Sheryl Sandberg Women Quotations

I look forward to the day when half our homes are run by men and half our companies and institutions are run by women. When that happens, it won't just mean happier women and families; it will mean more successful businesses and better lives for us all.

As women get more powerful, they get less likable. I see women holding themselves back because of this, but if we start talking about the success-likability penalty women face, then we can do something about it.

I'm a pragmatist. I think, as a woman, you have to be more careful. You have to be more communal, you have to say yes to more things than men, you have to worry about things that men don't have to worry about. But once we get enough women into leadership, we can break stereotypes down. If you lead, you get to decide.

I believe if we had half our companies and half our countries run by women, and half our homes run by men, things would be better. We know our companies would be more productive. If you use the full talents of the population, you're more productive. We know our homes would be happier.

Women are not making it to the top of any profession in the world. But when I say, 'The blunt truth is that men run the world,' people say, 'Really?' That, to me, is the problem.

Every company I know is looking for more women at the table. Every board is looking for more women at the table. There's a reason why men want to understand the challenges women face, address them, because then they're going to be better hirers, attracters and retainers of women.

Every woman I know, particularly the senior ones, has been called too aggressive at work. We know in gender blind studies that men are more aggressive in their offices than women. We know that. Yet we're busy telling all the women that they're too aggressive. That's the issue.

I'd worked on leprosy and malaria in India [at the World Bank] and asked myself the question: Why do we let 2 million children die every year around the world for not having clean water? Because they're faceless and nameless. So, for me, Facebook looked like it was going to solve the problem of the invisible victim.

I just believed. I believed that the technology would change people's lives. I believed putting real identity online - putting technology behind real identity - was the missing link.

The things that hold women back, hold them back from sitting at the boardroom table and they hold women back from speaking at the PTA meeting.

In those same 10 years, women are getting more and more of the graduate degrees, more and more of the undergraduate degrees, and it's translating into more women in entry-level jobs, even more women in lower-level management. But there's absolutely been no progress at the top. You can't explain away 10 years. Ten years of no progress is no progress.

We've ceased making progress at the top in any industry anywhere in the world . In the United States, women have had 14% of the top corporate jobs and 17% of the board seats for 10 years. Ten years of no progress.

Endless data show that diverse teams make better decisions. We are building products that people with very diverse backgrounds use, and I think we all want our company makeup to reflect the makeup of the people who use our products. That's not true of any industry really, and we have a long way to go.

I spent most of my career, including my time at McKinsey, never acknowledging that I was a woman. And, you know, fast forward - I'm 43 now - fitting in is not helping us.

When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated, and ambitious.

Everyone knows that marriage is the biggest personal decision you make, but it's the biggest career decision you can make.

I am saying that I was able to mold those hours around the needs of my family, and that matters. And I really encourage other people at Facebook to mold hours around themselves.

You know, there has never been a 24-hour period in five years when I have not responded to e-mail at Facebook. I am not saying it's easy. I work long hours.

Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder.