100+ Gay Inspiring Quotes to Empower and Celebrate Authenticity

"Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

- James Baldwin

"There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s a lot wrong with the world you live in."

- Chris Colfer

"When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free."

- Barack Obama

"It is absolutely imperative that every human being’s freedom and human rights are respected, all over the world."

- Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

"When I was younger, I wish I would have been told more often that I was right and nothing was wrong with me, that I was deserving of everything this world has to offer, and that my visions for my future were worthy of pursuit."

- Janet Mock

"Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard."

- Harvey Milk

"Every single American — gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender — every single American deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of our society. It’s a pretty simple proposition."

- Barack Obama

"All men are created equal. No matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words."

- Harvey Milk

"It takes no compromise to give people their rights… It takes no political deal to give people freedom."

- Harvey Milk

"Equality means more than passing laws. The struggle is really won in the hearts and minds of the community, where it really counts."

- Barbara Gittings

"I want to make sure that any young person or anyone really who is looking up to me—who sees a glimpse of I am as a person—that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I’m truly unabashed about the person that I am."

- Samira Wiley

"I once worried that there was no place for trans people like me to participate in any way in our politics. Since coming out, though, I’ve seen that change is possible and I’ve learned that the only things that are truly impossible are the things we don’t try. You can run, you can win and you can serve."

- Sarah McBride

"Putting yourself out there is hard, but it’s so worth it. I don’t think anyone who has ever spoken out, or stood up or had a brave moment, has regretted it. It’s empowering and confidence-building and inspiring. Not only to other people, but to yourself."

- Megan Rapinoe

"There’s no right or wrong way to be gay. No right or wrong way to come out. It’s your journey, do it the way you wanna do it."

- Tan France

"I’ve never met a gay person who regretted coming out—including myself. Life at last begins to make sense when you are open and honest."

- Ian McKellen

"I want people to fall in love with themselves and to be really proud and full of joy for the space they take up. If someone else appreciates the space you take up, then that’s icing on the cake."

- Jonathan van Ness

"It takes a little bit of bravery to step out, to be like, okay, I don’t look like anybody else around here. I am making the conscious decision to present myself the way I want to today."

- Hunter Schafer

"The more I accept myself as a genderless human being, in a way, the more I’m loving my body."

- Sam Smith

"If a transvestite doesn’t say I’m gay and I’m proud and I’m a transvestite, then nobody else is going to hop up there and say I’m gay and I’m proud and I’m a transvestite for them."

- Marsha P. Johnson

"I’m telling the world who I am so that I never get the chance to forget."

- Halsey

"It still strikes me as strange that anyone could have any moral objection to someone else’s sexuality. It’s like telling someone else how to clean their house."

- River Phoenix

"Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it's a good place to start."

- Jason Collins

"I am tired of hiding, and I am tired of lying by omission."

- Elliot Page

"Being born gay, Black, and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, Black female is."

- Lena Waithe

"You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all."

- James Baldwin

"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."

- Bob Parris

"I believe that no one should ever have to choose between a career we love and living our lives with authenticity and integrity."

- Selisse Berry

"We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love. That’s okay."

- Laverne Cox

"I am a strong, black, lesbian woman. Every single time I say it, I feel so much better."

- Brittney Griner

"When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him."

- Bayard Rustin

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."

- Harvey Fierstein

"The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well."

- Cassandra Duffy

"I'm not missing a minute of this. It's the revolution!"

- Sylvia Rivera

"There's nothing wrong with you. There's a lot wrong with the world you live in."

- Chris Colfer

"It takes no compromise to give people their rights… it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression."

- Harvey Milk

"A long time ago I asked myself, ‘Do I want to be right, or do I want to be kind?’. I opted for kind."

- Jane Lynch

"If you're not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities — the expression of love — then life itself loses its meaning."

- Harvey Milk

"Life is about finding yourself, embracing your strengths and weaknesses, and being true to who you are."

- Oprah Winfrey

"We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity."

- George Takei

"All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more — and no less — heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century."

- Tammy Baldwin

"I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act."

- Janet Mock

"To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true."

- Bayard Rustin

"All human beings deserve equal treatment, no matter their gender identity or sexuality."

- Andreja Pejic

"With ignorance comes fear, from fear comes bigotry. Education is the key to acceptance."

- Kathleen Patel

"The only queer people are those who don’t love anybody."

- Rita Mae Brown

"Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that’s it. We’re all people. We’re all equal."

- Connor Franta

"No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us."

- Marsha P. Johnson

"Married is a magic word. And it is magic throughout the world. It has to do with our dignity as human beings, to be who we are openly."

- Edith Windsor

"It’s just really important that we start celebrating our differences. Let’s start tolerating first, but then we need to celebrate our differences."

