Gloria Steinem Self Quotations

Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.

Violence is not inevitable. I mean, the only inevitable form of violence is the kind that we understand, the only legitimate (if there can ever be legitimate violence) and that's self-defense.

But somewhere within each of us, buried at varying depths depending on the age and degree of neglect or abuse, shame or coercion we endured, there is a resistant, daydreaming, rebellious, creative, unique child -- a true self who is waiting.

It's important that we recognize how extreme the Republicans are in almost every case and how against our self-interest it is to vote for them whether or not we are disappointed with the current crew. At least they believe in the Constitution. At least they have an idea of economic justice. The Republicans are devoted to creating more rich folks.

Oppression has no logic--just a self-fulfilling prophecy, justified by a self-perpetuating system.

imagining anything is the first step toward creating it. Believing in a true self is what allows a true self to be born.

... we've allowed a youth-centered culture to leave us so estranged from our future selves that, when asked about the years beyondfifty, sixty, or seventy--all part of the average human life span providing we can escape hunger, violence, and other epidemics--many people can see only a blank screen, or one on which they project fear of disease and democracy.

Self-esteem isn't everything; it's just that there's nothing without it.

Perhaps well-to-do women and unemployed ghetto teenagers have something in common. Neither group has been allowed to develop the self-confidence that comes from knowing you can support yourselves.

I'm still the same person who grew up mostly in a Midwestern, factory-working neighborhood where talk about "self-esteem" would have seemed like a luxury.

Self-esteem is the basis of any democracy.

Romance is a means to the end of self-completion, but love is an end in itself.

Self-esteem starts out as a personal blessing, but it becomes nothing less than an evolutionary force.

I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.

We need to unlearn some of our respect for education, since it has undermined our respect for ourselves.

Self-hatred leads to the need either to dominate or to be dominated.

If you look at the public opinion polls even, support for all the issues, people who self-identify as feminists are as least as many as those who self-identify as Republicans.

We have to learn to stand up for our interests. To seek purity is self-defeating and a stereotype in itself: women have to be pure, women are not concerned about money.