Best quotes by Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011.[better source needed] Dubbed the "Queen of All Media," she was the richest African-American of the 20th century, was once the world's only black billionaire, and the greatest black philanthropist in U.S. history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a single teenage mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teenage years and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Nashville, Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school. By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news. Winfrey's often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company.
By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness, and spirituality. Though she has been criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas, and having an emotion-centered approach, she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Winfrey had also emerged as a political force in the 2008 presidential race, with her endorsement of Barack Obama estimated to have been worth about one million votes during the 2008 Democratic primaries. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and received honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Credited with creating a more intimate, confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue. In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Winfrey has won many accolades throughout her career which includes 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chairman's Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, awarded by the Academy Awards and two additional Academy Award nominations. Winfey was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.
Oprah Winfrey quotes by category:
Doubt means don't. Don't move. Don't answer. Don't rush forward.
I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky.
We're all called. If you're here breathing, you have a contribution to make to our human community. The real work of your life is to figure out your function-your part in the whole-as soon as possible, and then get about the business of fulfilling it as only you can.
I consider this world to be like a school and our lives to be the classrooms.
This year I am choosing to live beyond my wildest dreams. I wonder where they'll take me.
lack of self-esteem is what causes wars because people who really love themselves don't go out and try to fight other people ... It's the root of all the problems.
Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment.
I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, but it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.
Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.
To move forward you have to give back.
Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others.
When you have done everything that you can do, surrender. Give yourself up to the power and energy that's greater than yourself.
You cannot be loving when you are blaming. You cannot be loving when you are criticising. You cannot be loving when you are judging.
Opportunity may knock only once but temptation leans on the door bell
What I know for sure is this: The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal for this year is, you can get there - as long as you're willing to be honest with yourself about the preparation and work involved. There are no back doors, no free rides. There's just you, this moment, and a choice.
When you choose the paradigm of service, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift.
Don't live your life to please other people.
Life is about becoming more of who you really are.
When you know who you are and what you stand for, you stand in wisdom.
You look at yourself and you accept yourself for who you are, and once you accept yourself for who you are you become a better person.
I’ve learned not to worry about what might come next.
Living your best life is your most important journey in life.
When people show you who they are ... believe them!
As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around.
Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.
True forgiveness is when you can say, "Thank you for that experience.
No gesture is too small when done with gratitude.
It's all about dreams. If I had to attribute my success in life to any one thing it is this. I believed in my dreams, even when no one else did.
The only courage you will need is the courage to live the life you are meant to.
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.
Thank you for that experience.
Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand.
Your calling isn’t something that somebody can tell you about. It’s what you feel. It is the thing that gives you juice. The thing that you are supposed to do. And nobody can tell you what that is. You know it inside yourself.
Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.
If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough.
I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.
You CAN have it all. You just can't have it all at once.
You have to be responsible for the energy you're putting out into the world.
Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.
There is no paycheck that can equal the feeling of contentment that comes from being the person you are meant to be.
Failure is a great teacher and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.
Every day brings a chance to live free of regret and with as much joy, fun, and laughter as you can stand.
What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.
Dream the biggest dream for yourself. Hold the highest vision of life for yourself.
The big secret in life is there is no secret. Whatever your goal. You can get there if you're willing to work.
You are not the product of your circumstances. You are a composite of all the things you believe, and all the places you believe you can go. Your past does not define you. You can step out of your history and create a new day for yourself. Even if the entire culture is saying, "You can't." Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to you does. You can keep going forward.
If you don't heal the wounds of your childhood, you bleed into the future.
You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
Learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are.
What I know for sure is that what you give comes back to you.
Helping others is the way we help ourselves.
The next road is always ahead.
The single greatest thing you can do to change your life today would be to start being grateful for what you have right now. And the more grateful you are, the more you get.
Your journey begins with a choice to get up, step out, and live fully
You cannot wait for someone to save you, to help you, to complete you. No one can complete you. You complete yourself.
Always take a stand for yourself, your values. You're defined by what you stand for
Having the courage to stand up and pursue your dreams will give you life's greatest reward and life's greatest adventure.
Lessons often come dressed up as detours and roadblocks
Once you clarify your purpose for doing something, the way to do it becomes clear
Purpose is the thread that connects the dots to everything you do that leads you to an extraordinary life.
No matter where you are on your journey, that's exactly where you need to be. The next road is always ahead.
If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. That is the lesson, and that lesson alone will save you a lot of grief.
Everybody has a story. And there's something to be learned from every experience.
If you're sitting around waiting on somebody to save you, to fix you, to even help you, you are wasting your time because only you have the power to take responsibility to move your life forward.
What I learned at a very early age was that I was responsible for my life. And as I became more spiritually conscious, I learned that we all are responsible for ourselves, that you create your own reality by the way you think and therefore act. You cannot blame your parents, your circumstances, because you are NOT your circumstances. You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything.
I am a woman in process. I'm just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.
You are the author of your own life...Don't let others define it for you. Real power comes by doing what you are meant to be doing, and doing it well.
Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.
Whatever someone did to you in the past has no power over the present. Only you give it power.
Lots of people want 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.
Move with the flow. Don't fight the current. Resist nothing. Let life carry you. Don't try to carry it.
One percent doubt is zero percent faith.
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance.
You have to find what sparks a light in you so that you in your own way can illuminate the world.