We all know and love Emma Watson from her days acting as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter Films, but she has come a long way since the series ended in 2011. She went to Brown University, became a UN ambassador for Goodwill, and was on the Times Most Influential list in 2015. She’s now a feminist icon, goddess of sustainable and ethical fashion, and all around the badass living unapologetically and authentically. We can all always use some life advice, so here are our favorite Emma Watson quotes for a bit of a pick-me-up!
“Women and girls have always faced hurdles. But that’s never stopped us. We’ve sacrificed, fought, campaigned, succeeded, been knocked back, and succeeded again. In a race for justice, we’ve leapt over countless obstacles to win our rights.”
Life is hard, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t fight back and stand up when challenges come your way. Sometimes self-advocating can feel like an uphill battle, but you are stronger than everything that opposes you. You’ve made it through hard times before and you’ll make it through the hard times to come!
“It’s a journey and the sad thing is you only learn from experience, so as much as someone can tell you things, you have to go out there and make your own mistakes in order to learn.”
I’m one of those people that really wants to have everything figured out like, yesterday. I hate not knowing what the outcome is going to be before I start something and I wish my life came with a manual. But that’s not how life is, and the sooner you embrace the journey (including all the chaos and unknowns), the sooner we’re going to learn how to live our best lives.
“I just try and surround myself, for the biggest proportion of time that I can, with people who make me feel normal, because constantly feeling abnormal is quite difficult.”
We all need people in our lives to support us. Life gets tough, and it’s easy to feel like you don’t fit in or are making wrong choices. But, it’s so much easier to navigate when we have people around us that are actively loving us through it all.
“I’m excited about the aging process. I’m more interested in women who aren’t perfect. They’re more compelling.”
Aging feels scary to a lot of us — especially in today’s culture where the young and beautiful are revered as perfect. But this goes hand and hand with embracing life as a journey: there are so many things to discover, and aging is part of participating more fully in the amazing things ahead.
“I’ve always been like that; I give 100 percent. I can’t do it any other way.”
Sometimes you have to give 100% to get 100%, and it’s no different for famous figures like Emma than for us. We all have to find something that drives and motivates us onwards. And the more that we push forward, the more that we’ll reap the benefits. Even though 100% doesn’t always look the same because of your season of life, giving yourself fully to your goals is going to reap huge benefits.
“I don’t want other people to decide who I am. I want to decide that for myself.”
This one hits close to home for me: I’m often afraid of what other people think of my life and my decisions, so I don’t always do the things I think I should or that make me feel most alive. But that’s not a full life; it’s just sad. We all need to learn to free ourselves from what others expect our lives to look like and embrace our lives — and ourselves — as they actually are.
“This isn’t just, ‘girls are better than boys, boys are better than girls.’ This is just, ‘everyone deserves a fair chance.’”
I don’t know about you, but I like it when things are fair, but fairness is a long way off for a lot of people right now. Sometimes when you push for equality, it can feel threatening to others. But that doesn’t mean that we should give up advocating for ourselves and others who deserve to be equal. Life should be more fair, and we all can exercise influence in our own circles to accomplish that.
“If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are, we can all be freer.”
It’s easy to focus on what we’re not: we’re not successful enough, we’re not beautiful enough, we’re not rich enough — you name it. There are always going to be things in life that we don’t have enough of and that make us feel like we’re lacking. And feeling lack is always going to keep us stuck until we can start to see all the ways that we are enough. And once we can begin to see that, a whole world of possibilities is going to open up.
“If you truly pour your heart into what you believe in, even if it makes you vulnerable, amazing things can and will happen.”
I dislike vulnerability as much as the next person — it’s scary to put yourself out there. What if I fail? What if that person rejects me? You get the picture. But, if we never pour the inner parts of ourselves fully into what we believe, we’re never going to get the most out of them. Meaning requires vulnerability, and even though it’s scary, it’s going to make life even more wonderful.
“I’m happy to be single, I call it being self-partnered.”
There’s a lot of pressure to have your life figured out by a certain age, and it’s easy to feel like you’ve failed if you aren’t achieving goals by that “correct” timeline. But the “correct” timeline won’t guarantee happiness in your life. Being self-partnered might not be for everyone, but everyone can strive to love themselves and where they are in life. Ditching the expectations of society and how you “should” live your life is going to fulfill you a lot more than trying to have everything figured out on someone else’s schedule.
Feeling inspired to live more authentically and boldly? Let us know which Emma Watson quotes spoke to you in the comments!
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