruse through if you’re on the hunt for a strong woman quote, I’ve compiled this short list of 7.
I consider these every woman’s must-have quotes because they are generally inspiring to most women, no matter what situation, background, or context you’re in.
These top quotes are not just quotes about being a strong woman, but about resiliency, positive values, and just general do-good.
If you’re just looking for a handful of powerful women quotes, use the quick list below.
These are 7 powerful women quotes every woman should hear:
- “Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.” – Nora Ephron
- “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” – Malala Yousafzai
- “Step out the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” – Mother Teresa
- “Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” – Simone de Beauvoir
- “Everyone shines, given the right lighting.” – Susan Cain
- “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
- “You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” – Diane von Furstenberg
- “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” – Rose Parks
Strong women quotes from powerful women in history
In this collection, you’ll find strong women quotes from powerful historical women, from the past and present. These women include former first ladies, like Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama, as well as activists like Kanno Sugako, Dolores Huerta, and Harriet Tubman.
Here are our top picks for powerful women quotes from these ladies of history:
“Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.” – Michelle Obama
“Rather, ten times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.” – Florence Nightingale
“The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperative and her place in society.” – Sandra Day O’Connor
“You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing.”
Marie Stopes
“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.” – Amelia Earhart
“When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.” – Michelle Obama
“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.” – Elizabeth I
“Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.” – Hilary Clinton
“If I can create the minimum of my plans and desires, there shall be no regrets.” – Bessie Coleman
“Rise up, women! Wake up!” – Kanno Sugako
“Each person is born with very individual qualities and potential. We as a society owe it to women to create a truly supportive environment in which they too can grow and move forward.” – Princess Diana
“I can’t die but once.” – Harriet Tubman
“I always thought it was wrong for me to take credit for the work that I did. I don’t think that anymore.” – Dolores Huerta
“The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.” – Sandra Day O’Connor
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie
“I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.”
Catherine the Great
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank
“Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.” – Benazir Bhutto
“Strength relies on smarts, judgment, cool resolve, and the precise and strategic application of power.” – Hilary Clinton
“All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.” – Cleopatra
“We know that our life of freedom is stronger than terror.” – Angela Merkel
“Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind.” – Elizabeth I
“Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift – there is nothing small about it.” – Florence Nightingale
“I started really noticing, more and more, how men will plagiarize and take credit for women’s work… I’ve noticed that it just happens a lot.” – Dolores Huerta
“I have a theory that women are generally given space and appointed to jobs when the situation is tough.” – Christine Lagarde
“I don’t go by the rule book; I lead from the heart, not the head.” – Princess Diana
“Fool! Don’t you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you.” – Cleopatra
“The intellectual, the moral, the religious seem to me all naturally bound up and interlinked together in one great and harmonious whole.” – Ada Lovelace
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” – Mother Theresa
“I am not afraid… I was born to do this.” – Joan of Arc
“Finally I was able to see that if I had a contribution I wanted to make, I must do it, despite what others said. That I was OK the way I was. That it was all right to be strong.” – Wangari Maathai
“I learned that you can constantly improve, and that you should not be shy about your views, and about the direction that you believe is right.” – Christine Lagarde
“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” – Ruth Ginsburg
“We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.” – Queen Victoria
“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.” – Hypatia
“And as often as the bad news came, I thought it my duty to ride up to the hut and do my woman’s work. But I felt it deeply. How could it be otherwise?” – Mary Seacole
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living.” – Sacagawea
“It occurred to me that there have always been selkie women: women who did not seem to belong to this world, because they did not fit into prevailing notions of what women were supposed to be. And if you did not fit into those notions, in some sense you weren’t a woman. Weren’t even quite human. The magical animal woman is, or can be, a metaphor for those sorts of women.” – Theodora
“I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth now. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body, and my outraged daughters.” – Boudicca
“A gender line…helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.” – Ruth Ginsburg
“Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.” – Rosa Parks
“When women do better, economies do better.” – Christine Lagarde
Trust in God – she will provide.” – Emmeline Pankhurst
“Women, as the minority, have to prove their worth all the time. That’s the reason we tend to over-prepare, over-study, over anticipate. I think it’s the case with many women leaders. We tend to over do it.” – Christine Lagarde
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Trees are not known by their leaves, nor even by their blossoms, but by their fruits.” – Eleanor of Aquitaine
“In tough times, everyone has to take their share of the pain.” – Theresa May
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” – Marie Curie
“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” – Mother Teresa
“I have a relatively sunny spirit, and I always had the expectation that my path through life would be relatively sunny, no matter what happened. I have never allowed myself to be bitter.” – Angela Merkel
Strong women quotes from celebrities
Celeb women have a platform for sharing their voice with the masses, which is why it’s socially-responsible for many women in the spotlight to use their voice to influence positive social change.
Many of today’s celebrities in pop culture and music do use their voice to shed light on issues, especially when it comes to being a woman.
