Mary J. Blidge, dubbed “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul,” is widely known as a singer who is credited with combining hip-hop and soul to create an extraordinary sound. She is also an actress and philanthropist. Born in 1971 to an alcoholic mother and a father suffering from post-Vietnam PTSD, Blidge has overcome a great deal to become famous.
Blidge had a difficult childhood. She was sexually abused and was often tormented in school. Blidge dropped out of school before she graduated from high school, and is largely self-educated. She has become a widely-known influencer for those who have suffered and shows them they can overcome their pasts.
An extraordinary woman, she is a multi-platinum recording artist and popular actress. Her influence has changed many lives and empowered women across America and Europe. We have selected 45 of her most inspiring quotes with the hope that you will find daily inspiration for your life.
- “I don’t know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It’s up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.”
- “Love is wonderful, amazing, and the best thing that can happen to us.”
- “Really, every woman is an example to me, because as women we go through so much pain. We have to live this perfect life when we are messed up inside. We all go through trials and tribulations.”
- “You either learn from your experiences or go back and do the same thing, and I learned from my experiences.”
- “My responsibility to God is to live. That’s the gift he gave me. What I do with it is up to me.”
- “Believe in yourself when nobody else does.”
- “Negative words are powerful boomerangs so be careful what you say about people and yourself.”
- “If you’re looking for inner peace from the outside world, you’re not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside. Understanding that everything that comes to you is what you are. Everything from friends to boyfriends to the job you get – it’s all a direct reflection of what you are on the inside.”
- “You demand respect and you’ll get it. First of all, you give respect.”
- “When you tell your truth, you are coming from a real place, so you are automatically a leader.”
- “You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, But you will love me later because I told you the truth.”
- “There’s so many things that life is, and no matter how many breakthroughs, trials will exist and we’re going to get through it. Just be strong.”
- “In your life there’s peaks and valleys and sometimes we regress, and we don’t even know we regress. You just have to learn how to accept all of your mistakes and learn to love yourself again.”
- “It hurts when you have to smile and you don’t want to smile, but the best thing to do is to smile.”
- “You can look at my palm and see the storm coming. Read the book of my life and see I’ve overcome it.”
- “When you come from so many damaged places you don’t ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.”
- “God loves me and sent his son to die for me so I have to live to please him because he saved me when everyone abandoned me.”
- “So as long as I’m a human being and I’m not perfect, I’m able to say I’m having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, ‘Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?’ Yes, I’m going to make a mistake. Yes, I’m still gonna do things.”
- “I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.”
- “In the inner city, there’s a mentality that the government owes you something. My breakthrough came when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took responsibility for every part of my life. No more pity parties. I’ve gotta love me more than anybody else loves me.”
- “The important thing is to realize that no matter what people’s opinions may be, they’re only just that – people’s opinions. You have to believe in your heart what you know to be true about yourself. And let that be that.”
- “You can’t get around pain and opposition, but you can try to be joyful in the trial and thank yourself for the trial, and thank God for the strength to get through it.”
- “I used to think I was ugly. I thought I looked like a camel. A person who doesn’t love themselves, they will see anything that pops up on their face. I’ve seen squirrels, I’ve seen a bird, and I’ve seen all kinds of animals on my face. But that is the result of self-hate. I’ve learned to say: ‘You know what? I am a beautiful black woman’.”
- “It’s that first step-getting out the door-that’s the toughest. If you can do that, you’ve already won.”
- “No one compares to you. Just remember that. There’s no one out there – there’s only one of you, and that’s it. And whatever you believe about you that’s great, no one else has it. And I can’t look like you, there’s no way I can slip into your body and be you, and you can’t slip into my body and be me. This is all we’re gonna get.”
- “I like to do interior design, I love to quilt, I love to see different colors together, and I love to match things up.”
- “I don’t listen to people’s opinions. I have people around me who I can trust, but most of all I listen to myself.”
- “I’m on my way to a place where I’d never dreamed I’d be, and that’s perfection.”
- “You know a lot, but you don’t know everything.”
- “My journey continues, because I’ve, you know, conquered a lot. And I know how to conquer the rest.”
- “I had to learn how to trust my gut. Trust what I know to be right… not right, but not waver on who I am. Know who I am, know what I want, and know it. Not waver on it and be secure in that. And I still struggle with it. But I really… I can’t be moved. You can’t move me, and that all comes with loving myself, and I’m like my best buddy.”
- “I wish I had known that education is the key. That knowledge is power. Now I pick up books and watch educational shows with my husband. I’m seeing how knowledge can elevate you.”
- “As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me – Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.”
- “Thank you so much for supporting me from the day I stepped foot into the music industry. It really means something to me to have Maya Angelou speak on my behalf. It also means a lot to have Oprah on my speed dial!”
- “No one intimidates me because I’m not trying to do what you do, because I can’t do what you do. I can only do what Mary J. Blige can do, so that relaxes me right there, and it gets me out of the competition and that whole thing.”
- “Life is full of trials and tribulations. It’s dramatic when you don’t treat people right when you’re in the tribulations, but I know now how to get out of it. You have to make a decision to say ‘No more’, and then you know what to do when the trials happen.”
- “I cannot save the world; that’s not what I’m trying to do. I guess I’m just trying to walk the walk and be an example to those that want it. Not everybody does, but if Mary J. Blige can come out of that same hole you were in, then you can do it, too – that’s my goal: to do that without saying it, but actually live it.”
- “From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I’m speechless right now because I never thought I’d – I never ever – I couldn’t even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business, I couldn’t see that.”
- “Everything is scary if you look at it. So you just got to live.”
- “Just don’t let the hype of what people are saying and how much they love you, y’know, just take the compliment and be thankful that people are complimenting you, but don’t let it consume you; don’t let your circumstances around you and the way people view you make you act a certain way.”
- “We are all just a work in progress.”
- “I’ve done well, I’ve been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It’s the music business. You are a business. That’s what they do. So you’ve got to protect yourself.”
- “I believe there should be no more drama, but it’s everywhere you go. It’s just about how you get out. You’ve gotta bob and weave because it’s everywhere. How do I keep the drama low? It’s about using your head.”
- “One day I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere by blaming other people for my circumstances. I finally understood: Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free.”
- “Music makes us want to live. You don’t know how many times people have told me that they’d been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That’s the power music has.”
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Mary J Blidge Video – Be Without You
This is one of Mary’s most popular videos. Definitely worth a watch if you have read this far!
Summary
Mary J. Blidge is an incredible woman who followed her bliss and found herself and her connection to all of humanity. A strong and courageous woman, Blidge has inspired women to overcome their pasts and become extraordinary people.
We hope you will use these quotes to inspire you to face your demons and overcome them.
Image Credit: Mikamote, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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