One of the criticisms I've faced over the years is that I'm not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow, because I'm empathetic, it means I'm weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.

Jacinda Ardern

Ed Koch will never 'rest in peace.' That was not his way. He was always nervously squirming, while making others squirm as well. Comfort was not his goal. He understood that to be a proud and assertive Jew meant never being able to leave a sigh of relief and say, 'It's over, we are at peace, we can now put down our guard and relax.'

Alan Dershowitz

Women are a little more assertive in terms of our ability to express our feelings when we fall in love.

Alicia Machado

Ironically, while many of us spend hours every day using small mobile devices to increase our productivity and efficiency, interacting with these objects, even for short periods of time, might do just the opposite, reducing our assertiveness and undermining our productivity.

Amy Cuddy

If you are going to have to play defense all the time, you cannot have the kind of ingenuity, assertiveness, independence, and intelligence which is what has made our country strong.

Arlen Specter

I don't even really see sit-ins and marches as passive. I see them as quite assertive. I see those as emotionally aggressive tactics. I see people putting their lives on the line and being bold and brave.

Ava DuVernay

I was very shy and withdrawn as a child, but people know me as these assertive women. They are not me.

Bea Arthur

Reasonable people can disagree about the authorities the NSA should have, when it's appropriate for the CIA to use drone strikes, and how assertive U.S. foreign policy and intelligence should be.

Benjamin Wittes

If you are going to take away war toys, then what are you to replace them with? Children need to feel courageous, brave, and assertive. They need to feel strong; that is the purpose of their play.

Brian Sutton-Smith

I need to learn to be more assertive.

Brooke Elliott

I think naturally, if you're an actor, there's a high level of assertiveness that you need to have to survive this business. There's boldness in being assertive, and there's strength and confidence.

Bryan Cranston

Using the word 'bossy' for girls can be quite harmful. What is that saying - that being focused, being assertive, being the boss has a negative attribute? And I have heard that term associated more with women than with men. 'He's so bossy' - you don't hear that. It's a very subtle thing.

Bryce Dallas Howard

My generation of bossy, confident, baby-boom women were something brand new in history. Our energy and assertiveness weren't created by Betty Friedan, unknown before her 1963 book, or by Gloria Steinem, whose political activism, as even the Lifetime profile admitted, did not begin until 1969.

Camille Paglia

The North American intellectual tradition began, I maintain, in the encounter of British Romanticism with assertive, pragmatic North American English - the Protestant plain style in both the U.S. and Canada, with its no-nonsense Scottish immigrants.

Camille Paglia

There are a lot of negotiators that really will give in on a deal because being understood is more important than getting what they want. And there's a particular type in particular, the assertive negotiator: being understood is actually more important to them than actually making the deal.

Christopher Voss

Russia's assertiveness in global affairs is something I look upon with great concern, which we need to address with eyes wide open and a healthy degree of skepticism.

Dan Coats

Centenarians tend to be assertive, suspicious, and practical.

David Shields

An assumption underlying almost all comments on interruptions is that they are aggressive, but the line between what's perceived as assertiveness or aggressiveness almost certainly shifts with an interrupter's gender.

Deborah Tannen

Germany's path to greater military assertiveness has not been linear, and it never will be. Germans do not believe that talking at roundtables solves every problem, but neither do they think that shooting does.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Very quickly, I discovered I did not have what it takes to be a good crime reporter: I was too unassertive and a little bit wimpy. It was very clear that was not what I was going to do, but I loved journalism, and I'm the daughter of a film professor, and my mom taught reading.

Gillian Flynn

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it's too assertive to the naked eye.

Gordon Ramsay