You may be familiar with those quotes, but seldom can you associate these quotes with those outstanding women behind them, not to mention the great work they did.

    “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”

—Anne Frank (1929 — 1945)

    Hiding from the German forces, Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, was gifted a diary by her father when she was 13. However, her diary was published after her death in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15. The diary served as a unique eye-witness account of life during Holocaust (mass murder of about six million Jews during World War II) and it became one of the world's most read books.

    “Not all of us can do great things• But we can do small things with great love.”

—Mother Teresa (1910 — 1997)

    Mother Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner (1979), aimed at looking after those children who had nobody to look after them through her own order “the Missionaries of Charity”. She worked tirelessly towards her goal until her ill-health forced her to step down in March 1997, after which she took her last breath in September 1997.

    “If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.”

—Margaret Thatcher (1925 — 2013)

    Margaret Thatcher was loved and hated equally for some of her policies but she never compromise (妥协). She was known as “the Iron Lady” for her leadership style. From being a grocer's daughter to graduating from Oxford University to becoming a banister, she went on to become Britain's first and to date, only female Prime Minister elected in 1979 and the country's fifth longest serving leader.

    “I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.”

—Rosa Parks (1913 — 2005)

    Also known as “the first lady of civil rights”, Rosa Parks was a pioneer of civil rights in a racially segregated Alabama in 1950s. In 1955, she refused to give away her seat to a white passenger in a bus, disobeying the bus driver's orders. This act of hers sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott that crippled the state capital's public transport system.