Michelle Obama

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

It was sort of important for us not to deal with a specific policy change, or a specific sort of approach, but to deal with cultural change.

Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.

I want someone with the proven strength to persevere, someone who knows this job and takes it seriously, someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters.

The times when Barack and I are at our most relaxed are when we invite some friends over who we have known forever. And you put a little music on top of that? Some good food? It renews your spirit to get back in the game.

You know, it’s the silliness in me. It has always been there. I love to make people laugh. It comes from my family. My family is funny.

The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

Don’t order any black things. Rejoice in his memory; and be radiant: leave grief to the children. Wear violet and purple. Be patient with the poor people who will snivel: they don’t know; and they think they will live for ever, which makes death a division instead of a bond.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is – Let there be truth between us two forevermore.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

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

You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.

We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.