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Home: Oprah Winfrey Quotes

Oprah Winfrey Quotes

Media proprietor
Born On
1954-01-29
Birth Place
Kosciusko, Mississippi, United States
Birth Sign
aquarius
Father
Vernon Winfrey
Mother
Vernita Lee
Spouse
Stedman Graham
Nationality
American
Education
Tennessee State University, East Literature Magnet School, Nicolet High School
Media Personalities, TV Presenters, Talk Show Hosts

The famous talk show host Oprah Winfrey was in Zurich and during this time she went out to check some nearby stores. Checking into the exquisite Trois Pommes boutique, Oprah went about looking at the collection of hand bags. One of them caught her attention and she asked the shop assistant if she could have a look at it. The shop assistant who was clearly unable to recognize the ‘Queen of All Media’ passed a highly racist comment at her. Answering Oprah’s question she said, ‘No, you don’t want that one, you want this one, because that one will cost too much.’ She then went about showing another cheaper handbag to Winfrey. Enraged at the audacity of the shop assistant, she stormed out of the boutique and tweeted about her experience. She has spent her entire life defying norms and breaking stereo-types. Be it about body-shamming or ostracisms of the society towards people of color, she has strongly condemned both. Despite having endured a lot of hardships, she carved a niche for herself in the world of media and is one of the greatest black philanthropists in America. The incident became the talk of the town and the media was busy churning out versions of Oprah’s story, many demanding apology from the staff member at Trois Pommes. The Swiss tourist board, wrote to Oprah and expressed their regret over the ‘terribly wrong, behavior of the woman. But Winfrey said, "It's not an indictment against the country or even that store. No apologies necessary from the country of Switzerland.

"If somebody makes a mistake in the United States are we apologizing for the whole country? No!"

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.

Oprah Winfrey

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

Oprah Winfrey

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

Greatness Attitude Change Time
Oprah Winfrey

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.

Zeal Power Energy
Oprah Winfrey

Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.

Women Greatness
Oprah Winfrey

I don't believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.

Oprah Winfrey

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

Birthday Life
Oprah Winfrey

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

Life Adventure
Oprah Winfrey

Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.

People
Oprah Winfrey

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.

Motivation People Time
Oprah Winfrey

I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.

Life Love Opportunities Fear
Oprah Winfrey

Turn your wounds into wisdom.

Wisdom
Oprah Winfrey

When I look into the future, it's so bright it burns my eyes.

Eyes Future
Oprah Winfrey

You become what you believe, not what you think or what you want.

Oprah Winfrey

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.

Friendship People
Oprah Winfrey

Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.

Strength Struggles
Oprah Winfrey

For everyone of us that succeeds, it's because there's somebody there to show you the way out.

Oprah Winfrey

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.

Truthfulness
Oprah Winfrey

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

Oprah Winfrey

Every day, you're only as good as your last show.

Good
Oprah Winfrey

What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.

Oprah Winfrey

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.

Racism Excellence
Oprah Winfrey

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

Oprah Winfrey

Being human means you will make mistakes. And you will make mistakes, because failure is God's way of moving you in another direction.

Oprah Winfrey

I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes.

Oprah Winfrey

You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you're responsible for the energy that you bring to others.

Energy
Oprah Winfrey

I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.

Girl Good Age
Oprah Winfrey

You CAN have it all. You just can't have it all at once.

Oprah Winfrey

You can either see yourself as a wave in the ocean or you can see yourself as the ocean.

Oprah Winfrey

You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.

Success
Oprah Winfrey

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.

Life Excellence
Oprah Winfrey

The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.

Power Truth Fear
Oprah Winfrey

I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

Opportunities Groundwork Good Fortune
Oprah Winfrey

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.

Chance Right
Oprah Winfrey

My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with.

Greatness Heaven
Oprah Winfrey

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.

Life Experience Learning
Oprah Winfrey

The struggle of my life created empathy - I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.

Life Love Struggles
Oprah Winfrey

My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you I the best place for the next moment.

Life
Oprah Winfrey

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

Right
Oprah Winfrey

Every stumble is not a fall, and every fall does not mean failure.

Fall
Oprah Winfrey

It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control.

Understanding Feelings
Oprah Winfrey

My first day in Chicago, September 4, 1983. I set foot in this city, and just walking down the street, it was like roots, like the motherland. I knew I belonged here.

Walking
Oprah Winfrey

The challenge of life, I have found, is to build a resume that doesn't simply tell a story about what you want to be, but it's a story about who you want to be.

Life
Oprah Winfrey

I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.

Life
Oprah Winfrey

I always knew I was destined for greatness.

Greatness
Oprah Winfrey

If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.

Understanding Fame
Oprah Winfrey

Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.

Greatness Power
Oprah Winfrey

If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit.

