The (Brief) International Women’s Day Guide to Women’s Quotations

“We couldn’t possibly know where it would lead, but we knew it had to be done.” Betty Friedan

“What I don’t understand is, why don’t we nurture our artists?” Barbra Streisand

“What we do need is endless courage.” Katherine Anne Porter

“We’ve had dark times before, times that seemed just as dark to previous generations as our age seems to us.” Katherine Anne Porter

“Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it.” Germaine Greer

“Let me apologize for all the faces I’ve worn, none of them my own.” Ruth Whitman

“Noise is an imposition on sanity, and we live in very noisy times.” Joan Baez

“Even doing nothing…is in effect, doing something, and in general it is doing something bad.” Donella H. Meadows

“I saw nothing was permanent. You don’t want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.” Yoko Ono

“The poetry is myself.” Gwendolyn Brooks

“I am the rock. The hard rock. You can’t break me.” Diane Wakoski

“Let us get on with creating the democratic and pluralistic society that we say we are.” Barbara Mikulski

“That’s what’s wrong with the country. There are too many ‘good soldiers’ accepting too many bad decisions.” Shirley Chisholm

“Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training.” Anna Freud

“Travel light and travel simple in your mind, through your world.” Buffy Ste. Marie

“If I don’t win, I keep fighting.” Bella Abzug

“Women must be free to determine their own life pattern and their destinies without suffering lifelong guilt for not having lived up to society’s or their family’s expectations.” Boston Women’s Health Collective, in Our Bodies, Ourselves

“Whether women are better than men I cannot say--but I can say they are certainly no worse.” Golda Meir