Malala Yousafzai
I want world leaders to choose books over bullets...We can afford to give every girl 12 years of free education. It is absolutely in our power, and when we do, we will realize a whole new world of possibility.Collection: Girl
We have to change this idea that women are only supposed to work in the house... Women should go out and be what they wantCollection: Ideas
We liked to be known as the clever girls. When we decorated our hands with henna for holidays and weddings, we drew calculus and chemical formulae instead of flowers and butterflies.Collection: Girl
As we crossed the Malakand Pass I saw a young girl selling oranges. She was scratching marks on a piece of paper with a pencil to account for the oranges she had sold, as she could not read or write. I took a photo of her and vowed I would do everything in my power to help educate girls just like her. This was the war I was going to fight.Collection: Motivational
We should not wait for someone else to come and raise our voice. We should do it by ourselves. We should believe in ourselves. One day you will see that all the girls will be powerful; All the girls will be going to school. And it is possible only by our struggle; only when we raise our voice.Collection: Girl
I want to just stay focused on my mission. That is to see every girl get the right to education. And I think this is such an important thing that girls get their right to go to school, and we are losing the potential that these young girls have in this region, like Iraq.Collection: Girl
I think everyone makes a mistake at least once in their life. The important thing is what you learn from it. That's why I have problems with our Pashtunwali code. We are supposed to take revenge for wrongs done to us, but where does that end? If a man in one family is killed or hurt by another man, revenge must be exacted to restore nang (honor).Collection: Hurt
Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.Collection: Eastern
Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.Collection: Sky
My father used to say the people of Swat and the teachers would continue to educate our children until the last room, the last teacher and the last student was alive. My parents never once suggested I should withdraw from school, ever. Though we loved school, we hadn't realized how important education was until the Taliban tried to stop us.Collection: Teacher
Pakistanis can't trust. They've seen in history that people, particularly politicians, are corrupt. And they're misguided by people in the name of Islam. They're told: 'Malala is not a Muslim, she's not in purdah, she's working for America.Collection: Names