Melinda Gates Quotes

A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.

When we invest in women and girls, we are investing in the people who invest in everyone else.

Philanthropy is not about the money. It's about using whatever resources you have at your fingertips and applying them to improving the world.

Women speaking up for themselves and for those around them is the strongest force we have to change the world.

All women, everywhere, have the same hopes: we want to be self-sufficient and create better lives for ourselves and our loved ones.

If we don't empower women, we don't allow them to unlock the potential of themselves and their children.

Connect deeply with others. Our humanity is the one thing that we all have in common.

We have to be careful in how we use this light shined on us.

You are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.

Women and girls should be able to determine their own future, no matter where they're born.

When we invest in women, we invest in a powerful source of global development

Make sure you continue to trust what you know now about yourself and stay true to what you believe in

Deep human connection is ... the purpose and the result of a meaningful life - and it will inspire the most amazing acts of love, generosity, and humanity.

What great changes have not been ambitious?

One life is worth no more or less than any other

Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.

It is still just unbelievable to us that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in the world.

You can't save kids just with vaccines.

Sanitation issues in the developing world affect women more than they affect men.

If you invest in a girl or a woman, you are investing in everybody else.

You can have the best vaccines for a woman or her child, but if you can't get her to come and get them then they won't work.

All lives have an equal value.

I think it's very important that we instill in our kids that it has nothing to do with their name or their situation that they're growing up in; it has to do with who they are as an individual.

Take time to learn about the lives of women around the world-and try to play a small part in their fight to create the future they deserve.

I care much more about saving the lives of mothers and babies than I do about a fancy museum somewhere.

Sometimes it's the people you can't help who inspire you the most.

If you don't have an effective teacher in front of the classroom, you won't change the trajectory for students.

Bill and I both firmly believe that even the most difficult global health problems can be solved.

It's important to remember that behind every data point is a daughter, a mother, a sister—a person with hopes and dreams.

Bill [Gates] and I believe philanthropy can only be effective if it starts things and proves whether they actually work or not. That's the place that governments often don't want to, or can't, work.

Vaccines are a miracle cure. Eight out of 10 children are getting vaccines.

Any social or cultural change has to be made openly and with people agreeing. You don't get there by just pushing an outsider's point of view.

Kids are falling through the cracks and nobody notices it. That to me is what's wrong with the school system.

After a number of years dating, we decided we were good partners.

Our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It’s what propels societies forward.

Women are the centre of the family. It's the woman who decides what's eaten in the house, when to have the kids vaccinated; everything that has to do with the children's health revolves around her.

Birth control has almost completely and totally disappeared from the global health agenda, and the victims of this paralysis are the people of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Microsoft certainly makes products for the Macintosh.

The premise of this foundation is one life on this planet is no more valuable than the next.

When we better understand the realities of these women's lives, we are able to design and deliver solutions that are more useful to them.

We set out what's going to be our work time versus our foundation time versus family time, and we'll reassess that... sometimes every week.

If you can't travel to the developing world, look at helping to fund a woman with a small loan and follow her. Learn her story. Learn about the difference that you're making.

Helping people doesn't have to be an unsound financial strategy.

I'm constantly saying to myself, 'I'm lucky I was born in the United States.

Men make different investments than women do. Women tend to invest more of their earnings than men do in their family's well-being - as much as 10 times more.

Now we just really need to do the work, which we're doing, to get contraceptives out to women worldwide.

If you want to lift up an economy in Africa, you basically start with the women.

I learn in a different way. I learn experientially.

I felt suicidal. I couldn't stop crying. I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great if the car crashed and I died?

I'm wholehearted about whatever I do.