Quotes by Iyanla Vanzant

About Iyanla Vanzant:

Iyanla Vanzant is an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, life coach and television personality. She is known primarily for her books, for her eponymous talk show, and for her frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She can currently be seen on television as the host of Iyanla, Fix My Life, and as a frequently featured guest teacher of Oprah's Lifeclass on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid 'no' muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it's our choice. Your 'no' muscle has to be built up to get to a place where yo...

Iyanla Vanzant

All of us have ways in which we mask and cover our pain.

Iyanla Vanzant

Comparison is an act of violence against the self.

Iyanla Vanzant

When you gossip, it's self-hexing. Because when you do it, it comes back to you. Everything starts with the word. The word is demonstrating a condition of the mind. If it's in your mind and comes out of your mouth, it will be created.

Iyanla Vanzant

Gossip is when you have a malice of intent or mindless, third-party conversation to someone about someone, something you haven't said to that someone.

Iyanla Vanzant

You've got to know what your 'thing' is, and you've got to call it a 'thing,' whether it's meanness, nastiness, un-forgiveness, arrogance, ego, resistance, rebelliousness or defiance. Everybody's got a 'thing,' and once you call your 'thing' a 'thing...

Iyanla Vanzant

We know how to be doctors, nurses, lawyers. We know how to be tweeters. We know how to be everything. But how do you just be people? How do you be present with one another? How do you be honest with one another? How do you be compassionate towards on...

Iyanla Vanzant

I came from nothing. I came from the projects and welfare and ended up a millionaire with no frame of reference. I was bound to hit a wall sooner or later.

Iyanla Vanzant

You know that you've healed an issue when you can talk about it and you're not weeping, when you can speak to it and identify the lesson. You know that you've healed an issue when, having gone through that, has a benefit that you live today.

Iyanla Vanzant

One of the ways that people avoid taking responsibility for their role in their own pain is what I call the BPs - blame and projection.

Iyanla Vanzant

A stable and nurturing childhood is essential for the healthy psycho-emotional and spiritual development of a human being. While we may understand what is supposed to happen to us physically, we must begin to better understand what happens to childre...

Iyanla Vanzant

At birth, we are like cartilage - soft, flexible tissue. By the same natural process by which cartilage becomes hard bone, the soft, tender heart of an innocent child can become hardened by the circumstances into which she is born.

Iyanla Vanzant

I knew all of the childhood prayers I uttered on my knees at the side of my bed. Many years of Sunday-school attendance had etched certain Psalms and rote prayers into the fibers of my brain. However, somewhere deep inside of me, I had the secret bel...

Iyanla Vanzant

Be willing to share all of who you are. So many of us want a partner, but we're not willing to show all of us.

Iyanla Vanzant

You know when I was 20 and 30, they were insecurities. Now they're just a new normal. I'm 60 years old, so my expectations of who I am and how I look and how I show up in the world had to shift. Not because I couldn't help it, or not because I did an...

Iyanla Vanzant

If you're not willing to let your partner see your cellulite or know your biggest fears, then you aren't really ready to share yourself.

Iyanla Vanzant

Everybody's got a 'thing.' Some 'things' are nice and quiet. Some 'things' have fangs and claws. Some 'things' stink and have slobber everywhere.

Iyanla Vanzant

I'm really not that fierce.

Iyanla Vanzant

I grew up in the Holiness Church, where prayer was an event.

Iyanla Vanzant

Talk about your negative experiences with the father, with your girlfriends. Not with your children. And bite your tongue when it comes to diminishing, denying, dismissing, name-calling.

Iyanla Vanzant

Oprah Winfrey gives you the stage? Shut your mouth. I said, 'I'm sorry for taking over your show.' She said, 'No, that's why we have you here.'

Iyanla Vanzant

Author Bio

  • NameIyanla Vanzant
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornSeptember 13, 1953
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionMotivational Speaker