Top 100 Quotes About Powerful Women
#1. Powerful women are the most interesting to play.
Naomie Harris
#2. Powerful women are either sexually voracious rulers like Catherine the Great or Elizabeth I, or treacherous bitches like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy
Bill Gates
#3. What do I want in a good fantasy book? Court politics and social interactions based around houses and cities. Powerful women and devious men. Drama and action with emotional ramifications. Frocks. Kissing. Swords. An intense impression of history in the world-building.
Tansy Rayner Roberts
#4. Anyone who hates something feels threatened by it. A guy who says he hates feminism (a) doesn't understand or know feminism, and (b) is scared of powerful women. Most attacks come from fear.
Neil Strauss
#5. Even the most powerful women I know go out of their way to say that they're not really interested in power. Imagine a man saying that.
Susan Estrich
#6. Technology may be traditionally perceived as a male-dominated industry, but it won't always be that way. Every day we see more and more powerful women leaders boasting outstanding achievements.
Clara Shih
#7. I loved cinema from a very young age. I was also obsessed with Hitchcock and actresses like Kim Novak in Vertigo. They all played heroines and were strong, powerful women, yet they were very feminine.
Erdem Moralioglu
#8. I'm surrounded by very powerful women and very progressive men.
Christie Hefner
#9. Powerful women are a threat in any society which is why I am such a target.
Madonna Ciccone
#10. Somewhere we turn ourselves into victims instead of being the powerful women we really are meant to be.
Judith Light
#11. Everything I do is going to contain the message that men who are going to be comfortable with powerful women are going to be more powerful men
Joss Whedon
#12. Real change will come when powerful women are less of an exception. It is easy to dislike senior women because there are so few.
Sheryl Sandberg
#13. Powerful women intimidate men. If she's a really well-known woman, she has a career, she's famous - in that case, men are really afraid.
Donatella Versace
#14. I like powerful women, and I gravitate to any point in history when a female has significant power. I can spend hours researching any such amazing lady, from Ching Shih to Hatshepsut to Boudica to Zenobia.
Gail Carriger
#15. Most men - not just the men in Brentwood - are scared of powerful women with brains. There's something in a man that makes him want to have power over a woman - whether it's in the bedroom or because they earn more money. It boosts their egos.
Jodie Marsh
#16. 'Who Fears Death' addresses the push and pull in African culture that powerful women face when their culture has certain duties and beliefs that can stifle them.
Nnedi Okorafor
#17. Powerful men often succeed through the help of their wives. Powerful women only succeed in spite of their husbands.
Lynda Lee-Potter
#18. Murder is about power and the more powerful women get the more it will change the good that they do and the bad that they do.
Patricia Cornwell
#19. If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.
Eve Best
#20. The most powerful women in Sachaka and all you do is waste time gossiping and matchmaking
Trudi Canavan
#21. I am fascinated by women. They're as close as we men get to experiencing 'the other.' The challenge for me was to know and accept fully formed, powerful women.
Peter Coyote
#22. Oh dear, here were go again, thought Vimes. Why did I wait until I was married to become strangely attractive to powerful women? Why didn't it happen to me when I was sixteen? I could have done with it then. He
Terry Pratchett
#23. Powerful women always interpret hostility as unrequited love.
Tina Brown
#24. I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#25. Women's worst invention was the plow. With the beginning of plow agriculture, men's roles became extremely powerful. Women lost their ancient jobs as collectors.
Helen Fisher
#26. It's not so much about powerful women. In some cases, there are stereotypes about women. I often don't hear men talked about in the same way. It's more a sexist stereotype than a powerful stereotype.
Anna Wintour
#27. There were no vampires of note in Western literature until about the 18th century. But they tell us where we park our anxieties, whether its over-powerful women, death or damnation. We make our own monsters.
Deborah Harkness
#28. Everything, and I mean everything, is about strong, powerful women.
Jesse Peyronel
#29. Madonna is that forbidden thing, the Nietzschean creative woman. Her preoccupation with a high level of work doesn't allow her to follow the usual script that powerful women are expected to follow - 'don't hate me for my success, don't hate me for my power.'
Naomi Wolf
#30. As long as we depend on other women for self-esteem, using them as bad examples or fantasy versions - special, powerful - of ourselves, they remain stuck in a narcissistic version of themselves, too.
Koren Zailckas
#31. Women are so powerful they're scary, and the incentive to squash this has been going on for so long that some of us actually believe we're subordinate.
Alanis Morissette
#32. I'm getting a lot of roles as women who are very powerful. I think that's a reflection of me as a person.
Melinda Clarke
#34. [On women in previously all-male fields:] I think it will change in a lot of workplaces. I'm not so sure it will ever change on Capitol Hill until more women are in powerful positions. Because this is the last plantation for men.
Andrea Mitchell
#35. When I was growing up, there were very few women athletes. I remember watching Olga Corbett, but Peggy Fleming and Janet Lynn were my role models. I never dreamt that I could be at that level. I remember thinking they seemed so elegant and regal and powerful and feminine.
