Wangari Maathai Quotes

The moment that you feel that just possibly you are walking down the street naked... that's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

The truth sets you free. It's a very liberating thing, when you say this is who I am warts and all and then you can just get on with life. It's amazing.

In the end I'm the only one who knows me.

I have achieved an inner freedom.

A really big thing I've learned - and I think it's so liberating - is when you realize no one knows what they're doing.

Getting to be authentic is so liberating.

It's not like my old self - I'm not in character anymore, I'm me. I'm not hiding behind that anymore.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

I think that more and more there's a sense that the best performances I can give are the ones that are the truest to who I am. The further I move away from who I am, the worse they are.

We have to program the mind of the public that age is not ugly. Age is just age. Wake up, American children, and stop listening to other people's voices. Know yourself, be true to yourself and make a contribution. It took me half my life to know myself. I listened to other people's opinions and took them as gospel.

Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves - so how can we know anyone else?

I wanted to become me, totally me. The more me, the better. I instinctively knew this and I was right.

The world can't tell you who you are. You've just got to figure out who you are and be there, for better or worse.

I have faced up to what I am.

We need to see, and agree that what we seek already lives within us, and we within it. Now we know our one great task: watch for whatever promises us freedom, and then quietly, consciously refuse to see ourselves through the eyes of what we know is incomplete. Then we live wholeness itself, instead of spending our lives looking for it.

I've got to where I've always wanted to be. I just feel more myself, and I've learned not to care what other people think. It's happened slowly, very slowly. But I did it.

I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier.

I wanted to do things that I knew were going to be me.

I've realized the person that I've always been and this gift that I've always had just had to be brought to light. It surprised me the most that being more who I am and not who I thought I had to be would make me successful.

When you really understand who you are, it enables you to fight and believe.

The beauty of knowing yourself is nobody else has to.

I'm undeniably myself, and I think realizing that is the way to live life.

I want to tell everyone that no matter what's keeping them from being their authentic self to hold on to the hope that there will be an end to that road. There will be a life where they can live their true self.

What I've come up with is that I just need to be me.

I am doing something I love, travelling the world, meeting fans, feeling confident, and I am no longer restricted by my sexuality.