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27 Inspiring Quotes By Black Women To Help You Get Through The Day

Autumn is here, which means more shut-eye, less sunlight and a higher risk of depression. Thankfully, journaling, mindfulness practice and meditating on quotes can help restore your stores of energy and help lift up your mood during the darker winter months. Below are 27 inspiring quotes by dark-skinned black women that will leave you feeling empowered and hopeful.

On Being a Black Woman

“As Black women, we’re always given these seemingly devastating experiences—experiences that could absolutely break us. But what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. What we do as Black women is take the worst situations and create from that point.” – Viola Davis Essence magazine, August 2011

“Embrace everything you are as a woman. Even your flaws too. And the things that you want to fix, you make them better.” – Kelly Rowland

On Self-Esteem

“I would tell my younger self just be yourself—that who you are is good enough.” — Viola Davis People magazine, 2014

On Maintaining Joy and Surviving Pain

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

“Living in the moment means letting go of the past and not waiting for the future. It means living your life consciously, aware that each moment you breathe is a gift.” – Oprah Winfrey

“In every crisis there is a message. Crises are nature’s way of forcing change — breaking down old structures, shaking loose negative habits so that something new and better can take their place.” — Susan L. Taylor

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

“Living in the moment means letting go of the past and not waiting for the future. It means living your life consciously, aware that each moment you breathe is a gift.” – Oprah Winfrey

“The hard days are the best because that’s when champions are made.” – Gabby Douglas

“I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace – a connection to what matters.” – Oprah Winfrey

On Colorism

“Your deep Mahogany skin may not resemble that of the others in your family, but it’s just as gorgeous, and you’re just as worthy … One day you’ll appreciate how much your brown skin shines in the moonlight, glistens in the sun and ages ever so slowly.” – Gabrielle Union Ebony Magazine, 2012

“And in the history of television and even in film, I’ve never seen a character like Annalise Keating played by someone who looks like me. My age, my hue, my sex. She is a woman who absolutely culminates the full spectrum of humanity our askew sexuality, our askew maternal instincts. She’s all of that, and she’s a dark-skin black woman” – Viola Davis

“…now the dark skin, beautiful, brown, chocolate sisters are in. And we’re praising Lupita and all that, which is beautiful, but she was beautiful five years ago. I was the same way three years ago… And I just try to tell other black women, not just in Hollywood, just in general, you don’t have to compromise or change yourself to try to fit into whatever mold is popular.” – Naturi Naughton

“I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful. . . . I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin. And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. . . . And when I was a teenager my self-hate grew worse, as you can imagine happens with adolescence …

And then Alek Wek came on the international scene. A celebrated model—she was dark as night, she was on all of the runways and in every magazine and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was…When I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny.…I could never have guessed that my first job out of school would be so powerful in and of itself and that it would propel me to be such an image of hope in the same way that the women of The Color Purple were to me.

And so I hope that my presence on your screens and in the magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.” – Lupita Nyongo

On Creativity

“I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for the sake of conforming. I am deeply dissatisfied — about so many things, about injustice, about the way the world works — and in some ways, my dissatisfaction drives my storytelling.” – Chimamanda Adichie

On How To Live Life

“What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself — for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” – Maya Angelou

On Dreaming Big

Dreams do come true. If anyone’s proof of that, it’s me. – Jennifer Hudson

On Failure

You have to accept the plan and realize that if you slip, and you might, you can’t use that as a reason to give up or stop. – Jennifer Hudson

On Being Intelligent

I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world. – Michelle Obama

On Beauty and Identity

This first quote isn’t by a black woman, but it still rings true:

“Dipped in chocolate, bronzed in elegance, enameled with grace, toasted with beauty. My lord, she’s a black woman.” –Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan

“My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome and all of a sudden, Oprah was telling me it wasn’t. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn’t help but bloom inside of me. When I saw Alek [Wek] I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny. Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty, but around me the preference for light skin prevailed. To the beholders that I thought mattered, I was still unbeautiful. And my mother again would say to me, “You can’t eat beauty. It doesn’t feed you.” And these words plagued and bothered me; I didn’t really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.” – Lupita Nyong’o

“I think that beauty is subjective. I’ve heard that statement [less classically beautiful] my entire life. Being a dark-skinned black woman, you heard it from the womb. And “classically not beautiful” is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you. Now … it worked when I was younger. It no longer works for me now. It’s about teaching a culture how to treat you. Because at the end of the day, you define you.” —Viola Davis

On Accepting Yourself and Feeling Confident

“Being a woman of curves, I really find that it’s very important to talk about loving your body where you are.” – Danielle Brooks

Nothing destroys self-worth, self-acceptance and self-love faster than denying what you feel. Without feelings, you would not know where you are in life. Nor would you know what areas you need to work on. Honor your feelings. Allow yourself to feel them.” – Iyanla Vanzant

On Healing, Self-Love and Self-Care

“I think the bottom line of everything, even when we talk about healing this colorism issue in the world, is that it starts with healing yourself. Because really you’re the only person you can control. Work on yourself and treat yourself, talk to yourself the way you would talk to somebody who you’re trying to heal.” –India Arie

Here’s a quote from Michelle Obama, to remind you that it’s okay to splurge on yourself sometimes:

“When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.” – Michelle Obama

On Standing Up For Yourself

“You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid ‘no’ muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it’s our choice. Your ‘no’ muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, ‘I don’t care if that’s what you want. I don’t want that. No.” – Iyanla Vanzant

On Work Ethic

“Don’t settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that’s in us.” – Angela Bassett

“I think one of the most important lessons that I’ve learned is to put your head down and work. Don’t look at other people and compare yourself. Just do the work. Because when the opportunity is there, you have to be ready. Make sure your craft is refined and you’re constantly working on it.” –Tika Sumpter

“While some have described her as overly opinionated, Grace much prefers the terms headstrong and passionate. She is a voracious reader, a dog-lover and a self-professed pop culture junkie. Her other hobbies include watching sappy romantic comedies, consuming too many strawberry-filled doughnuts and people-watching. Grace currently attends university, where she is working towards a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Pre-Law.”