Top 268 Quotes & Sayings by Sheryl Sandberg - Page 3

If you do please everyone, you are not making enough progress.

Don't let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face-and there will be barriers-be external, not internal. Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you're capable of unless you try.

Feeling confident - or pretending that you feel confident - is necessary to reach for opportunities. It's a cliché, but opportunities are rarely offered; they're seized.

We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.

When companies offer support and assistance for personal and family hardships, their employees become more loyal and more productive.

I know from my own experience that the path to change is best traveled when we travel together.

The gender stereotypes introduced in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophesies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't.

Talking can transform minds, which can transform behaviors, which can transform institutions.

A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.

Give us a world where half our homes are run by men and half our institutions are run by women. I'm pretty sure that would be a better world.

Everyone needs to get more comfortable with female leaders-including female leaders themselves.

The cost of stability is often diminished opportunities for growth.

We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.

When people are really suffering, and we know they're suffering, that question can be a very difficult one. Inadvertently, I think without anyone meaning it, it communicates a lack of empathy.

It's hard to visualize someone as a leader, if she is always waiting to be told what to do.

In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.

Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not.

Its time to cheer on girls and women who want to sit at the table

The time is long overdue to encourage more women to dream the possible dream.

Leadership is not bullying and leadership is not aggression. Leadership is the expectation that you can use your voice for good. That you can make the world a better place.

Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.

Nobody can succeed on their own.

But the upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.

Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

Real change will come when powerful women are less of an exception. It is easy to dislike senior women because there are so few.

Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.

Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder.

When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated, and ambitious.

Believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself. Own your own success.

There is no perfect fit when you're looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.

No industry or country can reach its full potential until women reach their full potential. This is especially true of science and technology, where women with a surplus of talent still face a deficit of opportunity.

Don't make decisions too far in advance, particularly ones you're not even conscious you're making.

You need to feel that you're making a difference.

I've seen over and over how much self-belief drives outcomes. And that's why I force myself to sit at the table, even when I am not sure I belong there - and yes, this still happens to me. And when I'm not sure anyone wants my opinion, I take a deep breath and speak up anyway.

I'm a feminist because I believe in women... it's a heavy word, feminism, but it's not one I think we should run from. I'm proud to be a feminist.

Trying to do it all and expecting that it all can be done exactly right is a recipe for disappointment. Perfection is the enemy.

Women systematically underestimate their own abilities.

When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.

When you want to change things, you won't please everyone.

I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale "Seeping Beauty," which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.

Endless data show that diverse teams make better decisions. We are building products that people with very diverse backgrounds use, and I think we all want our company makeup to reflect the makeup of the people who use our products. That's not true of any industry really, and we have a long way to go.

I hope you find true meaning, contentment, and passion in your life. I hope you navigate the difficult times and come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope you find whatever balance you seek with your eyes wide open. And I hope that you - yes, you - have the ambition to lean in to your career and run the world. Because the world needs you to change it.

Communication starts with the understanding that there is my point of view (my truth) and someone else's point of view (his truth). Rarely is there one absolute truth, so people who believe that they speak the truth are very silencing of others.

Women need to shift form thinking "I'm not ready to do that" to thinking "I want to do that- and I'll learn by doing it.

When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.

Our culture needs to find a robust image of female success that is first, not male, and second, not a white woman on the phone, holding a crying baby.

Presenting leadership as a list of carefully defined qualities (like strategic, analytical, and performance-ori ented) no longer holds. Instead, true leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed.... Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.

You know, there has never been a 24-hour period in five years when I have not responded to e-mail at Facebook. I am not saying it's easy. I work long hours.

When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands.

We need to stop telling [women], "Get a mentor and you will excel." Instead, we need to tell them, "Excel and you will get a mentor.

The most important career decision you'll make is who your life partner is.

We're focused on doing one thing incredibly well. If you look at other companies, all of these companies are doing a lot of different things but we're still, as we grow, doing exactly one thing.

Bring your whole self to work. I don't believe we have a professional self Monday through Friday and a real self the rest of the time. It is all professional and it is all personal.

Every job will demand some sacrifice. The key is to avoid unnecessary sacrifice.

And in situations where a man and a woman each receive negative feedback, the woman's self-confidence and self-esteem drop to a much greater degree. The internalization of failure and the insecurity it breeds hurt future performance, so this pattern has serious long-term consequences.

And anyway, who wears a tiara on a jungle gym?

The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately-to set limits and stick to them.

Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.

Everyone knows that marriage is the biggest personal decision you make, but it's the biggest career decision you can make.

Framing the issue of work-life balance - as if the two were dramatically opposed - practically ensures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life?