These Oprah Winfrey quotes are guaranteed to inspire and empower you

Marie Claire is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

In celebration of International Leadership Week kicking off today, please enjoy 10 of legendary Oprah Winfrey's best lines

There’s no denying Oprah Winfrey’s status as one of the most influential women in the world. She is a leader of equality and feminism and her unbelievable story of rags to riches utterly inspires us to give life our best shot.

Oprah was born in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and she became pregnant at 14. Sadly, her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. She was then sent to live with her believed father, a barber in Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school.

By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news, and eventually Oprah’s often emotional delivery of content led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena. After boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company. In 1986 The Oprah Winfrey Show first aired. It concluded in 2011 and remains the highest-rated daytime talk show in American television history.

View this post on Instagram

Thank you @people for my story and the story of other women we know (and should know) who are making an impact around the world. Women like @AnaGraceProject (who’s supporting survivors of gun trauma), @tarajiphenson (who’s ending the stigma of mental illness), and @alexmorgan13, @mrapinoe, and @carlilloyd (who are championing equal pay). Available Friday 10/11 #WomenChangingTheWorld 📸: @ruvenafanador

A post shared by Oprah (@oprah) on Oct 9, 2019 at 8:09am PDT

In 65 years Oprah has not only shaped educational conversations across the globe, she has also released five books and starred in important films regarding race issues in America.

Today, International Leadership Week starts, and what better way to acknowledge the voices of leaders and managers from around the world than to absorb a selection of Oprah’s totally inspiring and uplifting quotes. Life without this lady seems unthinkable.

1. ‘Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment’

2. ‘Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough’

3. ‘Turn your wounds into wisdom’

4. ‘Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher’

5. ‘True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience”

6. ‘The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be’

7. ‘Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down’

8. ‘You get in life what you have the courage to ask for‘

9. ‘Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others’

10. ‘Over the years, I’ve interviewed thousands of people, most of them women, and I would say that the root of every dysfunction I’ve ever encountered, every problem, has been some sense of a lacking of self-value or of self-worth’