Michelle Obama

People in the beauty community don’t like copycats, so I think it’s important to stay true to who you are and people will stay your customer.

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.

When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.

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.

Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.

[on the 2016 election] In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and how we think. What is going on in our heads where we let that happen, you know?

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one is content with that lot of which he has chosen or which chance has thrown his way, but praises those who follow a different course?

We’re comic. We’re all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.

All diseases run into one, old age.

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

We judge of man’s wisdom by his hope.

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

Better see rightly on a pound a week than squint on a million.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

When you know better, you do better.

What is easy is seldom excellent.