55 inspirational Pride Month quotes from LGBTQ luminaries

Prepare your rainbow flags — it's time to celebrate Pride.

Pride Month, which takes place each June, commemorates the history and activism of the LGBTQ+ community.

Whether you identify as LGBTQ+ or consider yourself an ally, there are a plethora of ways to get involved during Pride Month. You can read books by LGBTQ+ authors, attend a local Pride parade, volunteer with LGBTQ+ nonprofits, and blast your Pride playlist while doing all of the above.

Pride Month honors the bravery of LGBTQ+ luminaries of the past and present who fought for a more open, accepting, and courageous world.

If you haven't had the chance to brush up on your LGBTQ+ history, Pride Month is the perfect time to start.

Read up on important advocates like Harvey Milk, an openly gay California politician, and transgender rights activist Sylvia Rivera, who paved the way for future generations to continue campaigning against hate and homophobia.

Despite opposition, LGBTQ+ trailblazers continue to fight for justice. This month and every month, take some time to elevate, listen to, and learn from the words of the LGBTQ+ community.

From activists like Milk and Rivera to famous figures like Elton John and Miley Cyrus, here are 55 inspiring Pride Month quotes from LGBTQ+ celebrities, writers, thought leaders, and allies.

Pride Month Quotes

• “To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.” — Bayard Rustin

• “It takes more than a sign, a fabulous outfit or a month of parades. Pride has to resonate from within; shine out to everyone around you. It has mean something to you and only you first before you announce it to the world.” — Solange Nicole

• “I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer. And the more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows and the more I thrive.” — Elliot Page

• “If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself.” — Zanele Muholi

• “With ignorance comes fear, from fear comes bigotry. Education is the key to acceptance.” — Kathleen Patel, “The Bullying Epidemic”

• “We’re not supposed to conform, we’re not supposed to be like somebody else, we’re not supposed to act like somebody else — and as long as you stay true to exactly who you are, you will be rewarded in ways that you can’t imagine.” — Ellen DeGeneres

• “The world has caught up with me and I’m a living witness that dreams do come true, even if they aren’t the ones you start out with.” — Billy Porter

• “How many years has it taken people to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race?” —Marsha P. Johnson

• “We have to do it because we can no longer stay invisible. We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.” — Sylvia Rivera

• “If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities — the expression of love — then life itself loses its meaning.” — Harvey Milk

• “Equality means more than passing laws. The struggle is really won in the hearts and minds of the community, where it really counts.” — Barbara Gittings

• “We are powerful because we have survived.” — Audre Lorde

• “Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour--and in the oddest places!--for the lack of it.” — James Baldwin

• “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” — Harvey Fierstein

• “We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” — Bayard Rustin

• “If you’re part of a group that’s called "other" — a group that does not get the chance to be center stage — build your own stage, and make them see you. Your queerness is beautiful, your Blackness is beautiful, your compassion, your understanding, your fight for people who may be different from you is beautiful.” — Beyoncé

• “When you put love out in the world it travels, and it can touch people and reach people in ways that we never even expected.” — Laverne Cox

• “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” — Brené Brown

• “I am not gay, but if I were, I would be the first one running out of the closet.” — Dolly Parton

• “This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.” — Elliot Page

• “It still strikes me as strange that anyone could have any moral objection to someone else’s sexuality. It’s like telling someone else how to clean their house.” — River Phoenix

• “I think being gay is a blessing, and it’s something I am thankful for every single day.” — Anderson Cooper

• “This community has fought and continues to fight a war of acceptance, a war of tolerance and the most relentless bravery. You are the definition of courage, do you know that?” — Lady Gaga

• “Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I’ve ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.” — Sir Ian McKellen

• “A big part of my pride and my identity is being a queer person. What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level.” — Miley Cyrus

• “Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned.” — Sylvia Rivera

• “Being born gay, Black and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, Black female is.” — Lena Waithe

• “The more I accept myself as a genderless human being, in a way, the more I’m loving my body.” — Sam Smith

• “There’s no right or wrong way to be gay. No right or wrong way to come out. It’s your journey, do it the way you wanna do it.” — Tan France

• “Gender and sexuality are so fluid. It’s OK to change your mind a million times and figure out what works for you. It’s OK to take your time.” — Amandla Stenberg

• “Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start.” — Jason Collins

• “Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected.” — Christine Jorgensen

• “I’m not missing a minute of this. It’s the revolution!” — Sylvia Rivera

• “You don't have to be gay to be a supporter, you just have to be human.” — Daniel Radcliffe

• “We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love. That’s okay.” — Laverne Cox

• “It’s time we love people for who they are and let them love who they want.” — Ellen DeGeneres

• “After a long internal journey, you now embrace being gay, recognizing it as a wonderful and integrally important component part of the totality that is you.” — Neil Patrick Harris

• “I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence and community.” — Janet Mock

• “I want to make sure that any young person or anyone really who is looking up to me—who sees a glimpse of I am as a person—that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I’m truly unabashed about the person that I am.” — Samira Wiley

• “But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice.” — Casey McQuiston, “Red, White & Royal Blue”

• “We must remember that our greatest strength is in our love of life and colors, beauty and music, dancing and joy. That is our secret weapon. That is something that the opposition does not have. Keep those things near and dear to your heart because in times of war that will sustain you.” — RuPaul Charles

• “We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity.” — George Takei

• “I want people to fall in love with themselves and to be really proud and full of joy for the space they take up. If someone else appreciates the space you take up, then that's the icing on the cake.” — Jonathan Van Ness

• “Follow your gut and don’t feel like you owe any sort of explanation to anyone. Your sexuality is yours only so build with it at a pace that works for you.” — Daya

• “The whole issue of sexuality is so gray. I’m just trying to acknowledge that fluidity, that grayness, which has always existed. But maybe only now are we allowed to start talking about it.” — Kristen Stewart

• “There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now OK to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are.” — Senator Tammy Baldwin

• “As anyone who is gay will confirm, being that way is not something you become, it is a set of emotional and physical responses that just are.” — Lance Loud

• “You are the ultimate power and you have never been so visible in the world! And that beautiful light and that rainbow is shining all around you. Stand in it. Bask in it. Allow yourself to glow in it as we grow. Take that spotlight, it belongs to you.” — Lady Gaga

• “We deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame, and without compromise.” — Elliot Page

• “No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.” — Alice Walker

• “It’s wonderful to be gay. I love being gay. I really do. And I think I wouldn’t have had the life I’ve had if I hadn’t been gay. And I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud that I can appreciate that.” — Elton John

• “It’s always wrong to hate, but it’s never wrong to love.” — Lady Gaga

• “It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.” — Laverne Cox

• “This month I think of as a celebration, as time for us to just be happy and to live. But I always think about the work afterwards and how long it’s going to take, and I think that’s not only up to the LGBTQAI youth and LGBTQAI+ individuals, but it’s up to our allies, too.” — Michaela Jaé Rodriguez

• “Hope will never be silent.” — Harvey Milk

This article was originally published on TODAY.com