Powerful Woman Quotes

I do not want to know things, I want to understand things. I want to answer every question ever posed me. I want to leave no room for anyone to doubt me. ~ Mackenzi Lee

A man who finds his masculinity threatened by a powerful woman is no man at all," he says. "You want someone who lifts you up, not tries to bring you down. ~ Tricia Levenseller

A capable, clear-eyed sovereign, she knew how to build a fleet, suppress an insurrection, control a currency, alleviate a famine. An eminent Roman general vouched for her grasp of military affairs. Even at a time when women rulers were no rarity she stood out, the sole female of the ancient world to rule alone and to play a role in Western affairs. She was incomparably richer than anyone else in the Mediterranean. And she enjoyed greater prestige than any other woman of her age ... Cleopatra descended from a long line of murderers and faithfully upheld the family tradition but was, for her time and place, remarkably well behaved. She nonetheless survives as a wanton temptress, not the last time a genuinely powerful woman has been transmuted into a shamelessly seductive one. ~ Stacy Schiff

I've felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother, who always felt like an outsider in my father's family. She was a powerful woman, and she motivated my father. ~ Anthony Hopkins

I must court her now,' said the Prince. 'Leave us alone for a minute.' He rode the white expertly down the hill.
Buttercup had never seen such a giant beast. Or such a rider.
'I am your Prince and you will marry me,' Humperdinck said.
Buttercup whispered, 'I am your servant and I refuse.'
'I am your Prince and you cannot refuse.'
'I am your loyal servant and I just did.'
'Refusal means death.'
'Kill me then.'
'I am your Prince and I'm not that bad - how could you rather be dead than married to me?'
'Because,' Buttercup said, 'marriage involves love, and that is not a pastime at which I excel. I tried once, and it went badly, and I am sworn never to love another.'
'Love?' said Prince Humperdinck. 'Who mentioned love? Not me, I can tell you. Look: there must always be a male heir to the throne of Florin. That's me. Once my father dies, there won't be an heir, just a king. That's me again. When that happens, I'll marry and have children until there is a son. So you can either marry me and be the richest and most powerful woman in a thousand miles and give turkeys away at Christmas and provide me a son, or you can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Make up your own mind.'
'I'll never love you.'
'I wouldn't want it if I had it.'
'Then by all means let us marry. ~ William Goldman

A woman of peace knows which battles to fight and which ones to leave. Her intent is not to fight people, but to live a peaceful life. ~ Gift Gugu Mona

Sisterhood is powerful. Woman can support each other as women, in their pursuit for enlightenment or anything else, without fear. But as long as she's still in the commodities exchange market, buying and selling, she must fear the competition. ~ Frederick Lenz

I love the powerful woman who's complicated. There's no push to be one thing or another thing. It's all human. That's what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible. ~ Aja Naomi King

But here is a sad truth: Our world is full of men and women who do not like powerful women. We have been so conditioned to think of power as male that a powerful woman is an aberration. And so she is policed. We ask of powerful women: Is she humble? Does she smile? Is she grateful enough? Does she have a domestic side? Questions we do not ask of powerful men, which shows that our discomfort is not with power itself, but with women. We judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Whenever I felt like that, I would have a chat with my own Fat Mary. She was like the sweet fresh air after the rain. She brought me newness, clarity, and relief. She managed to get in touch with and resurrect the free spirit deep inside me. Being one with the spirit allowed me to soar above my everyday reality. I marveled at the beauty of all life and savored the power and possibilities of my imagination. ~ Maria Nhambu

I am a strong and powerful woman.
I am proud to be a woman and I celebrate the qualities that I have as a woman.
I am not defined by other people's opinion of who I should be or what I should do as a woman. I determine that, not anyone else.
I am not passed up for a position, title, or promotion because I am a woman.
I fully deserve all the good things that comes my way.
Irrespective of what anyone might think, being a woman places no boundaries or limits on my abilities.
I can do anything I set my mind to.
I celebrate my womanhood and I am beautiful both inside and out. ~ Idowu Koyenikan

