Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Leymah Gbowee

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's nonviolent peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Her efforts to end the war, along with her collaborator Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, helped usher in a period of peace and enabled a free election in 2005 that Sirleaf won. She, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

Liberian - Activist | Born: February 1, 1972

Source: Wikipedia

I always tell people, anger is like liquid. It's fluid, it's like water. You put it in a container and it takes the shape of that container. So many people you see in prison, unleashing war on their people, they are angry, and they take their anger and put it into a violent container.

Leymah Gbowee

Leadership is standing with your people. People say you have to live to fight another day, but sometimes you have to show you are a true leader.

Leymah Gbowee

At 17, the first time I saw a dead body, I froze. By 31 it was a natural occurrence for me, and no group of people should live like that.

Leymah Gbowee

I'm a serious optimist. I come from a country where you have little to be hopeful for, and so you have to always be an optimist.

Leymah Gbowee

I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God. There are so many women in Africa, and outside Africa, who are more intelligent than I am.

Leymah Gbowee

If you are serving justice to one person, those who have been affected should also be served some form of justice.

Leymah Gbowee

I'm now on a journey to fulfill the wish, in my tiny capacity, of little African girls.

Leymah Gbowee

The one thing I have never been afraid of is standing before important people and speaking my mind. I represent women who may never have the opportunity to go to the UN or meet with a president. I'm never afraid to speak truth to power.

Leymah Gbowee

There is something in this world that every individual can do. God has created all of us with something unique to contribute.

Leymah Gbowee

We have lived through fear all our lives, and when you have gone through a whole lot of fear, sometimes all you can do is resist the fear, and resistance comes in the form of courage.

Leymah Gbowee

Women are the ones that bear the greatest burden. We are also the ones who nurture societies.

Leymah Gbowee

When the guilty verdict was handed down, I walked outside and saw a rainbow encircling the sun. Everyone in Monrovia could see it. It was a hot day, 80 or 90 degrees. I don't remember seeing any raindrops fall. I thought, this is a sign.

Leymah Gbowee

When women gather, great things will happen.

Leymah Gbowee

The world is waiting to hear from you.

Leymah Gbowee

'I wish for a better life. I wish for food for my children. I wish that sexual abuse and exploitation in schools would stop.' This is the dream of the African girl.

Leymah Gbowee

You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire.

Leymah Gbowee

My courage comes from my faith. I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God. There are so many women in Africa, and outside Africa, who are more intelligent than I am.

Leymah Gbowee

You cannot say you've achieved equality until EVERYONE is equal and has equal opportunities!

Leymah Gbowee

If you read the life of great men and women who made important changes in history, there are two common features: One, they were angry at the state of affairs and, two, they were people of faith.

Leymah Gbowee

Don't stop, echoes the older Liberian lady's voice. Don't ever stop. My answer to her: I never will.

Leymah Gbowee

Men are the ones who often juggle back and forth for power. It is the women who bring humanity to the table - an understanding that beyond the jobs that men are fighting for, there are people out there really waiting for you to do something for life to go on. The only way all of this can happen effectively is if women are at the table as active participants, not as silent observers.

Leymah Gbowee

Activism is something that no one can fake. You get angry. You cry. But you never throw in your towel, because that anger is what is propelling you to further action.

Leymah Gbowee

Regardless of whom you pray to, during war our experiences as a community and as mothers are the same.

Leymah Gbowee

It is so difficult to do any work nonviolently if you don't have the constant awareness of someone who is greater than you are - someone greater who will not just fight for you but who is there to console you.

Leymah Gbowee

Today, this young woman is me, a Nobel laureate. I'm now on a journey to fulfill the wish, in my tiny capacity, of little African girls - the wish of being educated. We set up a foundation. We're giving full four-year scholarships to girls from villages that we see with potential.

Leymah Gbowee

If any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers.

Leymah Gbowee

I don't feel like I've done anything extraordinary but take my little light and shine it in darkness.

Leymah Gbowee

Sometimes, people call my way of speaking ranting. Why are you always ranting and screaming, they ask. But here’s the thing…the reason why I rant is because I am a voice for many women that cannot speak out to heads of state, UN officials, and those that influence systems of oppression. And so I rant. And I will not stop ranting until my mission of equality of all girls is achieved.

Leymah Gbowee

Don't wait for a Gandhi, don't wait for a King, don't wait for a Mandela. You are your own Mandela, you are your own Gandhi, you are your own King.

Leymah Gbowee

We go into rural communities and all we do, like has been done in this room, is create the space. When these girls sit, you unlock intelligence, you unlock passion, you unlock commitment, you unlock focus, you unlock great leaders.

Leymah Gbowee

It's insulting when outsiders come in and tell a traumatized people what it will take for them to heal... People who have lived through a terrible conflict may be hungry and desperate, but they are not stupid. They often have very good ideas about how peace can evolve, and they need to be asked. That includes women. Most especially women.

Leymah Gbowee

It’s time for women to stop being politely angry.

Leymah Gbowee

We must continue to unite in sisterhood to turn our tears into triumph. There is no time to rest until our world achieves wholeness and balance, where all men and women are considered equal and free.

Leymah Gbowee

Religion by itself was not meant to be a divisive tool. All of our religious teachings have similar rules, such as a commitment to peace and nonviolence, and care for women and widows and orphans. What has destroyed a coming together is men's interpretation of religion.

Leymah Gbowee

The world is upside down, it's going to take a lot of hands to turn it right side up.

Leymah Gbowee

Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Leymah Gbowee

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