Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin‘ wealthy.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

I knew through the surgeries that he was on my side and that this wasn’t something where I was gonna feel less of a woman, because my husband wasn’t gonna let that happen.

One of the things I did when I discovered this huge importance of being vulnerable is very happily moved away from the shame research, because that’s such a downer, and people hate that topic. It’s not that vulnerability is the upside, but it’s better than shame, I guess.

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.

I feel you’re in charge of your own situation.

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

You should never give up your inner self.

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.

I hear my friends and my mom tell me I’m special, but honestly, I still don’t get it.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility – America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

I’m just trying to be myself. I’m not trying to be anyone else.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn’t know it had a name.

Everything is generated through your own will power.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary – not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.

I am so tired of fear. And I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.

When I was an orphan, I was the richest kid at the orphanage because everyone else was complaining about not having anything. But when I discovered that you could get two cents for a Coca-Cola bottle, I would follow people around who were drinking it and ask them if they were almost through with it.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

If you want to make computers that really work, create a design team composed only of healthy, active women with lots else to do in their lives, and give them carte blanche.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

I am not some goddess that dropped down from the sky to sing pop music; I am not some extra-incredible human person that needs to be told how wonderful they are all day and kissed.

I’m very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

Never was it given to mortal man – To lie so boldly as we women can.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?

Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.