Essence Shares Their Top 7 Inspirational Quotes

"Becoming a wife and a mother, specifically a mother, really taught me so much. I remember clearly wanting to remove the negative energy around me quickly...Doing it for this new soul made sense to me. And then that evolved into realizing that if it’s not really feeling like the right thing for me…if it’s not feeling really good, I’m not going to do that. I used to say yes to everything. I think I started to learn about boundaries for myself and creating space for myself and allowing there to be an ending. I started to understand the difference of, like, if it’s flowing, it’s flowing. If it’s not flowing, go back tomorrow. It’s okay. You don’t have to force it."

"My parents helped me and they hurt me...I was surrounded by beautiful dark people. And then middle school hit, and I was like, ‘Oh, they think I’m ugly.’ They think I’m big. They think I’m unattractive. I went back to my mom like, ‘What the f—k?! Y’all lied to me my whole life. What is this?!...Learning that early on made me realize there’s no point in valuing the physical, because it wasn’t going to get me anywhere.”

"That’s why it’s so important to marry somebody that you respect. It’s important to marry somebody who is your equal, and to marry and be with somebody who wants you to win as much as you want them to win...My husband is my teammate. If we are going to win this game together, he has to be strong and he has to be OK with me being strong. I do not want a weak player on my team, nor does he.”

"As Diana Ross’s child, you wonder whether you will become anything in your own right. So it was a really big moment to go from being on the cover of ESSENCE with my mom to having my own cover. Now I’ve had three on my own and one with my mom. That’s crazy! I feel a little humbled by that, knowing I have truly filled my own shoes—and maybe even had to buy a couple of new pairs at times. There are people who have no idea that my worth is not based on my mom or what I look like. There’s a wholeness to me that I cherish."

"They showed up when they knew I couldn’t and that’s what life requires," Hall said of her friends last February at ESSENCE's Black Women in Hollywood awards. "I couldn’t even have this moment if I didn’t have the people who have been in my life enabling me to sustain the times that have been difficult, that have been doubtful, the heartbreaks.”