Life Goals
Oprah Winfrey

So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.

Fall World
Oprah Winfrey

I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.

Life Courage Things
Oprah Winfrey

When you forgive somebody, it doesn't necessarily mean you want to invite them to your table.

Oprah Winfrey

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.

Time
Oprah Winfrey

Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.

Life Past Power
Oprah Winfrey

What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people's lives.

Life People Success
Oprah Winfrey

If you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.

Good
Oprah Winfrey

Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself.

Wisdom
Oprah Winfrey

No matter who we are or what we look like or what we may believe, it is both possible and, more importantly, it becomes powerful to come together in common purpose and common effort.

Effort
Oprah Winfrey

With age comes the understanding and appreciation of your most important asset, your health.

Age Appreciation Understanding Health
Oprah Winfrey

You're either humble or you're not. If you were a jerk before the fame, you just become a jerk with a bigger spotlight. Whoever you are really comes through.

Fame
Oprah Winfrey

What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.

Love Work Rest
Oprah Winfrey

It's much easier for me to make major life, multi-million dollar decisions, than it is to decide on a carpet for my front porch. That's the truth.

Life Truth
Oprah Winfrey

Even if you flippin' fries at McDonald's, if you are excellent, everybody wants to be in your line.

Oprah Winfrey

I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school, and our life the classrooms.

Life School Earth World
Oprah Winfrey

I know that inner wisdom is more precious than wealth. The more you spend it, the more you gain.

Wealth Wisdom
Oprah Winfrey

Money is worth nothing if it can't buy you the opportunity to love more.

Love Money Opportunities
Oprah Winfrey

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

Age World Freedom
Oprah Winfrey

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

Responsibility
Oprah Winfrey

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.

Oprah Winfrey

I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier.

Oprah Winfrey

Don't let people talk you into what they think is you.

People
Oprah Winfrey

When you're the most successful person in your family, in your neighborhood, and in your town, everybody thinks you're the First National Bank, and you have to figure out for yourself where those boundaries are.

Family
Oprah Winfrey

My whole reason for creating a network is literally to bring little pieces of light. It's to continue to spread little pieces of light in the world, to illuminate the possibility of the human spirit.

Reason Spirit World Light
Oprah Winfrey

I remember a specific moment, watching my grandmother hang the clothes on the line, and her saying to me, 'you are going to have to learn to do this,' and me being in that space of awareness and knowing that my life would not be the same as my grandmother's life.

Life
Oprah Winfrey

You are who you are at this moment because of everything that's ever happened to you, everything that you carried forward for yourself.

Oprah Winfrey

If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages - not to mention the myth of Icarus - predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure.

Law
Oprah Winfrey

Even people who believe they deserve to be happy and have nice things often don't feel worthy once they have them.

People
Oprah Winfrey

You alone are enough.

Oprah Winfrey

That's the gift that a mother can give, to make everyone feel like they are the special one.

Oprah Winfrey

Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.

Love
Oprah Winfrey

Your job is not just to do what your parents say, what your teachers say, what society says, but to figure out what your heart calling is and to be led by that.

Society Heart Parents
Oprah Winfrey

Look at how hard it was to get to where I am. It doesn't make sense to give it up.

Oprah Winfrey

My therapy has come from paying attention to my life.

Life
Oprah Winfrey

Acting is about going into the space, and there are just some places that I'm not willing to go.

Acting Space
Oprah Winfrey

I'm sick of people sittin' in chairs stating their problems. Then we roll the videotape... then we have our experts on the topic... I'm in the 'What's next?' phase of my career.

People Problems
Oprah Winfrey

When you think about growing and being empowered yourself, it is what you've been able to do for other people that leaves you the fullest.

People
Oprah Winfrey

I had become so accustomed to succeeding that I no longer even remembered what it was like to fail.

Oprah Winfrey

The goal of my shows, my interviews, my business, my philanthropy, all of it, whatever ventures I might pursue, would be to make clear that what unites us is ultimately far more redeeming and compelling than anything that separates me.

Business
Oprah Winfrey

It does not matter how you came into the world, what matters is that you are here.

World
Oprah Winfrey

Most people honestly want to do as well as they can in their lives.

People
Oprah Winfrey

I always feel that until you take your last breath, you're always growing.

Oprah Winfrey

I think people who have good parents come into the world with a strength, yes, and an advantage.

Good People Strength World
Oprah Winfrey

I try to basically keep my opinions to myself when it comes to people who are charged with crimes that I don't know anything about.

People
Oprah Winfrey

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.

People Women
Oprah Winfrey

I'm not even kind of a lesbian.

Oprah Winfrey

To me, the money is - it's certainly a wonderful thing. But it is in direct proportion to how you're able to bless yourself and bless others with it.

Money
Oprah Winfrey

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