Cicely Tyson

“Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.”

“The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.”

“I am not a quitter. I will fight until I drop. It is just a matter of having some faith in the fact that as long as you are able to draw breath in the universe, you have a chance.”

“I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards.”

“I have learned that you cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.”

“Age is just a number. Life and aging are the greatest gifts that we could possibly ever have.”

“I'm very selective about what I do. I have to be, because of what I stand for.”

“Whatever you want to do, do it with integrity.”

“You don't have to be what you are, you can be what you want to be.”

“I don't think you can measure wealth in dollars and cents. I really don't. I think wealth is measured in the hearts and minds of the people that you touch.”

“I am a woman who has been blessed with a sense of purpose.”

“The legacy I want to leave behind is that I was a woman who was true to her word, that I was a woman who was not afraid to speak her mind, and that I was a woman who was not afraid to be who she was.”

“I am the character. I am not a character actress. I am a character who is an actress.”

“One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don’t want anybody to walk ahead of me and I don’t want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me.”