Home » Quotes Guru » 100+ Inspiring Quotes from Black Female Icons

100+ Inspiring Quotes from Black Female Icons

black female quotes

Black women have been powerful voices in history, contributing profound wisdom, strength, and beauty to the world. In this article, we pay homage to these voices through an exploration of black female quotes. With 10 captivating subtitles, this collection delves into the variety of themes these quotes touch upon, from resilience to empowerment, and from love to leadership. Each section includes 12 inspirational quotes that aim to resonate with readers, foster motivation, and provide a deeper understanding of the experiences and insights of black women. Whether you are looking for inspiration, empowerment, or a new perspective, these quotes offer something for everyone. Immerse yourself in the strength and wisdom of these voices as they continue to inspire and empower millions across the globe.

Resilience Quotes

  • "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated." - Maya Angelou
  • "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker
  • "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." - Charlotte Brontë
  • "I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it." - Estée Lauder
  • "Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it." - Maya Angelou
  • "I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision." - Maya Angelou
  • "When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." - Audre Lorde
  • "You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." - Shirley Chisholm
  • "Every great dream begins with a dreamer." - Harriet Tubman
  • "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." - Maya Angelou
  • "Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face." - Carol Moseley Braun
  • "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." - Rosa Parks
  • Empowerment Quotes

  • "I am not afraid... I was born to do this." - Joan of Arc
  • "The question isn't who's going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." - Ayn Rand
  • "We all have the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "I am a woman and a warrior. If you think I can't be both, you've been lied to." - Sonne Smart
  • "What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have." - Oprah Winfrey
  • "I don't have to prove anything to anyone, I only have to follow my heart and concentrate on what I want to say to the world." - Beyoncé
  • "Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity." - Dr. Mae Jemison
  • "I have a dream that one day every valley shall be engulfed, every hill shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight..." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "Power is not given to you. You have to take it." - Beyoncé
  • "I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." - Audre Lorde
  • "It's time for you to move, realizing that the thing you are seeking is also seeking you." - Iyanla Vanzant
  • "Where there is no struggle, there is no strength." - Oprah Winfrey
  • Leadership Quotes

  • "Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher." - Oprah Winfrey
  • "True leadership is not in position or title. It is action and example." - Unknown
  • "Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position." - Brian Tracy
  • "Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others." - Plato
  • "I had to make my own living and my own opportunity!" - Madam C.J. Walker
  • "Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently." - Maya Angelou
  • "A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." - Rosalynn Carter
  • "As a leader, it's a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow." - Himanshu Bhatia
  • "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • "If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one." - Dolly Parton
  • "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." - John C. Maxwell
  • "Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend." - Albert Camus
  • Courage Quotes

  • "Courage is fear that has said its prayers and decided to go forward anyway." - Joyce Meyer
  • "The only way to overcome challenges is to move through them with courage and love." - Unknown
  • "Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees the others." - Aristotle
  • "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face." - Eleanor Roosevelt
  • "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." - E.E. Cummings
  • "With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts." - Eleanor Roosevelt
  • "Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's about getting up one more time than we fall down." - Arianna Huffington
  • "Courage is grace under pressure." - Ernest Hemingway
  • "Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself." - P. T. Barnum
  • "The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all." - Meg Cabot
  • "I was not afraid of the lion's den, because I had already been there before." - Unknown
  • "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." - John A. Shedd
  • Love Quotes

  • "The best thing to hold onto in life is each other." - Audrey Hepburn
  • "We are most alive when we're in love." - John Updike
  • "The giving of love is an education in itself." - Eleanor Roosevelt
  • "To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides." - David Viscott
  • "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - William Shakespeare
  • "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tzu
  • "I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." - Arthur Rubinstein
  • "Love is not about how much you say 'I love you', but how much you prove that it's true." - Unknown
  • "The heart has its reasons which reason knows not." - Blaise Pascal
  • "Let our hearts keep beating in the rhythm of love." - Unknown
  • "Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." - Maya Angelou
  • "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." - Oscar Wilde
  • Cultural Pride Quotes

