Dorothy Height Quotes

And I used to say, 'I'm black, too.' In other words, I - my whole life I've been called a half-breed, a convict, king of the trailer trash, this and that. I take that and stand.

I value what I learned from being cast in the margins and what that felt like.

If you become a master of meaning, you become a master of your life. Two people can have the same experience. One person decides that because of that experience his or her life is over, while the other decides that God has challenged him or her to step up, face the challenge, and become more than he or she ever was before.

If I had not been dyslexic, I wouldn't have needed sports. I would have been like every other kid. Instead, I found my one thing, and I was never going to let go of it. That little dyslexic kid is always in the back of your head.

I kind of think of my life as this incredible hurricane of so many adventures. We can all make a difference, and we can all be courageous and believe in ourselves.

I always think - when I get mad, and people say, 'Don't be the angry black woman' - it's like, well, why not? There's so much to be angry about.

In Hollywood, there is one dominant voice. It is a white, male, straight gaze. When I talk about positive portrayals of black people and women, I'm saying complexity. I'm not saying goody-two-shoes, everything's okay. No. The positive view of me is to see me as I am: the 'good,' the 'bad,' the gray. That is a positive portrayal.

I super strongly identify with marginalized communities. I'm not at all religious, but I feel super, super Jewish. I can't even describe the feeling, but it actually feels really similar to being gay, the kind of kinship that you feel with the LGBTQ people. That same sense of community is there with Judaism.

As an activist, organizer, Palestinian, and a Muslim-American woman, I have faced many obstacles in the industry I work in. I often have to fight for my seat and representation for the communities I represent.

I do not want to be in fights where people see me as an obstacle on the road. I want to be the man challenging.

I wanted to prove I wasn't that person everyone wanted to stereotype me. You can slag me off, I talk about my upbringing now and try and do it in a way that inspires others, but I never felt good about it.

As soon as people decide to confront a problem, they realize that they are far more capable than they thought they were.

Something horrible may have happened to you, but you always have a choice in how you respond to it. You have the "Why does bad stuff always happen to me? I'm never going to find happiness" option, and the "This sucks but I'm going to learn and evolve from it, examine what role I played in it, and ultimately it will help me become the person I'm supposed to be" option.

People took some part of us and used it to discriminate against us. In our case, it was our ethnicity; it's precisely the same thing for sexual orientation.

Too many girls follow the line of least resistance, but a good line is hard to resist.

Anywhere where the humanity of people is undermined, anywhere where people are left in the dust, there we will find our cause.

It is true that people are sometimes hit by adversities beyond their control. But those so affected are better helped when they are awakened to the resources they do possess than when they are told they don't have any.

Everyone has problems. It's how you choose to deal with them. Some people choose to be whiners some choose to be winners. Some choose to be victims some choose to be victors.

You have to start looking in the mirror and saying, 'this is who I am, this is what I am and this is how I'm going to be' and start demanding more from yourself. In spite of everything that this system has thrown at us, we still have to live at the end of the day. We still have to find purpose and find ways to prosper and make a profit so you have to find ways to stand on your own two feet and fulfill your potential as a black man or black woman on this planet no matter how marginalized or oppressed you may be.

... women have their roots in the ground, and often those roots are starved and ravaged, yet there is not a human alive who cannot reach and touch, with... her fingers, the very top of God's rainbow.

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under.

I feel that man can transcend himself to a point where he can accomplish greater things than he thinks. I see people depressed and I see people who devalue themselves and I feel that's a terrible, terrible waste. But I love the people who try. But try fairly, try honestly.

To the people that have said I'm too small, I'm not fast enough, I don't have what it takes, I'm not strong enough. THANK YOU