45 Empowering Malala Yousafzai Quotes About Education and Women Power

Quotes from Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai quotes on education

Malala Yousafzai Quotes - Photo by @Malala from Twitter

• Malala Yousafzai quotes one child

"One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world." 

• “Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow." Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.”

• “Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons.”

• “He believed that lack of education was the root of all of Pakistan’s problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected.”

• “The Taliban could take our pens and books, but they couldn’t stop our minds from thinking.”

• “When someone takes away your pens you realize quite how important education is.”

• “Outside his office my father had a framed copy of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to his son’s teacher, translated into Pashto. It is a very beautiful letter, full of good advice. “Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books…But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside,” it says. “Teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.”

• “One year ago I left my home for school and never returned.”

• "Why is it, that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard?" 

• "There is no greater weapon than knowledge and no greater source of knowledge than the written word." 

• "With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism." 

• "A city without books, a city without a library is like a graveyard."  

Malala Yousafzai quotes from I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

Malala Yousafzai Quotes - Photo by @Malala from Twitter

• “I reassured my mother that it didn’t matter to me if my face was not symmetrical. Me, who had always cared about my appearance, how my hair looked! But when you see death, things change. “It doesn’t matter if I can’t smile or blink properly,” I told her. “I’m still me, Malala. The important thing is God has given me my life.”

• “We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.”

• “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”

• “Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.”

• “We human beings don't realize how great God is. He has given us an extraordinary brain and a sensitive loving heart. He has blessed us with two lips to talk and express our feelings, two eyes which see a world of colours and beauty, two feet which walk on the road of life, two hands to work for us, and two ears to hear the words of love. As I found with my ear, no one knows how much power they have in their each and every organ until they lose one.”

• “My mother always told me," hide your face people are looking at you." I would reply," it does not matter; I am also looking at them.”

• “I told myself, Malala, you have already faced death. This is your second life. Don't be afraid — if you are afraid, you can't move forward.”

• “Life isn't just about taking in oxygen and giving out carbon dioxide.”

• “I don't want to be thought of as the "girl who was shot by the Taliban" but the "girl who fought for education." This is the cause to which I want to devote my life.”

• “We were scared, but our fear was not as strong as our courage.”

• “I couldn’t understand what the Taliban were trying to do. “They are abusing our religion,” I said in interviews. “How will you accept Islam if I put a gun to your head and say Islam is the true religion? If they want every person in the world to be Muslim, why don’t they show themselves to be good Muslims first?”

Malala Yousafzai quotes about women

Malala Yousafzai Quotes - Photo by @Malala from Twitter

• “If one man can destroy everything, why can't one girl change it?”

• “Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don't think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children.”

• “There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women.”

• “We liked to be known as the clever girls. When we decorated our hands with henna for holidays and weddings, we drew calculus and chemical formulae instead of flowers and butterflies.”

• “In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don’t want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands. But it does not mean that. It means we want to make decisions for ourselves. We want to be free to go to school or to go to work. Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.”

• “I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.”

• “I don't want awards, I want my daughter. I wouldn't exchange a single eyelash of my daughter for the whole world.”

• "I believe in the power of the voice of women." 

• "I am proud to be a girl, and I know that girls can change the world." 

• "Extremists have shown what frightens them most. A girl with a book." 

• “In the future, women, rather than men, will be the ones to change the world.”

Malala Yousafzai leadership quotes

Malala Yousafzai Quotes - Photo by @Malala from Twitter

• "We must believe in the power and strength of our words. Our words can change the world." 

• “If people were silent nothing would change.”

• "I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me, I would not shoot him. This is the compassion I have learned from Mohammed, the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. This the legacy of change I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. This is the philosophy of nonviolence that I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa. And this is the forgiveness that I have learned from my father and from my mother. This is what my soul is telling me: be peaceful and love everyone." 

• "Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow's reality." 

• "It gives a message to people of love... it does not matter what's the colour of your skin, what language do you speak, what religion do you believe in. It is that we should all consider each other as human beings and we should respect each other." 

• "I am stronger than fear." 

• “We are human beings, and this is the part of our human nature, that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands.”

• “You know, my father was a great encouragement for me because he spoke out for women's rights, he spoke out for girl's education. And at that time I said that why should I wait for someone else, why should I be looking to the government, to the army that they would help us? Why don't I raise my voice, why don't we speak up for our rights?”

• “We should not be followers of traditions that go against human rights...we are human beings and we make traditions.”

• “I have a new dream I must be a politician to save this country. There are so many crises in our country. I want to remove these crises.”