It's hard being such a powerful woman in the business. I'm known for not always being warm and fuzzy, because you'll just get bulldozed over. ~ Christina Aguilera

Former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is promoting her new book and she's going to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Sarah and Oprah. On the one hand, a very powerful woman qualified to be President of the United States, and on the other hand, you have Sarah ... But if you think about it, Sarah Palin and Oprah Winfrey have a lot in common. They both helped get Obama elected. ~ David Letterman

Women Rule," that's the way I see it. "Beside every great man there is a powerful woman. The same does not hold true for every successful woman. A lot of us are single because men want to wear the pants, even if they didn't buy them. ~ Mary B. Morrison

The Whiteman told of another country beyond the sea where a powerful woman sat on a throne while men and women danced under the shadow of her authority and benevolence. She was ready to spread the shadow to cover the Agikuyu. They laughed at this eccentric man whose skin had been so scalded that the black outside had peeled off. The hot water must have gone into his head.

Nevertheless, his words about a woman on the throne echoed something in the heart, deep down in their history. It was many, many years ago. Then women ruled the land of the Agikuyu. Men had no property, they were only there to serve the whims and needs of the women. Those were hard years. So they waited for women to go to war, they plotted a revolt, taking an oath of secrecy to keep them bound each to each in the common pursuit of freedom. They would sleep with all the women at once, for didn't they know the heroines would return hungry for love and relaxation? Fate did the rest; women were pregnant; the takeover met with little resistance. ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

It's not the size of the girl in the fight that counts... it's the size of the fight in the girl! -MISS MARVEL ~ G. Willow Wilson

Being a powerful woman who also exhibits great warmth is an incredible feat because people think that to be powerful you have to be cold, and you don't. ~ Taylor Swift

I wanted to feel like I could extend someone else's joy and not crush it, and that is the giant paradox nowadays of being a powerful woman: you want to live in a space of compassion and helpfulness and joy and expression, and the world is standing there, pointing the finger at you and telling you that you're greedy and domineering and attention-grabbing, and all you can do is shrug and just say, "Hopefully, someone out there understands and isn't misinterpreting." ~ Amanda Palmer

Usually the male control and domination that tends to be in our genes gets around a powerful woman who has the ability to make choices different from guys, it throws you off and you get frustrated. ~ Lance Henriksen

Madonna is my role model shes such a powerful woman. I love Gwenyth Paltrow, shes an actress I aspire to be like. And, of course, my mom. She drove me from New Jersey to New York every day for commercials so I could get where I am today. ~ Kirsten Dunst

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ~ Margaret Atwood

Anna Wintour is the most powerful woman in the global fashion industry, the first lady of fashion. She's a politician; I'm a stylist. They are two very different jobs. ~ Carine Roitfeld

A powerful woman chooses to stand up, even when people may have chosen to bring her down. ~ Gift Gugu Mona

Egypt is in the second day of angry street protests. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for calm. Because nothing calms an enraged Arab country like a powerful woman ordering it around. ~ Conan O'Brien

The fact that this was a fairly accurate portrait of my own mother is a quick indicator of how difficult it once was for me to tell the difference between myself and the powerful woman who had raised me. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

B*tch: a reflection of people's lack of creativity & inability to acknowledge & embrace a powerful woman; a woman who won't comply. ~ Kelly Cutrone

Usually, when we think of power, we think of external power. And we think of powerful people as those who have made it in the world. A powerful woman isn't necessarily someone who has money, but we think of her as someone with a boldness or a spark that makes her manifest in a dramatic way. When we think of a powerful man, we think of his ability to manifest abundance, usually money, in the world.
Most people say that a powerful woman does best with a powerful man, that she needs someone who understands the bigness of her situation, a man who can meet her at the same or even greater level of power in the world.
Now this is true, if power is defined as material abundance. A woman often faces cultural prejudice when she makes more money than a man, as does he. A woman who defines power by worldly standards can rarely feel totally relaxed in the arms of a man who doesn't have it.
If power is seen as an internal matter, then the situation changes drastically. Internal power has less to do with money and worldly position, and more to do than with emotional expansiveness, spirituality and conscious living…
I used to think I needed a powerful man, someone who could protect me from the harshness and evils of the world. What I have come to realize is that…the powerful man I was looking for would be foremost, someone who supported me in keeping myself on track spiritually, and in so maintaining clarity within myself, that life would present fewer problems. When it ~ Marianne Williamson