- Billie Jean King

"Folks who were willing to endure bullying and taunts, and stayed strong, and came to believe in themselves and who they were, and slowly made an entire country realize that love is love."

- Barack Obama

"The love expressed between women is particular and powerful because we have had to love in order to live; love has been our survival."

- Audre Lorde

"Love is never wrong."

- Melissa Etheridge

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."

- Angela Davis

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

- E.E. Cummings

"When you put love out in the world it travels, and it can touch people and reach people in ways that we never even expected."

- Laverne Cox

"We struggle and fight for our joy — an unreserved and unapologetic joy that springs from our ability to live as we are. It’s a joy worth fighting for and it’s this joy that links all of our struggles together."

- Lady Phyll

"Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do."

- Brené Brown

"We are powerful because we have survived."

- Audre Lorde

"It takes no compromise to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression."

- Harvey Milk

"Who you are is beautiful and amazing."

- Laverne Cox

"We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets."

- Harvey Milk

"We are all one — and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way."

- Bayard Rustin

"I’m not missing a moment of this — it’s the revolution!"

- Sylvia Rivera

"We declare that human rights are for all of us, all the time: whoever we are and wherever we are from; no matter our class, our opinions, our sexual orientation."

- Ban Ki-moon

"To realize a world of equality and dignity for all, we will have to change laws and policies; we will also have to change hearts and minds."

- Rick Parnell

"Fears are not facts."

- Chaz Bono

"Accept no one’s definition of your life, define yourself."

- Harvey Fierstein

"If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself."

- Zanele Muholi

"Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start."

- Jason Collins

"We deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise."

- Elliot Page

"Courage is one thing that no one can ever take away from you."

- Chris Colfer

"The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them, ‘A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.’"

- Brenda Howard

"Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?"

- James Baldwin

"While as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible."

- Anderson Cooper

"That nothing here is promised, not one day. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. Now fill the world with music, love and pride."

- Lin Manuel Miranda

"Family belongs to community, and community takes its cues from family. We need to go back to real community engagement that sees us as people. We need to take back our lives by engaging our families and educating our communities."

- Beverley Ditsie

"Remember what things make you special and embrace those because there are so many things that aren’t on the outside that are so important and people find so beautiful."

- Miley Cyrus

"The world has caught up with me and I’m a living witness that dreams do come true, even if they aren’t the ones you start out with."

- Billy Porter

"When I dare to be powerful — to use my strength in the service of my vision — then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

- Audre Lorde

"I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our superpowers — every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it."

- Lena Waithe

"The next generation is so far advanced over us ... I love that a lot of younger people now come out that would never have come out in the old days. Of course, they are born into a community already. They just have to discover it, whereas we were still building it."

- Edith Windsor

"How many years has it taken people to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race?"

- Marsha P. Johnson

"Progress is unimaginably difficult, dangerous, always at risk, always made by people with only partial vision."

- Larry Kramer

"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."

- Audre Lorde

"For me, the transgender thing is the reality of my life. It’s the reality of my existence and it’s something that I’ve come to believe is beautiful about me."

- Laverne Cox

"When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important."

- Ellen DeGeneres

"A lot of my work is to stay grounded, is to stay spiritual. It is to disconnect from what other people say about me, but also to try and be connected to the joy and the love."

- Laverne Cox

"I see your true colors shining through / I see your true colors and that’s why I love you / So, don’t be afraid to let them show / Your true colors / True colors are beautiful / Like a rainbow."

- Cyndi Lauper

"There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are."

- Tammy Baldwin

"It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist."

- Laverne Cox

"Do not allow people to dim your shine because they are blinded. Tell them to put on some sunglasses, because we were born this way."

- Lady Gaga

"Hope will never be silent."

- Harvey Milk

"There will always be enemies. Time to stop being your own."

- Larry Kramer

"Gender is who you are, and sexuality is who you want."

- C.N. Lester

"Where there is love, there is life."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"

- Ernest J. Gaines

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace."

- Amelia Earhart

"History isn’t something you look back at and say it was inevitable. It happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities."

- Marsha P. Johnson

"It’s about finding your values, and committing to them. It’s about finding your North Star. It’s about making choices. Some are easy. Some are hard. And some will make you question everything."

- Tim Cook

"We’re all different in many ways and alike in many ways and special in some sort of way."

- Larry Kramer

"No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed."

- Billie Jean King

"What I liked about the rainbow is that it fits all of us. It’s all the colors. It represents all the genders. It represents all the races. It’s the rainbow of humanity."

- Gilbert Baker

"The richness, beauty and depths of love can only be fully experienced in a climate of complete openness, honesty and vulnerability."

- Anthony Venn Brown

"You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights."

- Marsha P. Johnson

"When are doing something that is right, you just do it and take care … someone has to do this."

- Alice Nkom

"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers."

