Assertiveness Quotes
Top 20 Assertiveness Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
If I am not for myself who is for me? If I am only for myself what am I? And If not now, when?,
- Hillel the Elder, Jewish religious leader (110BC - 10AD).
No 2
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand up
Never give up the fight.
- Bob Marley (pictured right above) Jamaican reggae musician (from his 1973 song, Get up,
Stand up)
No 3
I’m tired of being shoved.
- Will Kane (Gary Cooper),pictured right, in the 1952 film High Noon
No 4
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
American civil rights campaigner,pictured right
She also says:
Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one
No 5
It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.
- Betty Friedan (1921-2006), pictured
right, American feminist.
No 6
Live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
- Erich Fromm (1900-80),
German-born American psychiatrist and philosopher (pictured right)
No 7
You have the right to say no without feeling guilty
- Manuel Smith, American assertiveness writer
No 8
Everybody born on this earth is somebody, and nobody, no matter what colour, is better than anybody else,
- Mildred D. Taylor (1943- ), American writer, pictured right - Mama (to Cassie) in
Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry.
No 9
There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.
- Martin Luther King (1929-68), pictured
right (supporting the bus boycott in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 - see quote 10)
No 10
The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,
- Rosa Parks (1913-2005), pictured
right (after her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 leading to the bus boycott and the American
civil rights campaign).
No 11
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take
it.
- Malcolm X (1925-65) American civil rights leader,pictured right
The American boxer, Muhammad Ali (1942- ),
pictured right, agrees:
I don’t have to be what you want to be; I’m free to be what I want.
No 12
To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
- Albert Camus (1913-60), French philosopher and writer,pictured right
No 13
The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behaviour affect the
rights and well being of others.
- Sharon Anthony Bower, American assertiveness expert, pictured right
No 14
Assertiveness is not what you do, it’s who you are.
- Shakti Gawain (1948- ), American personal development expert, pictured right
No 15
Happiness and self-confidence come naturally when you feel moving and progressing toward becoming the very best
person you can possibly be.
- Brian Tracy (1944- ), Canadian personal development expert (pictured right)
No 16
Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American humanitarian and diplomat
(pictured right)
No 17
Never say the yes you don't mean, but the no you always meant.
Carol Rumens (1944- ) British poet, pictured right
No 18
It is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one
person.
- R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect, engineer and inventor,pictured
right.
No 19
Here I stand; I can do no other.
- Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian, pictured right (stating his opposition to the
Roman Catholic Church at the Diet of Worms in 1521).
No 20
An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which
goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.
- Simone Weil (1909–43), French philosopher, pictured right
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