It's difficult to exist as a woman, especially I think as a powerful woman. You want to stand strong and you want to be considered and equal. ~ Misty Copeland

Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind. ~ Barbara Taylor Bradford

Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I've been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an "angry black woman." I've wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most - is it "angry" or "black" or "woman"? ~ Michelle Obama

A powerful woman is someone who exudes confidence and can be tough but fair and kind. And also knows how to get what she wants. ~ Jennifer Lawrence

Every time we cheer the downfall of a powerful woman, we're giving ourselves the message that power is bad and we shouldn't desire it. Every time we revel in a beautiful woman's aging or weight gain, we reinforce the idea that we, too, are less valuable if we are old or overweight. Every time we gloat over a woman's loss of a husband to a younger, prettier rival, we are reminding ourselves that our own relationship is unstable, that someday our man, too, will move on to greener pastures. ~ Susan Shapiro Barash

You may not see bravery written on her face, but through her life, you can notice bravery. She conquers big battles. A warrior in her own unique way. She is none either than a woman of virtue. ~ Gift Gugu Mona

In my videos, I always want to be a powerful woman. That's my mission. ~ Beyonce Knowles

This past Halloween girls across the country dressed up as Ronda Rousey. That's because she's an amazing, beautiful, and powerful woman. ~ Ronda Rousey

I was born a strong, powerful woman, but was raised to be a victim. ~ Sharon Law Tucker

Once you get past the scales and the blindfold, Justice is a woman with a sword. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

God who doesn't know what is going to happen to him with language. And with names. In short, God doesn't yet know what he really wants: this is the finitude of a God who doesn't know what he wants with respect to the animal, that is to say, with respect to the life of the living as such, a God who sees something coming without seeing it coming, a God who will say "I am that I am" without knowing what he is going to see when a poet enters the scene to give his name to living things. This powerful yet deprived "in order to see" that is God's, the first stroke of time, before time, God's exposure to surprise, to the event of what is going to occur between man and animal, this time before time has always made me dizzy. ~ David Wills

There is no force in high school more powerful than one person's blunt disagreement. ~ Francesca Zappia

Woman cannot survive on droplets, she requires waves to regularly crash over her shores as the moon gives way to the sun... ~ Virginia Alison

Religion makes them crazy. Not a woman I ever met wasn't crazy with religion. ~ Orson Scott Card

For the first time in her life, Alba wanted to be beautiful. She regretted that the splendid women in her family had not bequeathed their attributes to her, that the only one who had, Rosa the Beautiful, had given her only the algae tones in her hair, which seemed more like a hairdresser's mistake then anything else. Miguel understood the source of her anxiety. He led her by the hand to the huge Venetian mirror that adorned one wall of their secret room, shook the dust from the cracked glass, and lit all the candles they had and arranged them around her. She stared at herself in the thousand pieces of the mirror. In the candlelight her skin was the unreal color of wax statues. Miguel began to caress her and she saw her face transformed in the kaleidoscope of the mirror, and she finally believed that she was the most beautiful woman in the universe because she was able to see herself with Miguel's eyes. ~ Isabel Allende

I don't really want to say need because to me
an aggressive, liberated woman
need sounds too pathetic. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe need and want sometimes go together. Maybe I do need and want a man. ************************************************************************************************************************************* ~ Phyllis Hyman

