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Leymah Gbowee Quotes

born 1972 Liberia

Leymah Roberta Gbowee (born 1 February 1972) is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 that led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, the first African nation with a female president. In 2011, she was one of three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Liberia
Activists

Random Leymah Gbowee quote

27 quotes

Women bring the human side of the conflict on the table.

Regardless of whom you pray to, during war our experiences as a community and as mothers are the same.

If any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers.

If you’re coming to be an activist because you want to make money: NO!

"All across Africa, even in the midst of the deepest and darkest civil war, women are still proving that we can hold communities together."

I work with many young people and their commitment to improvement is the greatest resource we cannot afford to squander.

My hope is that we will see less and less conflicts in our world, but that women will not have to consistently make cases for why they’re necessary for peace, for justice, for politics.

Women are the ones that bear the greatest burden. We are also the ones who nurture societies.

The prize has provided me a global platform to broaden the conversation about war, peace, and stability.

Dealing with youth is a demographic nightmare but also a demographic dividend.

Unrest and disillusionment conspire to weaken peace and security.

Education must be connected to opportunities in the job market.

Women and girls have always been affected by war. The Nobel Peace Prize has helped all of our efforts to define true peace—one that is not only the absence of war but is inclusive of opportunity.

Youth by nature are energetic and curious. It is up to us—the adults, the leaders in the public and private sector—to channel that energy and curiosity positively.

It's not the vices that we live through that define who we are.

Your passion is the fuel or the vehicle. Your anger is the fuel that you need to move from one point to the other.

I am a local girl with a global platform. The prize has led to the recognition that women play a pivotal role in peacebuilding at the grassroots level.

Liberia has given me a lot and the war took so much away.

My hope is that girls and women never have to know the effects of war or the absence of peace in their lives—that they can invest in themselves because there is a future that will recognize their talents and provide an outlet for their contributions.

The problem of youth unemployment is a destabilizing factor. But it is not all bleak. Youth breeds optimism.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Leymah Gbowee (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.