- Bayard Rustin

"Nature made a mistake which I have corrected, and I am now your daughter."

- Christine Jorgensen

"I am a firm believer that you don’t achieve greatness on your own. There is always someone there to lend a hand."

- Greg Louganis

"Darling, I want my gay rights now."

- Marsha P. Johnson

"Of course, attitudes change, but only because brave people like Ellen [DeGeneres] jump into the fire to make them change. And if I hadn’t seen her on TV, I would have thought, ‘I could never be on TV. They don’t let LGBT people on TV.’ And more than that, I would have gone on thinking that I was an alien and that I maybe didn’t even have a right to be here."

- Kate McKinnon

"Our community is not a monolith, thank goodness, any more than America itself is. I look forward to and will continue to work toward the day when America recognizes all of us as full and equal citizens."

- Cynthia Nixon

"Never has it felt more important for me to tell stories of joy and abandon passion and recklessness. Life is short and difficult, people. We must take our pleasures where we can find them. Let us not become so cautious that we forget to live."

- Elizabeth Gilbert

"The Lord is my Shepherd and he knows I’m gay."

- Troy Perry

"The only queer people are those who don't love anybody."

- Rita Mae Brown

"When you are doing something that is right, you just do it and take care … Someone has to do this."

- Alice Nkom

"Every part of you matters. The world is better when you are your authentic self—bold, beautiful, radiant—on full display. I see every shade of you, and I couldn’t love you more."

- Teju Abiola

"This is for the ones who never gave up. The ones who carried dreams of love bigger than anyone thought possible and who made it possible. The ones who showed up so we could show out, today and every day."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Some people are blind or ignorant, and you can't be that prejudiced and hateful and go through this world and still be happy."

- Dolly Parton

"Love yourself, whatever makes you different, and use it to make you stand out."

- Ross Mathews

"We can climb mountains with self-love. I want to make sure that any young person, or anyone, really, who is looking up to me… that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I'm truly unabashed about the person that I am."

- Samira Wiley

"I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be — and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth."

- Lady Gaga

"At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you're gonna be. Can't let nobody make that decision for you."

- Moonlight (2016)

"toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizen of this country."

- Zachary Quinto

"People used to think I was a monster. And for a long time, I believed them. But after a while, you learn to ignore the names that people call you and you just trust who you are."

- Shrek

"Cut the ending. Revise the script. The man of her dreams is a girl."

- Julie Anne Peters

"Love is infinite."

- Dan Taylor

"We love our way and live our way… and for me, it’s the BEST way."

- Amy Trowbridge-Yates

"Keep rising in your Black queer pride, owning it and bringing enough shine to light up the entire world."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common."

- Dorothy Parker

"The future is filled with all things queer. Because that’s the kind of joy we’re manifesting."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Transformation can feel like a lot to handle, but through every part of the process, remember that you’re so loved, so believed-in, and so rooted-for."

- Sara Quenzer

"Alike in some ways, different in others, but still family… deeply, sweetly family."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"We’re each other’s people."

- Melvina Young

"Nothing warms my heart like community. So glad we have each other."

- Mercedes Lucero

"I love you beyond the binary."

- Jordy Byrd

"Genderful and wonderful."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Take up space. Today and every day."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Here’s to growing a little bit every single day but doing it in your own damn way."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Love getting hyped about all the ways you’re you."

- Sara Quenzer

"Let’s get one thing straight… Just kidding. Let’s be gay!"

- Jordy Byrd

"The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them ‘A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.’"

- Brenda Howard

"Cinnamon rolls, not gender roles. Your amazingness needs no explanation."

- Jordy Byrd

"Why break hearts when you can break binaries?"

- Mercedes Lucero

"You’re wayyyyy too sweet for labels, honey. And I love to see it!"

- Sara Quenzer

"Them: Pick a Side. Us: Por Que No Los Dos? Love the person you are so much, friend."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Our love makes every day a celebration."

- Andrew Blackburn

"Different lives, different stories… Same hope, same love."

- Stacey Donovan

"Queer AF. Just as it should be."

- Jordy Byrd

"Checked my mood ring. Yep, still gay. (It’s my best mood. You understand.)"

- Mercedes Lucero

"Who wants to FIT IN when you can FINESSE. Stay true to you, my friend."

- Mercedes Lucero

"Here, queer, full of pride."

- Radius Burik

"I am the rainbow sheep of my family."

- Drew A. Head

"Live like you."

- Andrew Blackburn

"Sounds gay. I’m in."

- Anna Wenner

"Staying flawless like it’s NBD."

- Mercedes Lucero

"If male homosexuals are called 'gay,' then female homosexuals should be called 'ecstatic.'"

- Shelly Roberts

"Being gay is like being left-handed. Some people are, most people aren’t and nobody really knows why. It’s not right or wrong, it’s just the way things are!"

- Unknown