Gloria Steinem Quotes

In Native spiritualities, there is often a belief that we cannot pray unless we’ve laughed.

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.

Each others' lives are our best textbooks.

I think we each come out of the womb with some unique way of looking at the world and if we don't express it, we loose faith in ourselves.

Perhaps the most revolutionary act for a woman will be a self-willed journey — and to be welcomed when she comes home.

Having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one at all.

Feminism is memory.

"You should write about take no-shit women like me. Girls need to know they can break the rules" p.79

If it were up to me, I would not define myself by the absence of something; "theist" is a believer, so with "atheist" you’re defining yourself by the absence of something. I think human beings work on yes, not on no. … humanist is a great term. …except that humanism sometimes is not seen as inclusive of spirituality. To me, spirituality is the opposite of religion. It’s the belief that all living things share some value. So I would include the word spiritual just because it feels more inclusive to me. Native Americans do this when they offer thanks to Mother Earth and praise the interconnectedness of “the two-legged and the four, the feathered and the clawed,” and so on. It’s lovely. … because it’s not about not believing. It’s about rejecting a god who looks like the ruling class.

At my age, in this still hierarchical time, people often ask me if I’m “passing the torch.” I explain that I’m keeping my torch, thank you very much — and I’m using it to light the torches of others.

Flo especially took me in hand. When I felt I had to prove the existence of discrimination with statistics, for instance, she pulled me aside. 'If you're lying in the ditch with a truck on your ankle,' she said patiently, 'you don't send someone to the library to find out how much the truck weighs. You get it off!

Decisions are best made by the people affected by them.

"Remember: "For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe, the horse was lost, for want of a horse, the battle was lost, for want of a battle, the war was lost." This parable should be the mantra of everyone who thinks her or his vote doesn't count."

According to the wisdom of Indian Country on my own continent, it takes four generations to heal one act of violence.

Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.