For 2018, International Women’s Day falls on Thursday, March 8. To help celebrate women on this day of days, we’ve compiled a list of quotes of women, for women, through time and from around the world.
Celebrated on March 8 every year, the holiday is meant to celebrate women’s rights. Dated back to 1909 in New York City, it originally became an international celebration of women’s rights when adopted by Russians in 1917, celebrating women obtaining suffrage in the country. However, it wasn’t until 1975 that is was adopted by the United Nations.
The day is an official holiday in many countries throughout the world: Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zambia.
Wherever you are, let’s take this opportunity to honor the holiday with these special quotes! Take a look!
International Women’s Day Quotes
“You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals, and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country. It is the only way.” ― Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the British suffrage movement
“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” ― Jane Austen, author
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ― Harriet Tubman, American abolitionist
“The best protection any woman can have… is courage.” ― Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American suffragist & social activist
“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft, writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights
“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men, but over themselves.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft, writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights
“If women want any rights more than they’ve got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it.” ― Sojourner Truth, African-American women’s rights activist and abolitionist
“A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt, American First Lady, diplomat and activist
“If Congress refuses to listen to and grant what women ask, there is but one course left then to pursue. What is there left for women to do but to become the mothers of the future government?” ― Victoria Claflin Woodhull, American leader of the women’s suffrage movement
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë, writer and author of Jane Eyre
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.” ― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, American historian
“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.” ― Amelia Earhart, aviation pioneer
“The extremists are afraid of books and pens, the power of education frightens them. they are afraid of women.” ― Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate
“With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.” ― Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate