There is nothing I enjoy more than an empowering quote to start my day, and what it is best than to absorb them from feminist minds. Although feminism stills frowned upon as a dirty word, we needed it at all costs. New laws are coming afloat targeting gender, sexuality, race, and furthermore. Right when we think the cause is going forward, parliament and other right-extremist organizations take us backwards. So, on that note, let us learn from these phenomenal quotes!

1 “I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.”
― Dolly Parton

2 “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

3 “Why do people say “grow some balls”? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”
― Sheng Wan

4 “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”
― Cheris Kramarae

5 “It’s not my responsibility to be beautiful. I’m not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”
― Warsan Shire

6 “I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.”
― Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

7 “What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don’t hold back, now.
You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank.
Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I’ve even heard the term “mangina.”
Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminis

8 “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor. ”
― Betty Friedan

9 “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

10 “A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
― Gloria Steinem

11 “He – and if there is a God, I am convinced he is a he, because no woman could or would ever fuck things up this badly.”
― George Carlin

12 “Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who’s confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.”
― Joss Whedon

13 “Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

14 “I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that’s me.”
― Maya Angelou

15 “Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”
― Adrienne Rich

16 “If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”
― bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

17 “Woman’s degradation is in man’s idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.”
― Elizabeth Cady Stanton

18 “No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.”
― Simone de Beauvoir , The Second Sex

19 “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

20 “No woman should be made to fear that she was not enough.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Priory of the Orange Tree

21 “As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn’t prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn’t have to beg him for financial support.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

22 “One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”
― Joan of Arc

23 “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”
― Charlotte Whitton

24 “No matter what happens, no matter who turns on me, no matter what pompous swine thinks he has power over me, I am still me. I will always be me.”
― Sara Raasch, Snow Like Ashes

25 “I waited to be told what was good about me. […] All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you- the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”
― Emma Cline, The Girls

26 “Good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere”
― Helen Gurley Brown

27 “I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

28 “Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves.” 
― Louise Bernikow

29 “Usually when you see females in movies, they feel like they have these metallic structures around them, they are caged by male energy.” 
― Björk

30 “I want a Zero Tolerance policy on All The Patriarchal Bullshit.”
― Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman

31 “Vaginas beat penises every time. 
They’re like kryptonite.
Penises are defenseless against them.” 
― Emma Chase, Tangled

32 “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” 
― Mary Astell

33 “Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality.” 
― Iris Marion Young

34 “When men are oppressed, it’s a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it’s tradition.” 
― Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America

35 ““Feminism is hated because women are hated. Antifeminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of woman hating.” 
― Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women