Dorothy Hamill
#36. Every woman I have known has actually deepened my spiritual awareness. Even if I have been a selfish man and treated them badly ... There were two women, I won't name them, who had a powerful religious effect on me. The ancient idea of a muse is there.
John Tavener
#37. Women have been taught that they are not powerful; they've been given an opposite description, that they are weak. The word "effeminate" implies weakness.
Frederick Lenz
#38. Gone are the days when women were attracted by a man's hansomeness. Today, we are talking about cash, and your compromise to become a tiger in bed.
Michael Bassey Johnson
#39. I know I'm someone powerful, someone dangerous. A grim smile tugs at my lips despite my current circumstances. I know I'm not afraid of pain or death. And these men and women? They should be afraid of me. Because whoever I am, I am violent, and I will be having my revenge.
Laura Thalassa
#40. A powerful truth is that if we love the Lord, love His Word, love His people, and love one another, we won't want to gossip.
Elizabeth George
#41. The most powerful decision-making part of the audience is women. Boys have a lot of impact on the industry, but it's often women who impact what stories get made.
Nina Jacobson
#42. I believe that women and girls today have to partner in a powerful way with men - with their fathers, with their sons, with their brothers, with the plumbers, the road builders, the caregivers, the doctors, the lawyers, with our president and with all beings.
Joan Halifax
#43. Women, when they are old enough to have done with the business of being women, and can let loose their strength, must be the most powerful creatures in the world.
Isak Denisen
#44. I try to make women feel more powerful without losing their femininity,
Miuccia Prada
#45. I certainly like the rumour that I was the father of Elizabeth Hurley's baby. It made me think I could impregnate women in a different way to everyone else. Elizabeth and I were never alone in a room together, so I must be a very powerful man indeed. Actually, I'm thinking of suing the baby!
Matthew Perry
#46. You are more powerful than you think.
Tim Cook
#47. If you see a better world, you're morally obligated to create it
Genevieve Bell
#48. Powerful men need a woman as a sign of their power. Strong women do not need a man, she either wants him or she doesn't.
Chloe Thurlow
#49. I think women are scared of feeling powerful and strong and brave sometimes.
Emma Watson
#50. I ain't scared to lend a hand
I ain't scared to clench it either
Mie Hansson
#51. Women don't realize how powerful they are.
Judith Light
#52. There are many powerful men and women in mobile. I'm fortunate to be part of that group. By no means do I think I'm the most powerful person.
Sundar Pichai
#53. Historically, most women who are powerful are seen as not being nice, even if they are.
Kelly Cutrone
#54. There's this absurd innate need in most men to feel that they're more powerful than women are, which is ridiculous.
Frederick Lenz
#55. High school is not unlike a Mormon fundamentalist cult where the women are claimed by the older and more powerful.
Mike Birbiglia
#56. Women are "hypergamous." This means they seek men of higher status than themselves. Even the most ardent heterosexual feminist only can love someone more powerful than she. Needless to say the higher she rises, the slimmer the pickings.
Henry Makow
#57. You know, I'm not even sure how we ended up living together."
"I am," Jake said, turning back to the lake. "Sex. It's a powerful force, my boy, and women use it."
"Is that why you gave them up?" Will asked, sympathetically. "Did paranoia drive you to celibacy?
Jennifer Crusie
#58. I was really drawn to thinking about the women in my life. Thinking about my mother, who's a very powerful force on me. And I have these two very strong sisters who took up a lot of imaginary space in my life.
Junot Diaz
#59. As a leader, it's critical to take the time to reflect in order to create a powerful vision for the company.
Bonnie Marcus
#60. I think as women, the smarter and more powerful we are, the more it can be threatening and alienating to other people, more than with men. That's something we need to support each other with.
Idina Menzel
#61. Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other.
Philippa Gregory
#62. Some three years ago I drove down to Provence to spend a summer weekend with a lady who was interesting to me simply because she possessed an extraordinarily powerful muscle in a region where other women have no muscles at all.
Roald Dahl
#63. I see much less of an ambition gap and much more of a workplace and society that isn't allowing us to use the talent that is multiplied well beyond this room ... There are millions of women out there who ... need more than, Honey, you can do it if you try hard enough.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
#64. Let's start a movement - a movement of men who aren't afraid to stop violence against women.
Carlos Andres Gomez
#65. I grew up in a time when women didn't really do comedy. You had to be homely, overweight, an old maid, all that. You had to play a stereotype, because very attractive women were not supposed to be funny - because it's powerful; it's a threat.
Lily Tomlin
#66. Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.
Honore De Balzac
#67. We don't think only men can be powerful and strong. Behind the heads of the Mafia, the leaders of culture, there are always very strong women. European culture is a matriarchy, especially in the south. The women have a lot of power.
Stefano Gabbana
#68. I believe that all women are pretty without makeup- but with the right makeup can be pretty powerful.
Bobbi Brown
#69. There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.
