Oprah Winfrey is an inspiring figure whose words of wisdom have shaped the lives of many.
From her groundbreaking career in television to her generous philanthropy, she has left an indelible impression on the world. Born Oprah Gail Winfrey, the American media executive was born into poverty to a single mother in rural Mississippi.
Oprah Winfrey became famous for her talk show 'The Oprah Winfrey Show', one of America's top-rated shows, which she ran for 25 consecutive years. A TV producer, talk show host, and actress, Oprah Winfrey was North America's first black multi-billionaire and the richest African American of the 20th century.
She is widely regarded as a great leader, motivational speaker, and the most outstanding black philanthropist in American history. Perfect for kids and families alike, these quotes are a great source of inspiration and motivation.
Whether you're looking for advice on life, business, or just something to get you through the day, Oprah has the perfect words for you. Read on to explore the best of her inspiring words!
Oprah Winfrey Quotes On Leadership
"The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance — and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning." - O Magazine, September 2002
"The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free."
"I don't believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process."
"When people show you who they are...believe them!"
"Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire."
"I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself."
"You teach people how to treat you."
"Nobody's journey is seamless or smooth. We all stumble. We all have setbacks. It's just life's way of saying, 'Time to change course." - Stanford Commencement Address, 2008
"It doesn't matter who you are, where you came from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always."
"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."
"Turn your wounds into wisdom."
"Devote today to something so daring even you can't believe you're doing it."
"Use your life to serve the world, and you will find that it also serves you."
"You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job and not be paid for it."
"The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance—and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning."
"I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier."
"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."
"Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."
"You don't become what you want, you become what you believe."
"You want your work to be meaningful because meaning is what brings the real richness to your life."
"Where there is no struggle, there is no strength."
"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand."
"When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are."
"Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe."
"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."
"You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once."
"The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude."
"I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint — and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you."
"Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi."
"I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself."
"The best of times is now."
"The reason I've been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money."
"Align your personality with your purpose, and nobody can touch you."
"You get in life what you have the courage to ask for."
"Self-esteem means knowing you are the dream."
"Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe." - Wellesley College Commencement Address, 1997
Oprah Winfrey Quotes On Women
"I was once afraid of people saying, 'Who does she think she is?' Now I have the courage to stand and say, 'This is who I am'."
"I am a woman in process. I'm just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience and learn from it. Life is never dull."
"Some women have a weakness for shoes... I can go barefoot if necessary. I have a weakness for books."
"Successful women still have their feet on the ground - they just have better shoes."
"I never did consider myself a feminist, but I don't think you can really be a woman in this world and not be."
"Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness."
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."
"I don't think of myself as a poor, deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who, from an early age, knew I was responsible for myself and I had to make good."
"I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself."
"The greatest contribution you can make to women's rights is to be the absolute... best at what you do." - Janet Lowe, 1998.
"When women put their heads together, powerful things can happen!"
"Personally, I think if a woman hasn't met the right man by the time she's 24, she may be lucky."
"For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power to those men. But their time is up. Their time is up!" - The Golden Globes, 2018
Oprah Winfrey Quotes On Happiness
"The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give."
"The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be."
"Living in the moment means letting go of the past and not waiting for the future. It means living your life consciously, aware that each moment you breathe is a gift."
"You have to find what sparks a light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world."
"Follow your feelings. If it feels right, move forward. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it."
"Every day brings a chance to live free of regret and with as much joy, fun, and laughter as you can stand."
"There's a difference between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing that you are worthy of being happy. Your being alive makes worthiness your birthright. You alone are enough."
"If friends disappoint you over and over, that's in large part your own fault. Once someone has shown a tendency to be self-centered, you need to recognize that and take care of yourself; people aren't going to change simply because you want them to."
"You are responsible for your life. You can't keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on."
"All stress comes from resisting what is."
"Good riddance to decisions that don't support self-worth."
"All the money in the world doesn't mean a thing if you don't have time to enjoy it."
"You will be wounded many times in your life. You'll make mistakes. Some people will call them failures, but I have learned that failure is really God's way of saying, "Excuse me, you're moving in the wrong direction." It's just an experience, just an experience."
"It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb."
"True forgiveness is when you can say, "Thank you for that experience."
"Your true passion should feel like breathing; it's that natural."
"What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life."
“My idea is to give hope, because where there is no hope, there is no vision, and where there is no vision, people will perish.”
"Difficulties come when you don't pay attention to life's whisper. Life always whispers to you first, but if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later, you'll get a scream."
"You have to find what sparks a light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world."
"Joy is a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters."
“One of the hardest things in life to learn is which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”
"Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher."
"Whatever someone did to you in the past has no power over the present. Only you give it power."
"Say goodbye to your inner critic, and take this pledge to be kinder to yourself and others. This is a call to arms. A call to be gentle, to be forgiving, to be generous with yourself."
"When people say they are looking for happiness, I ask, What are you giving to the world?"
Oprah Winfrey Quotes On Confidence
"The great courageous act that we must all do is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams."
"So long as you're still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself."
"If you don't know what your passion is, realize that one reason for your existence on earth is to find it."
"So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground."
"Only make decisions that support your self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth."
"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand."
"Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility."
"Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself."
"Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do."
"As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around."
"Every time you state what you want or believe, you're the first to hear it. It's a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don't put a ceiling on yourself."
"The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free."
"Trust your instincts. Intuition doesn't lie."
"We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are."
"I don't want anyone who doesn't want me."
"When you make loving others the story of your life, there's never a final chapter because the legacy continues."
"You look at yourself, and you accept yourself for who you are, and once you accept yourself for who you are, you become a better person."
"Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you, too, will keep encountering challenges. It is a blessing to be able to survive them, to be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other — to be in a position to make the climb up life's mountain, knowing that the summit still lies ahead.
And every experience is a valuable teacher."
"When the criticism drops away, what you will see then is just you, without judgment, and that is the first step toward transforming your experience."
"You can either waltz boldly onto the stage of life and live the way you know your spirit is nudging you to, or you can sit quietly by the wall, receding into the shadows of fear and self-doubt."
Oprah Winfrey Quotes On Life
"Lessons often come dressed up as detours and roadblocks."
"I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life."
"The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams."
"I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear."
"To love yourself is a never-ending journey."
"Improving your life doesn't have to be about changing everything--it's about making changes that count."
"The best gift anyone can give, I believe, is the gift of sharing themselves."
"You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more."
"The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment when you are between asleep and awake when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy when for just that one moment, you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality and it really happened."
"Liberate. Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes."
"What you put out is already on its way back to you."
"It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point, you are bound to stumble.
If you're constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will, at some point, fall. And when you do, I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction."
"Life is about growth and change. When you are no longer doing that—that is your whisper; that is your whisper that you are supposed to do something else."
"The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire."
"The struggle of my life created empathy... I could relate to pain... being abandoned... having people not love me."
"In the final analysis of our lives- when the to-do lists are no more when the frenzy is finished, when our email inboxes are empty- the only thing that will have any lasting value is whether we've loved others and whether they've loved us."
"With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice."
"The big secret in life is that there is no secret. Whatever is your goal, you can get there if you are willing to work."
"Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom."
“One of the greatest gifts you can give is your undivided attention.”
