Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the “Queen of All Media”, she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently North America’s only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, saying she was raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred 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 and became internationally syndicated.
On True Friendships | 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.
Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher.
On Passion | Your true passion should feel like breathing; it’s that natural.
The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.
Forgive, Forget and Move On | You are responsible for your life. You can’t keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on.
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
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.
Difficulties come when you don’t pay attention to life’s whisper. Life always whispers to you first, but if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later you’ll get a scream.
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
One if the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.
You aren’t your past, you are probability of your future.
True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”
On Courage | 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.
You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.
Everything happens for a reason, even when we are not wise enough to see it. When there is no struggle, there is no strength.
The Meaning of Life | The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.
The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
On Hard Work | The big secret in life is there is no secret. Whatever your goal. You can get there if you’re willing to work.
On Mindset | If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
The Difference Between Good And Great | I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.
On Education | “Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.”
On Wealth | 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.
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.
You can have it all. Just not all at once.
Dealing With Doubt | Whatever you fear most has no power–it is your fear that has the power.
Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others.
On Being a Good Person | Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.
Only make decisions that support your self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth.
When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.
