My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.
Lupita Nyong'ORead
I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.
Interpretation
True beauty is innate and cannot be obtained through material means.
In this quote, Lupita Nyong'o conveys the profound understanding that beauty is not a physical attribute that one can possess or buy, but rather an inherent quality within oneself. It suggests that embracing and embodying one's true self is the essence of beauty, highlighting the importance of self-acceptance and authenticity over societal standards.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech about self-esteem and self-love.
My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.
[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point.
What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.
That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.
As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.
I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting.
For me, true beauty has nothing to do with wrinkles and everything to do with the fact that my maternal grandmother raised five children just after the war and remained a fighter throughout her life. True beauty is the slick of red lipstick my paternal grandmother would put on before going to church on Sunday.
Beautiful people do not just happen
I'm proud of my wrinkles. They give my face character. As an actress, you mess with that at your peril.
There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.
Unique and different is the next generation of beautiful.
I grew up in a world where a woman who looks like me, with my kind of skin and my kind of hair, was never considered to be beautiful.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.