Quotes from Gloria Steinem

Taking to the road—by which I mean letting the road take you—changed who I thought I was. The road is messy in the way that real life is messy. It leads us out of denial and into reality, out of theory and into practice, out of caution and into action, out of statistics and into stories—in short, out of our heads and into our hearts.

I recommend trying this kind of grassroots organizing for a week or a year, a month or a lifetime—working for whatever change you want to see in the world. Then one day you will be talking to a stranger who has no idea you played any part in the victory she or he is celebrating.

Because we tend to treat others as we have been treated, a trustworthy system leads to more trust, corruption leads to more corruption, violence to more violence.

The things you regret sometimes turn out to be the things you celebrate. In other words: You learn from what you do wrong.

I was angry about the human talent that was lost just because it was born into a female body, and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one. And

and other women of color, the result might well have been even more dramatic. After all, if you've experienced discrimination in one form, you're more likely to recognize it in another. Also racism and sexism are intertwined—as Mrs. Greene and millions of others experienced—and cannot be uprooted separately.

The art of life is not controlling what happens, it's using what happens.

It doesn't matter if you love the people society says you shouldn't love or do or don't have children with more than one of them; it doesn't matter if you have money, go to church, or obey the law; what matters is that you're not cruel or wasteful, that you don't keep the truth from those who need it, suppress someone's will or talent, take more than you need from nature, or fail to use your own talent and will.

IF EVERYONE HAS A full circle of human qualities to complete, then progress lies in the direction we haven't been.

the Catholic Church not only didn't oppose abortion but actually regulated it until the mid-nineteenth century. It was made a mortal sin mostly for population reasons.8 Napoleon III wanted more soldiers, and Pope Pius IX wanted all the teaching positions in the French schools—plus the doctrine of papal infallibility—so they traded. Also

Then, as if in answer to a riddle posed years before, you will realize that this growth came from seeds you planted or watered or carried from place to place—and you'll be rewarded in the way that we as communal beings need most: you'll know you made a difference.

In fact, caucus, a word derived from the Algonquin languages, better reflected the layers of talking circles and the goal of consensus that were at the heart of governance.

Marriage has worked better for men than for women. The two happiest groups are married men and unmarried women.

Anybody can be with you when you're right, but only friends are with you when you mess up.

A quote is the essence of a story. We all need stories to convey ideas, justice, anger, humanity, hope, laughter, learning, and whatever makes us understand or feel understood

I also thought suddenly of the wisdom of my speaking partner, the late generous, outrageous, matchless Flo Kennedy. She found value in conflict, no matter what. "The purpose of ass-kicking is not that your ass gets kicked at the right time or for the right reason," she often explained. "It's to keep your ass sensitive. " Remembering her words made me laugh out loud.

Never having seen women play chess, they assumed this game wasn't for them and without even a female teacher as role model, they dropped out.

Altogether, I can't imagine technology replacing bookstores completely, any more than movies about a country replace going there.

It was the first time I witnessed the ancient and modern magic of groups in which anyone may speak in turn, everyone must listen, and consensus is more important than time.

Women are always better liked if we sacrifice ourselves for something bigger—and something bigger always means including men, even though something bigger for men doesn't usually mean including women. In

The best way for us to cultivate fearlessness in our daughters and other young women is by example. If they see their mothers and other women in their lives going forward despite fear, they'll know it's possible.

Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.

As always, self-esteem had created an ability to be generous.

To think about taking our place in nature instead of conquering it is a deep change in the way we see ourselves and the world. It means changing from binary and linear thinking to a cyclical paradigm that is a new declaration of interdependence.