This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at PSU chapter.
In honor of this week being International Women’s Week, we’ve decided it’s important to remind women just how powerful they and their words are. Here are some inspiring quotes from inspiring women to empower and motivate you this week.
1. “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
2. “As a woman, I know you’re young, but you gotta hear it now: the most valuable part about you is your brain. Get an education; don’t let anybody tell you that your body or the size that you wear or any of that BS matters, because it doesn’t. Your brain matters, so be the smart girl in the room. Because, to be funny, you have to be smart, because you have to get the joke.” – Sophia Bush
3. “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.” – Emma Watson
4. “Don’t make my story, and who I am, be my dress, while my male co-star’s story is how he picks scripts and gets inspired. Why not ask me that, too? Ask me work questions, too! Ask me about my life!” – Rowan Blanchard
5. “Get an education. The one thing that nobody can take away from you is your education. I’m here, I’m present, I’m a contributor to society, I deserve to be part of this conversation, I have an opinion, listen to me roar.” — Gina Rodriguez
6. “It can be really discouraging to see how far we still have to go and how much work still needs to be done before we can create a world where we’re all judged by how we are and not how we look, but I’m strengthened every day because I’m still here, I’m surviving, and I’m using my voice.” – Amandla Stenberg
7. Some people only ask others to do something. I believe that, why should I wait for someone else? Why don’t I take a step and move forward? – Malala Yousafzai
8. “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde
9. “And to all of 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
10. “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.” – Gloria Steinem
11. “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” – Rebecca West
12. “We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half.” – Emmeline Pankhurst
13. “I’ve never met a woman who is not strong, but sometimes they don’t let it out. Then there’s a tragedy, and then all of a sudden that strength comes. My message is let the strength come out before the tragedy.” – Diane von Furstenburg
14. “I believe that the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are, truly being who you are. And I’ve spent far too long apologizing for that—my age, my color, my lack of classical beauty—that now at the age of, well, at the age of 46, I’m very proud to be Viola Davis, for whatever it’s worth.” – Viola Davis
15. “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
16. “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made… It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” —Ruth Bader Ginsburg
17. “Women will be hidden no more. We will not remain hidden figures. We have names…It was woman that gave you Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was woman that gave you Malcolm X. And according to the Bible, it was a woman that gave you Jesus. Don’t you ever forget it.” —Janelle Monáe
Keep inspiring, collegiettes. Your voices are irreplaceable!