Cicely Tyson Quotes

I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

There are such strong women in my life that there's no chance of me getting too big for my boots.

When I look back at the people who shaped me, that made a difference in my life, most of them were women.

I was in the music industry as Amanda Diva for 10 years but I realized that I had bigger work to do and needed to get busy doing that work. I really do believe that I'm here for a bigger purpose, and I want to be a role model and speak for the black community and black women specifically. Humor was the way it felt most organic and effective for me.

I went to all-girls' schools my whole life, so every model of leadership that I saw was a young girl or a woman, and so there was never any hesitation that women could lead. I know what I believe.

I believe that education offers the fastest route to economic mobility. I grew up with a family of strong, accomplished, and educated women. I believe, as they say, that you can't be what you don't see, and since I saw a lot of smart women in my life, education being at the center, I just mimicked that behavior. There was never a question that I'd go to college. In fact, I was the last person in my family to get a master's degree, so that tells you I'm actually the underachiever!

I believe, as they say, that you can't be what you don't see, and since I saw a lot of smart women in my life, education being at the center, I just mimicked that behavior.

I think it's important to present role models for young women coming up. I really do believe you can't be what you can't see, and representation matters. So, for me, it's the idea of putting women in media in ways that present them as having power, being heard, being true to themselves, and done from the perspective of women.

Spend your energy on things that make a difference.

Black women are very capable of leading our organizations. I believe that firmly.

It is commonly and, I believe, accurately said of Pakistan that her women are much more impressive than her men.

I am guided by the vision of what I believe this show can be. Originally our goal was to uplift, enlighten, encourage and entertain through the medium of television. Now, our mission statement for The Oprah Winfrey Show is to use television to transform people's lives, to make viewers see themselves differently and to bring happiness and a sense of fulfillment into every home.

If you haven't time to help youngsters find the right way in life, somebody with more time will help them find the wrong way.

You invest yourself in what you believe can succeed.

I believe that if a million chances were likely to do good, they would be given.

There are enough negative images of Black women out there and I did not want to portray Dorothy Vaughn in any stereotype. I wanted to make sure that her integrity was preserved.

I believe that India is such a big country that one must do as much work as possible. So I keep doing that.

Believe anything is possible and then work like hell to make it happen.

I read somewhere that we are all more than we know. And I really believe that. Everybody is worth something, and think of all the amazing things that you could be to each other, to people you don't even know, of all the things that you could accomplish.

It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has proven to be a failure. Though Chomsky did indeed revolutionize the subject of linguistics, it is not at all clear, at the end the century, what the solid results of this revolution are. As far as I can tell there is not a single rule of syntax that all, or even most, competent linguists are prepared to agree is a rule.

I believe in blood, sweat and tears.

Men think it's a women's word. But what it means is that you believe in equality, and if you stand for equality, then you're a feminist. Sorry to tell you. You're a feminist. You're a feminist. That's it.

The world must become aware of the fantastic transformational power of social entrepreneurship and the Foundation will work as a catalyst in this effort.

I know that they [Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith-Joyner and even Wilma Rudolph] have paved the way and they have been a source of inspiration.

I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.