Inspirational Women Quotes

by Steve M Nash
(W Yorkshire, England)

Paula Renaye wonders...

"Just because we don't like the truth doesn't mean we don't need to hear it."

More Empowering Quotes by Women...

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
-- Janis Joplin

"The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it."
-- Roseanne Barr

"The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
-- Anais Nin

"The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process."
-- Barbara Colorose

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
-- Helen Keller

"We are like tea bags - we don't know our own strength until we're in hot water."
-- Sister Busche

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."
-- Alice Walker

"Anything you want to ask a teacher, ask yourself, and wait for the answer in silence."
-- Byron Katie

"Sometimes questions are more important than answers."
-- Nancy Willard

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
-- Maya Angelou

"I earn and pay my own way as a great many women do today. Why should unmarried women be discriminated against - unmarried men are not."
-- Dinah Shore

"I think the key is for women not to set any limits."
-- Martina Navratilova

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."
-- Erica Jong

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.."
-- Marianne Williamson

"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."
-- Dolly Parton

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."
-- Mother Teresa

What I Wonder...

Listen to my thoughts about Paula Renaye's quote in the video below...




(NOTE: Yes, *I* wrote any captions you see in this video. It's called self-deprecation, and it's mostly a healthy thing (I think!).)


Hmm, well as I say in this video, getting feedback - actively seeking it out, good or bad - is where I am in life, right now. Mainly because I've strived to avoid what felt to me like an unrelenting stream of criticism (and ridicule) since early adolescence.

So much so, that I now have an unhealthy relationship with criticism, or feedback.

Now nobody likes to be criticised - no-one! (And if you are okay with it, then I congratulate you - IF you are being honest! Maybe nobody criticises you because they don't dare. Which means, alas, that you don't like being criticised and thus control those around you so that they don't do it. I digress...)

So, very few of us likes being criticised. And, frankly, it's not a surprise because very few of us are good at giving constructive criticism.

Still, feedback is feedback.

And if some of the feedback you get 'really stings' to the point of anger then chances are the person may well have a point. (Or maybe you're just tired of a certain person cricising you all the time. It's also possible.)

This is what I feel Paula Renaye is talking about, anyway - feedback is good for you. (This is Paula's excellent (and NEW in 2011) The Hardline Self Help Handbook: What Are You Willing to Do to Get What You Really Want?, by the way!)

And so whilst I still struggle to hear criticism, especially from certain sources that I perceive to ONLY criticise never praise, I AM determined to open myself up to feedback.

I want to get as much feedback as possible these days, listen to it, feel it, and then determine whether or not I need do anything about it.

(And, hey, sometimes we can be criticised for times when we have an 'off' day. These things happen. All part and parcel of being an imperfect human being!)

So those are my thoughts about Paula Renaye's inspirational quote. Now onto why there are so few inspirational quotes by women...


On the subject of why there are so few inspirational women quotes (inspirational quotations by women), I'm really not so sure why this is the case.

Are more writers / inventors / scientists / business types etc. male than female?

Are societies geared up to listen more to male voices rather than female voices?

Does it matter, that there are fewer quotes by women than men, anyway?

(Do women need to be inspired by women, men by men, etc?)

As I said, I'm not sure why it's the case that there are fewer inspirational quotes by women but it is the case, nevertheless.

Anyway, I can point you in the direction of Sapphyr.net which has an excellent collection of empowering quotes by women, that all aim to do the following:

"...provide a more powerful view of women and their role in life, to motivate women to step out of limiting self-beliefs that keep them stuck in roles of lack of power, submissiveness, victimhood, abuse and lack of self worth."

For my mind, I do think it's a 'shame' that the English language seems designed to talk about 'he' and 'him' rather than 'she' and 'her' (man versus woman) - as you can see in one of Eleanor Roosevelt's inspirational quotes above.

But, maybe as Byron Katie would be bound to comment, all is as it should be...

How about you? Why do you think there are so few inspirational quotes written by women?

And should these inspirational women quotes focus on the life of woman, or the life of people in general (often described, collectively, as the life of 'man')?

Or, is there a place for gender-specific (race-specific?...) quotations, as long as the words inspire?

I'd love to know your thoughts on this, I really would...

What YOU wonder?...

Yes, I'd love to know your thoughts on any of these inspirational women quotes, especially the quotation by Paula Renaye... You can leave comments below! :-)

Thanks for reading,
Steve

Please comment, please have your say - thank you!