Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Quotes

My major obligation or responsibility is to work to integrate gender issues throughout the work of the State Department.

It's important to have the diversity of thought and approach that comes with being a woman.

I love the idea of working with women because I always feel like a man designing womenswear needs women around him to really have a sense of what they're doing.

There aren't many women now I'd like to see as President - but there are fewer men.

The more women there are about, the softer a wise man steps.

I think if you were to talk to women who have run, both successfully and unsuccessfully, nearly all of them would say, "You learn so much." You learn about yourself, what you're capable of doing.... And it doesn't have to all happen when you're young - I mean, one of the most powerful women in American politics is Nancy Pelosi. She had five children. She didn't go into politics until her youngest child was in high school.... That's one of the great things about being a woman in today's world: You have a much longer potential work life than our mothers or our grandmothers did.

I believe strongly in the rights of women... my mother is a woman, my sister is a woman, my daughter is a woman, my wife is a woman.

When I look at birds and animals, their survival is without rules, without conditions, without organization. But mothers take good care of their offspring. That's nature. In human beings also, parents - particularly mothers - and children have a special bond. Mother's milk is a sign of this affection. We are created that way. The child's survival is entirely dependent on someone else's affection. So, basically, each individual's survival or future depends on society. We need these human values.

Mothers and unmarried women and married women, they're all welcomed in the Trump White House, and he's made that very clear to me.

Women hold up the other half of the sky.

Being a mother is probably the hardest job in the world. I feel like, in a lot of ways, children come into the world to teach us.

Another very interesting chapter is the education of children: the victims of problems of the family are the children. The children. Even of problems that neither husband nor wife have a say in. For example, the needs of a job. When the dad doesn't have free time to speak to his children, when the mother doesn't have time to speak with her children.

The advancements that women have made are very threatening to men in the job place. There haven't been that many women in politics. If you look at the conventions, it's kind of pathetic how many men are the heads of companies. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the reality should be.

It is necessary to broaden the opportunities for a stronger presence of women in the church.

I'm not going to say that all the cabinet appointments of the men and women, you know, obviously we might have some reservations on some, but the women's movement has congratulated them for some of the appointments and is urging and encouraging more women in the Executive Branch and high areas.

The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. None other can adequately take her place.

We need to make everyone more aware of the benefits of empowering women. Then I think we can succeed faster. Because it's one thing to achieve success, and another to repeat success. That's the job of a leader. Promoting women leadership and creating a more level playing field is a huge enabler to repeat success.

For that's what a woman, a mother wants - to teach her children to take an interest in life. She knows it's safer for them to be interested in other people's happiness than to believe in their own.

Women are so often segregated to their sexuality, and how they appear. In fact, there's a lot of talk, even now, I think in most jobs this is true... people will say, when a woman rises to power, they ask, 'who did she sleep with?' You know, it couldn't possibly be about her acumen, it couldn't possibly be about her intelligence. It's got to be about her body, because that's how women get ahead.

Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Meyer have already accomplished more than most. I think the sky is the limit for them professionally. If they can inspire more women to "lean in," as Sandberg so famously describes it - to pursue a career and a family - that would be an incredible accomplishment. If they can, by their example as hands on mothers and high powered executives, show young women that they don't need to leave the workplace when they have children, they will be superheroes.

Men tend to dominate whatever public discourse they participate in, and another big part of feminism is to let women have their say. Men's voices can be welcome at the table, but there is a time and a place, and maybe it's now, for men to make a little less noise, make their needs less known, and listen to the needs of others.

It is the strength of the mother that is going to change the way the world is. It's the compassion, the love, the very open spirited mother and woman that will move us forward in this new century. It's no doubt.

I believe that the best measure of whether a nation is going to be successful is whether they are tapping the talents of their women.

Women must have seats at the table because peace is too crucial to be left only to the politicians or only to the male half of our world.

I recognize as a man there's a lot of things that I don't have to think about. But I'm thinking about them now.