  • "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any." - Alice Walker
  • "I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within." - India Arie
  • "Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures." - Cesar Chavez
  • "In diversity there is beauty and there is strength." - Maya Angelou
  • "Embrace what makes you unique, even if it makes others uncomfortable." - Janelle Monae
  • "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." - Maya Angelou
  • "Until the lion tells their tale, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." - African Proverb
  • "If we aren't intersectional, some of us, the most vulnerable, are going to fall through the cracks." - Kimberlé Crenshaw
  • "We come from people who survived the Middle Passage and the Trail of Tears. We were not meant merely to survive, but to thrive." - Stacey Abrams
  • "Culture makes people understand each other better." - Paulo Coelho
  • "Our crowns have been bought and paid for, all we have to do is wear them." - James Baldwin
  • "If you know the beginning well, the end shall not trouble you." - African Proverb
  • Wisdom Quotes

  • "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
  • "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk." - Doug Larson
  • "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." - Aristotle
  • "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandela
  • "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates
  • "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "It is not how old you are, but how you are old." - Jules Renard
  • "The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them." - Paulo Coelho
  • "The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing." - Voltaire
  • "Patience is the companion of wisdom." - Saint Augustine
  • "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao Tzu
  • "Half a truth is often a great lie." - Benjamin Franklin
  • Justice Quotes

  • "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights." - Bishop Desmond Tutu
  • "Justice delayed is justice denied." - William E. Gladstone
  • "The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power." - Wael Ghonim
  • "Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both." - Eleanor Roosevelt
  • "Stand up for what is right even if it means standing alone." - Suzy Kassem
  • "In the face of unjust treatment, silence is complicity." - Unknown
  • "Freedom is never given; it is won." - A. Philip Randolph
  • "The time is always right to do what is right." - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." - J.R.R. Tolkien
  • "There comes a time when silence is betrayal." - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Spirituality Quotes

  • "Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe." - Mark Victor Hansen
  • "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • "When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." - Rumi
  • "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust
  • "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love." - Marianne Williamson
  • "The greatest of miracles is to be alive. If you can breathe, if your heart beats, you are witness to all miracles." - Thích Nhất Hạnh
  • "Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances." - Mahatma Gandhi
  • "God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein
  • "Spirituality is a brave search for the truth about existence, fearlessly peering into the mysterious nature of life." - Elizabeth Lesser
  • "Doubt everything. Find your own light." - Buddha
  • "Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not." - Deepak Chopra
  • Hope Quotes

  • "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." - Desmond Tutu
  • "Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." - Buddha
  • "Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality." - Jonas Salk
  • "Once you choose hope, anything’s possible." - Christopher Reeve
  • "All kids need is a little help, a little hope, and somebody who believes in them." - Magic Johnson
  • "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow." - Audrey Hepburn
  • "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." - C.S. Lewis
  • "There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for." - J.R.R. Tolkien
  • "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’." - Alfred Lord Tennyson
  • "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." - John Lennon
  • "The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something." - Barack Obama
  • "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul." - Emily Dickinson
  • Final words

    The wisdom encapsulated in these quotes from black women transcends time and geography. They speak not only to the aspirations and struggles faced by black women but echo universal truths and motivations that can guide anyone in their life's journey. As you immerse yourself in their words, remember the boldness, courage, and grace these women have displayed throughout history—qualities that continue to light the way for future generations. By reflecting on these remarkable quotes, one can find a source of strength and inspiration, an encouragement to fight for justice and equality, and a reminder of the sheer power that resides in one's voice. Let these words serve as a reminder of the potent legacy of black women and an invitation to carry their light forward in each of our daily lives.

    Explore a curated collection of over 100 empowering quotes by influential black women. Discover wisdom, strength, and inspiration from renowned leaders, artists, and activists.

    About The Author