We had some really powerful technology - Atari always was a technology-driven company, and we were very keen on keeping the technological edge on everything. There's a whole bunch of things that we innovated. We made the first computer that did stamps or sprites, we did screen-mapping for the very first time, and a lot of stuff like that. ~ Nolan Bushnell

In Poland, some people think that I'm kind of scandalous because I'm a woman who should stay at home with her kids instead of making movies about what I want and, even worse, addressing Polish taboos like church, homosexuals and history. ~ Malgorzata Szumowska

At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing
a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart. ~ Cornelius Plantinga

You travel all over," the woman said. "Do you write about your travels?" I said, Yes, I did. Articles. Books. Whatever. "You must write Paul Theroux-type travel books," she said. I said, Exactly, and told her why. ~ Paul Theroux

To me, women's lib was mainly a white, upper-middle class affair of little use to a reservation Indian woman. ~ Mary Brave Bird

Love, in all its fragile forms, is the one powerful, enduring force that brings real meaning to our everyday lives ... but the love I mean is the fire that burns inside us all, the inner warmth that prevents our soul from freezing in the winters of despair. ~ Bradley Trevor Greive

If you look good, you can act in a Bollywood movie, you don't have to be able to act; and Aishwarya Rai is a great example of this. She is a beautiful woman ... You look at her, I want to look at her. Damn, she is fine; but stop acting or stop trying to act. ~ Russell Peters

The chaste woman who teases is worse than a streetwalker. ~ James Huneker

Speaking as a mixed-race woman, there aren't many historical stories about people like me. ~ Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Artistic symbols and myths speak out of the primordial, preconscious realm of the mind which is powerful and chaotic. Both symbol and myth are ways of bringing order and form into this chaos. ~ Rollo May

the kids who can't adapt to school's tedium are diagnosed with ADHD and are put on powerful psychoactive drugs, which have the immediate effect of reducing their spontaneity so they can attend to the teacher and complete the senseless busywork. Nobody knows the long-term effects of these drugs on the human brain, but research with animals suggests that one effect may be to interfere with the normal development of the brain connections that lead children generally to become more controlled, less impulsive, with age and maturity.13 Perhaps that helps to explain why today we see more and more cases of ADHD extending into adulthood. As with lots of psychoactive drugs, the drugs used to treat ADHD may be creating long-term dependency. ~ Peter Gray

It hadn't shocked the old woman, not much. She had got past being shocked early in life. ~ Sherwood Anderson

Since woman's rights have come up a young woman is better able to fight her own battle. ~ Anthony Trollope

And a man and woman should fight. Frankly, they should have a good head-to-head battle about every six months, then make love until they break the box springs. ~ Lisa Gardner

A man must know when to retreat from a woman, but a wise man knows that sometimes he must stand and face her. ~ Robert Jordan

But if he is angry at the world for doing him harm, why does he take it out on his loving partner? Couldn't he just as readily express his rage by playing racquetball or pounding pillows. His ideas about her role seem paradoxical. On the one hand, the narcissistic husband has vested his wife with tremendous power. She is necessary for his self-repair, but instead of valuing her and seeking comfort in her arms, he beats and humiliates her. Because he sees her as available to meet any and all of his needs, he releases his rage and any self-hate at her; such an act helps him ultimately feel powerful again, making him realize he is not weak and shattered.
When the narcissistic man eels the terror and rage associated with his own internal fragmentation, his outburst restores his sense of power and control. He turns the anger expanding within him away from himself, toward his wife. He insists that she's the defective one, she's to blame, because she has not met his needs. Such acts of externalization are key to the NPD batterer. His violent behavior restores his self-esteem. He believes that his actions are not his fault; he is just trying to take care of himself. ~ Susan Weitzman

Although the mass of the people accepted the white man's God, either under physical duress or because he seemed more powerful than their own Gods, they never assimilated the ideas of Christianity. ~ Penny Lernoux