Kate Chopin
#70. Don't think too small about what God could do in your life - be prepared for God to do a big thing.
Stormie O'martian
#71. Conditions for all women will improve when there are more women in leadership roles giving strong and powerful voice to their needs and concerns.
Sheryl Sandberg
#72. 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
#73. There are many Saudi women doctors, and there are many wealthy and powerful and well-educated Saudi women who circumvent the restrictions put upon them, quietly or otherwise.
Dave Eggers
#74. The most powerful men of the kingdom have dragged a duchess down and sent her out to be a marvel to the common people of London. They are so deeply afraid of her that they took the risk to dishonor their own. They are so anxious to save themselves that they thought they should throw her aside.
Philippa Gregory
#75. You don't even know me, or what I am capable of, boy.
S.R. Crawford
#76. Young girls always know. They know older women look at them and see what they've left behind and can't get back. It's a truth everyone knows but no one acknowledges: There's nothing more powerful than an eighteen-year-old girl.
Sarah Addison Allen
#77. Once you fall for someone, their smell can be a powerful thing. Women will wear their boyfriends' T-shirts, and throughout tales in history men have held on to their lover's handkerchief.
Helen Fisher
#78. I think that women are powerful and they're multifaceted and they're survivors; they don't have to depend on a man to do the things they needed them to do, whether it was hunting or lifting heavy things, so what's a man's place now? Who knows!
Rashida Jones
#79. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren't the problem; they're the solution.
Christiane Northrup
#80. If all women on earth woke up tomorrow feeling truly positive and powerful in their own bodies, the economies of the globe would collapse overnight.
Laurie Penny
#81. Perhaps the fact that I am not a Radical or a believer in the all powerful ballot for women to right her wrongs and that I do notscorn womanly duties, but claim it as a privilege to clean up and sort of supervise the room and sew things, etc., is winning me stronger allies than anything else.
Ellen Swallow Richards
#82. While men represent powerful activity as assertion and aggression, women in contrast portray acts of nurturance as acts of strength.
Carol Gilligan
#83. There's only one power in the world great enough to help us rise above the difficult things we face: the power of God.
Stormie O'martian
#84. I do resent that when you're in the most cool, powerful time of your life, which is your 40s, you're put out to pasture. I think women are so much cooler when they're older. So it's a drag that we're not allowed to age.
Rosanna Arquette
#85. Silent or gagged women are powerless women. A powerful woman is one who can speak out to challenge existing power structures or to explore previously taboo territory.
Julian Barnes
#86. I want to tell women in developing countries that they are as powerful as their male counterparts, and they can play an equal role in their respective societies.
Samina Baig
#87. I always say that women are very strong and men are powerful. But beauty gives you both strength and power. I never think of it. It's just one of those natural things. It's the only thing I know how to do.
Alber Elbaz
#88. I feel that women 'and men,' but I mean the 'individual,' can be totally feminine and still be totally powerful.
Louise Berliawsky Nevelson
#89. The more connected you are to the work, the better it is.
Jesse Peyronel
#90. For most women, being seen, having others pay attention to you, is imagined and experienced as more desirable and more powerful than commanding an army or seizing control of the means of production and reproduction.
Phyllis Chesler
#91. Men and women who had worn suits for decades traded punches powerful enough to crush elephant skulls, dodged and deflected attacks too fast for the eye to follow, and died suddenly, often before the crowd registered the killing blow.
Victors and dead men were separated by a blink of the eye.
Zachary Jernigan
#92. She is of the strangest beauty and the darkest courage, and when she walks with intent the earth trembles beneath her feet.
Nicole Lyons
#93. Many entire nations are marginalised by the more powerful nations. That is causing imbalance, violence and terror. Women must do their best to introduce another perspective.
Karen Armstrong
#94. That's how powerful you are, girl ... You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go.
Walter Mosley
#95. A romantic novel is an adult fairy story, repeating the recurring symbols and images which can explain life to a woman and satisfy a powerful need within her. The need to love and be loved is vital to all human beings, but especially to women.
Charlotte Lamb
#96. One advantage women throughout time have had is that the little boy in men always remember a time when women were all-powerful.
Jude Deveraux
#97. Women spend 80 cents of every dollar in the marketplace. We could be the most powerful force for economic and environmental change in the 21st century if we focused our money where it could make the biggest difference. If a million people did that, it would have a $1 billion impact.
Diane MacEachern
#98. I wonder how many women are held up in their bed waiting to be sung to, served wine to, read poetry to, kissed slowly with.
Brandon Villasenor
#99. Kerry Cohen's powerful, transfixing story will be familiar to many women, most of whom won't want to admit it. In this heartfelt and authentic memoir, Cohen transcends the pain and shame of a promiscuous past, and leaves readers with a sense of hope and triumph.
Janice Erlbaum
#100. I call on men and boys everywhere to join us. Violence against women and girls will not be eradicated until all of us - men and boys - refuse to tolerate it.
Ban Ki-moon