30 Badass Quotes From Powerful Women

"I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind."

Updated 11 years ago, March 12, 2014

In the adjustment of the new order of things, we women demand an equal voice; we shall accept nothing less.

Carrie Chapman Catt. As Susan B. Anthony’s successor, Catt developed a plan to achieve national woman suffrage via constitutional amendment.

There is only one thing worse than coming home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going to the lab at all!

Chien-Shiung Wu. Wu helped discover one of the basic laws of physics and revolutionized the study of particle physics, an achievement that helped two of her male colleagues win the Nobel Prize.

Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, “We’ve always done it this way.” I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.

Grace Murray Hopper. Hopper was recruited by Harvard in 1943 to work on the first computer in the United States. She built the first complier to translate mathematical notion into machine code.

Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.

Mourning Dove. Dedicating her life to chronicling her native culture, Mourning Dove explored the struggles of being biracial.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

Amelia Earhart. Adventurous in her pursuits, Earhart spent her life promoting women’s participation in aviation as well as helping to develop the commercial airline industry.

‘It is impossible for you to do it,’ was the terrible verdict. ‘In the first place you are a woman and would need a protector, and even if it were possible for you to travel alone you would need to carry so much baggage that it would detain you in making rapid changes. Besides you speak nothing but English, so there is no use talking about it; no one but a man can do this.’

‘Very well,’ I said angrily, ‘Start the man, and I’ll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him.’

Nellie Bly. Known for her courageous investigative journalism, Bly took on such subjects as political corruption and inequality for working women. Most notably, Bly went undercover at a women’s institution to report brutality on the inside. Posthumously, Bly has been eulogized “the best reporter in America.”

You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals; and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country. It is the only way.

Emmeline Pankhurst. Pankhurst was one of the earliest organizers of the woman suffrage campaign in Britain, conducting a relentless forty-year fight against the national government.

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

Susan B. Anthony. Anthony worked tirelessly towards reforming women’s roles in American society, most notably in the women’s suffrage movement.

I know nothing of man’s rights, or woman’s rights; human rights are all that I recognize.

Sarah M. Grimke. One of the first women to speak publicly against slavery and in favor of women’s rights in the abolitionist movement.

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.

Josephine Baker. Known for her dancing, singing, and acting, Baker also made major contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, and was offered to take over for Martin Luther King, Jr. after his assassination.

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.

Wilma Rudolph. Overcoming polio as a child, Rudolph went on to become the first female triple Olympic gold medalist in track and field.

I may be the first woman member of Congress but I won’t be the last.

Jeannette Rankin. An early social reformer and pacifist, Rankin became the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and was the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

If nations could only depend upon fair and impartial judgments in a world court of law, they would abandon the senseless, savage practice of war.

Belva Lockwood. Lockwood became one of the first female lawyers and ran for president in 1884 and 1888, making her the first woman to appear on the official ballots.

It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind.

Clara Barton. Nurse, patent clerk, humanitarian, teacher, and founder of the American Red Cross.

Too much has already been said and written about women’s sphere. Leave women, then, to find their sphere.

Lucy Stone. A principle leader of “pragmatic” suffragists, Stone is also remembered as among the first women to keep her maiden name when she married.

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Jane Goodall. Goodall’s research has left an enormous impact on such fields as primatology, anthropology, and human physiology.

The door might not be opened to a woman again for a long, long time and I had a kind of duty to other women to walk in and sit down on the chair that was offered, and so establish the right of others long hence and far distant in geography to sit in the high seats.

Frances Perkins. Becoming the first female cabinet member, Perkins created reforms in workers safety, child labor laws, and wage and hour regulations.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Fannie Lou Hamer. Best known for her contributions in securing federally guaranteed voting rights for African Americans.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Helen Keller. Blind and deaf from age two, Keller later graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College.

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.

Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was revolutionary in its advocacy for women’s education.

No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.

Margaret Sanger. American nurse and sex education activist, Sanger fought for years to make birth control a fundamental human right.

A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.

Gertrude Stein. American Modernist poet and author.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt. A symbol of independence and political power, widely known as “The First Lady of the World.”

I think the key is for women not to set any limits.

Martina Navratilova. Widely known as one of the best tennis players of all time, Navratilova has been outspoken on issues of equality and gay rights.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

Maya Angelou. Renowned American writer and activist.

In too many instances, the march to globalization has also meant the marginalization of women and girls. And that must change.

Hillary Clinton. United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, and First Lady of the United States.

Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work — and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.

Lucille Ball. American Comedienne.

When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the “division” of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

Simone de Beauvoir. French writer of feminism and existentialism, well known for her work, The Second Sex.

As I was saying to the landlord only this morning: ‘You can’t have everything’.

Dorothy Parker. American writer, poet, and satirist.

In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind.

Rosalind Franklin. British biophysicist best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA and the discovery of DNA’s double helix.