I think I'm really powerful. They'll smash me, probably. ~ Marianne Faithfull

I feel compelled to make another 'nonapology.' Many readers are likely to be concerned about my use of masculine pronouns in relation to God. I think I both understand and appreciate this concern. It is a matter to which I have given much thought. I have generally been a strong supporter of the women's movement and action that is reasonable to combat sexist language. But first of all, God is not neuter. He is exploding with life and love and even sexuality of a sort. So 'It' is not appropriate. Certainly I consider God androgynous. He is as gentle and tender and nurturing and maternal as any woman could ever be. Nonetheless, culturally determined though it may be, I subjectively experience His reality as more masculine than feminine. While He nurtures us, He also desires to penetrate us, and while we more often than not flee from His love like a reluctant virgin, He chases after us with a vigor in the hunt that we most typically associate with males. As CS Lewis put it, in relation to God we are all female. Moreover, whatever our gender or conscious theology, it is our duty---our obligation---in response to His love to attempt to give birth, like Mary, to Christ in ourselves and in others.

"I shall, however, break with tradition and use the neuter for Satan. While I know Satan to be lustful to penetrate us, I have not in the least experienced this desire as sexual or creative---only hateful and destructive. It is hard to determine the sex of a snake. ~ M. Scott Peck

He had thought providing for his wife was the greatest expression of devotion. Somehow it hadn't sufficed. How could I have loved her more? I never touched another woman. His sorrow was this: There was something she had needed, something she had tried to call forth from within him, that he did not possess. ~ Kiana Davenport

I criticize by creation, not by finding fault. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Every decision I have made - from changing jobs, to changing partners, to changing homes - has been taken with trepidation. I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life, specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown, and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back, turn back, you'll die if you venture too far... In the past several years I have learned, in short, to trust myself. Not to eradicate fear but to go on in spite of fear. Not to become insensitive to distinguished critics but to follow my own writer's instinct. My job is not to paralyze myself by anticipating judgment but to do the best that I can and let judgment fall where it may. The difference between the woman who is writing this essay and the college girl sitting in her creative writing class in 1961 is mostly a matter of nerve and daring - the nerve to trust my own instincts and the daring to be a fool. No one ever found wisdom without being a fool. ~ Erica Jong

A good wife is Royal in Heart. She is a crown to her husband, and pride to the home where she was raised. She is called a W.I.F.E because she is a Woman In Full Effect. ~ Olaotan Fawehinmi

Doan be scared, bébé," he rasped with a brief kiss to my lips. "I'm goan to take care of you." Staring down into my eyes, he began prodding deeper. "I've wanted you for so long." And deeper. "My God, woman!" When he was all the way in, a strangled groan burst from his chest.

Pain. I just stifled a wince, far from enamored with this.

Voice gone hoarse, he said, "You're mine now, Evangeline. No one else's."

He must be right - because Death's presence had disappeared completely.

Jack held himself still, murmuring, "Doan hurt, doan hurt."

"It's getting better."

"Ready for more?"

I nodded. Then regretted it. Pain.

Between gritted teeth, he said, "Evie, I got to touch you, got to kiss you. Or you woan like this." A bead of sweat dropped from his forehead onto my neck, tickling its way down to my collarbone.

"O-okay."

Still inside me, he raised himself up on his knees, his damp chest flexing. His hands covered me, cupped, kneaded, his thumbs rubbing. When I started arching my back for more, his body moved. And it was . . .

Rapture.

"Jack! Yes!"

In a strained tone, he said, "God almighty - I am home, Evangeline." Another thrust had me soaring. "Finally found the place . . . I'm supposed to be."

