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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

You alone are enough.

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

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.

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

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

I'm not even kind of a lesbian.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

My therapy has come from paying attention to my life.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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