Michelle Obama

We should always have three friends in our lives-one who walks ahead who we look up to and follow; one who walks beside us, who is with us every step of our journey; and then, one who we reach back for and bring along after we’ve cleared the way.

When I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

I was probably 10 or 11 when I saw that, and sort of started thinking, ‘You know what? Marriage is an option. Having a family is an option. And going to school and getting your education and building your career is another really viable option that can lead to happiness and fulfillment.

What sometimes is missing for young girls is that so early in our lives we’re shushed. And not just directly shushed. Sometimes we’re treated a little too preciously. They treat us like a doll. They don’t treat us like real beings, equal partners. I was loved early by my father, but I was never so precious that he didn’t think I could be there at the table.

I love my husband, but my girlfriends are my sanity.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

It is easy – terribly easy – to shake a man’s faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man’s spirit is devil’s work.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

He has the deed half done who has made a beginning.

It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?

If you develop rules, never have more than ten.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

I think there’s a great beauty to having problems. That’s one of the ways we learn.