He leaned down, delivering scorching kisses up my neck and down to my br**sts, bringing me closer and closer to a just-out-of-reach peak.
Kresley Cole

For me, men and women are different. A man is genetically gifted to pull more than a woman. But at the same time, I don't consider women to be any less than men. In fact, I feel we are far more intelligent than them. ~ Kajol

I could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure. ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa

The most powerful person in the world is the story teller.
The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda
of an entire generation that is to come. ~ Steve Jobs

The women I knew in those days liked the fact that I had a feminine streak, that I seemed to be sensitive and caring, that I didn't know the names of any NFL teams, that I could make a nice risotto. A lot of straight women love a female sensibility in a man, an enthusiasm that goes right up to, but unfortunately does not quite include, his being an actual woman. ~ Jennifer Finney Boylan

Women of color: if you're over 40 and you get fat, you will work. But if you're hot and over 40 and a woman of color, they don't know what to do with you. ~ Rosie Perez

Newsflash: it's not the guy who determines whether you're a sports fisher or a keeper-it's you. (Don't hate the player, hate the game.) When a man approaches you you're the one with total control over the situation-whether he can talk to you, buy you a drink, dance with you, get your number, take you home, see you again, all of that. We certainly want these things from you; that's why we talked to you in the first place. But it's you who decides if you're going to give us any of the things we want, and how, exactly, we're going to get them. Where you stand in our eyes is dictated by YOUR control over the situation. Every word you say, every move you make, every signal you give to a man will help him determine whether he should try to play you, be straight with you, or move on to the next woman to do a little more sport fishing. ~ Steve Harvey

They didn't just want Bernie to win; they wanted Clinton to lose to Bernie. And if she wouldn't lose to Bernie, or let him win, they wanted her to lose everything. They wanted to prove that she deserved to lose.

Why did this take me by surprise?... I think it was denial. It was a couple of decades of post-feminism telling us we'd come far enough. It allowed me to forget there's no more despised figure on earth than a woman who seeks power. In the United States, it's fine for a woman to claim equality, as long as she cheerfully opts out of it. ~ Carina Chocano

there's a part in the essay that kind of does this academic "Let's unpack the idea of Lynchian and what Lynchian means is something about the unbelievably grotesque existing in a kind of union with the unbelievably banal," and then it gives a series of scenarios about what -- what is and what isn't Lynchian. Jeffrey Dahmer was borderline Lynchian...what was Lynchian was having the actual food products next to the disembodied bits of the corpse. I guess the big one is, you know, a regular domestic murder is not Lynchian. But if the man -- if the police come to the scene and see the man standing over the body and the woman -- let's see, the woman's '50s bouffant is undisturbed and the man and the cops have this conversation about the fact that the man killed the woman because she persistently refused to buy, say, for instance, Jif peanut butter rather than Skippy, and how very, very important that is, and if the cops found themselves somehow agreeing that there were major differences between the brands and that a wife who didn't recognize those differences was deficient in her wifely duties, that would be Lynchian -- this weird confluence of very dark, surreal, violent stuff and absolute, almost Norman Rockwell, banal, American stuff, which is terrain he's been working for quite a while -- I mean, at least since -- at least since "Blue Velvet. ~ David Foster Wallace

You are more powerful and intelligent than you think. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

My aim was to build up more and more that strength, hard and joyless, which had come to me when I heard the god's sentence; by learning, fighting, and labouring, to drive all the woman out of me. ~ C.S. Lewis

I have one weapon," Mason said. "It's a powerful weapon. But sometimes it's hard to wield it because you don't know just where to grab hold of it."
"What weapon is that?" Della Street asked.
"The truth," Mason said. ~ Erle Stanley Gardner

Because they were frightened of me." She crossed her arms as best she could. "Not because they respected me."
"I think we can both agree that fear is a type of respect."
"Perhaps." She looked slightly placated. "Everyone I meet who knows of my power fears me. Maybe I'm the most respected person in the world."
"Maybe," I agreed, and thunder rolled overhead. Ilsa glanced upwards, her features illuminated by a flicker of lightning.
We sat in silence for a few minutes longer, before I jumped down from the wagon.
"You don't fear me, though," Ilsa called as I searched for another stick. "I can tell. You think yourself more powerful."
She jumped as lightning cracked through the sky overhead. I heard several prisoners further back, exclaiming loudly.
"Maybe," I repeated, and started work on another dance as Ilsa watched. ~ Aprille Legacy