Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

I think the most difficult love begins with one's self. How you treat yourself is something you bring to your relationships.

Growing up, I didn't get the talk of 'Make sure boys take you on a date and treat you right.' So I was the girl who wasn't dating and would just text. I dated these guys who didn't have jobs, and I would always be paying. At one point, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, 'You're too pretty and cool to be treated like this.'

I think the best relationship you'll ever have is the one with yourself. That might even be the most important one.

If you truly want to find a meaningful relationship, you've got to find yourself first and learn to be confident in your own skin. Don't sacrifice anything about who you are to be with someone. That's setting yourself up for failure.

Loving yourself means caring enough to make the hard decisions in your life.

The feeling that "I am enough" does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to grow to. It means that I accept myself, that I am not on trial in my own eyes, that I value and respect myself. This is not an act of indulgence but of courage.

Until you value yourself enough and love yourself enough to know that, you can't really have a healthy relationship.

When you accept and appreciate yourself you can handle any situation with class, dignity and respect.

I'm at a place in my life right now where I'm very happy, very content. I'm finally OK with the idea of who I love, who I want to be with.

I think everybody should focus on inner beauty.

I don't think you can really, truly be the partner you want to be until you know on an absolute level that you are a complete person on your own.

Our entire life - consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

Someday, when I manage to finally figure out how to take care of myself, then I'll consider taking care of someone else.

It used to hurt when people ran down my films. I used to feel inferior. I wouldn't go to parties or award functions because my cinema is not considered good enough. But now I keep my head high, and I am proud of what I am doing.

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.

I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.

If you have to change something about you to be in a part, I don't think it's easy to do. You should just pick the part where you can just be yourself.

I'm finally OK with the idea of who I love, who I want to be with.

You are so much better off on your own than with the wrong person.

A lot of people are afraid to face themselves, especially when something goes wrong. But that's important, because if something happens within a relationship, it could be how you're allowing someone else to treat you.

I don't know if there is a 'lack' of good black men. But when you haven't taken the time to get to know yourself, be OK with you, and articulate what it is you want in a relationship, then you can't possibly find that person for you because you don't even know what you're looking for.

I just want to say to women, 'Be yourself - it's the inner beauty that counts. You are your own best friend, the key to your own happiness, and as soon as you understand that - and it takes a few heartbreaks - you can be happy.'

I don't think you always get to see a woman on TV who is relatively neurosis-free and, while looking for a relationship, isn't man hunting and isn't cloying and isn't a fashionista.

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

I love having a boyfriend but need to be secure on my own first.