Women have said and continue to say amazing brilliant things. I decided to compile some great quotes by strong women who have worked or continue to work to change the system. (Note: the highlighted ones are not any more or less important than the others, I highlighted them for some variance on the page). Enjoy.
“One is not born a woman, one becomes one.” –Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
“An actress can only play a woman. I’m an actor, I can play anything. –Whoopi Goldberg
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation.” –Susan B. Anthony, 1860.
“By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001)
“I’ve yet to be on a campus where most women weren’t worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I’ve yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing.” –Gloria Steinem
“To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.” –Angela Davis
“No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.” –Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947)
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.” -Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) Declaration of Sentiments, First Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York , July 19-20, 1848
“If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?” –Gloria Steinem
“Oppression does not make for hearts as big as all outdoors. Oppression makes us big and small. Expressive and silenced. Deep and dead.” -Cherrie Moraga
“I decided it is better to scream. . . . Silence is the real crime against humanity.” –Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980)
“You damn your own soul better than I ever could.” –Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” –Angela Davis
“Though we tremble before uncertain futures
may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength
may we dance in the face of our fears.” –Gloria Anzaldua
“Hope is a very unruly emotion.” –Gloria Steinem
“I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.” –Angela Davis
“A movement is only composed of people moving. To feel its warmth and motion around us is the end as well as the means.” –Gloria Steinem
“But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.” –Leslie Marmon Silko, from Ceremony
Translation: (Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.) –Gloria E. Anzaldua
“Do work that matters. Vale la pena” ― Gloria E. Anzaldua