Here’s our top picks of strong women quotes from celebrities:
“The fact that I showed my naked body does not mean that I bared my soul.” – Madonna
“Think of all the girls who could become top athletes but quit sports because they’re afraid of having too many defined muscles and being made fun of or called unattractive.” – Serena Williams
“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”
Oprah
“I know my worth. I embrace my power. I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story. I will.” – Amy Schumer
“An empress does not concern herself with the antics of fools.” – Gabrielle Union
“I think happiness is what makes you pretty. Period. Happy people are beautiful. They become like a mirror and they reflect that happiness.” – Drew Barrymore
“If you got it, flaunt it. If you don’t got it, flaunt it.” – Mindy Kaling
“The truth is nobody knows what’s inside of you. Only you know what’s inside of you. Only you know what you can accomplish, and what you’re capable of. Whatever you feel in your heart and in your gut, you should follow that.” – Jennifer Lopez
“There are many shades on every journey. Nothing is black or white. I’ve been through hell and back, and I’m grateful for every scar.” – Beyonce
“The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself—something that’s in all of us.”
Tina Turner
“If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.” – Erma Bombeck
“You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.” – Josephine Baker
I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on.” – Josephine Baker
Strong women quotes from women writers
Literary women are notorious for sharing strong women quotes, likely because the main vessel for sharing their voice is through their words.
Some of these quotes are directly from the authors themselves, and others are said in the context of their characters.
Regardless, these quotes on strong, powerful women are inspiring, and beautifully written.
You’ll find that this list of women quotes is probably longer than the other categories, and that’s just because this is a site for bookish women after all.
Here are our top picks for powerful quotes by literary women:
“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” – Virginia Woolf
“It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust.” – Mary Wollstonecraft
“Only a woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer.” – Willa Cather
“Everything suggests a beyond.” – Isabella L. Bird
“Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?” – Virginia Woolf
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” – Charlotte Bronte
“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
– Virginia Woolf
“It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust.” – Mary Wollstonecraft
“The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.” – Sylvia Plath
“The beginning is always today.” – Mary Shelley
“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” – Virginia Woolf
“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
“Embrace the glorious mess that you are.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
“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
“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
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” – Anna Quindlen
“You should write about take no-shit women like me. Girls need to know they can break the rules.” – Gloria Steinem
“Energy rightly applied can accomplish anything.” Nellie Bly
“I can promise you that women working together – linked, informed and educated – can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.” – Isabel Allende
“Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.” – Alice Walker
“That women should work is necessary. That they should be treated with equality for their labor is just and right. There should be no difference in the recompense for work, whether done by a man or a woman, so long as it is done equally well.” – Nellie Bly
“Eternal truths are ultimately invisible, and you won’t find them in material things or natural phenomena, or even in human emotions.” – Yoko Ogawa
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” – Zora Neale Hurston
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” – Maya Angelou
“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.” – Mary Anne Evans
“We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.” – Margaret Atwood
“Honey, you’re not crazy. You’re a woman.” – Roxane Gay
“She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them.” – Geraldine Brooks
“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
Toni Morrison
“Women without love lose the light in their eyes, women without love die while they are still alive.” – Elena Ferrante
“My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free.” – Mary Shelley
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“The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.” – Jhumpa Lahiri
“The older I get, the more I’m conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn’t it?” – Sandra Cisneros
“If I bring forth what is inside me, what I bring forth will save me.” – NoViolet Bulawayo
“Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.” – Daphne Du Maurier
“It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.” – Flannery O’Connor
“I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.” – Gloria Steinem
Strong women quotes from women artists
Artists that are women are some of the most influential movers and shakers throughout history. With art, these powerful women have shaped their world, and the world around them, through their artistic lens.
Through art, powerful women are given a voice. Creativity, education, and impact are the major contributions that strong women artists have contributed to society throughout history.
Here are some of the strong women quotes from those that happened to be artists:
“My illustrious lordship, I’ll show you what a woman can do.” – Artemisia Gentileschi
“A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can’t stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement… Polka-dots are a way to infinity.” – Yayoi Kusama
“As long as I live I will have control over my being.” – Artemisia Gentileschi
“Women should be someone and not something.”
Mary Cassatt
“Men think that sentiment is not valid; women think that sentiment is important.” – Miriam Schapiro
“So women are at the beginning of building a language, and not all women are conscious of it.” – Judy Chicago
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“No other creative field is as closed to those who are not white and male as is the visual arts. After I decided to be an artist, the first thing that I had to believe was that I, a black woman, could penetrate the art scene, and that, further, I could do so without sacrificing one iota of my blackness or my femaleness or my humanity.” – Faith Ringgold
“I think a lot of making art is listening to yourself.” – Kiki Smith
“I have been carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette) I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). Through my earth/body sculptures I become one with the earth I become an extension of nature and nature becomes an extension of my body.” – Ana Mendieta
“I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.“ – Georgia O’Keeffe
“Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.” Frida Kahlo
Strong Women Quotes To Inspire You
If we could make a list of all the bold, powerful women in the history of the universe that have written or spoken quotable gold, we would.
Alas, there are too many inspiring women that have existed on this Earth – some known, many unknown – that we aren’t able to quote in this article on strong women quotes.
Although a small sample of the wisest words from women, we hope there were a few quotes that moved you.
We’ll continue updating this list with new quotes, so let us know which strong women quotes you live by.
