Michelle Obama

Every day, you have the power to choose our better history – by opening your hearts and minds, by speaking up for what you know is right.

I view myself as being the average woman.

I think every kid needs to get a taste of what it’s like to do that real hard work.

We can never be complacent and think that we’ve arrived now as women. Because I hear this from young women. Some of you young women who aren’t feeling the pains that many of our predecessors have felt – you think, well, there aren’t any problems, women’s rights, we’ve got this all figured out, I’m already equal, I’m good – I’m just like, oh, just you wait, you’ll feel it. So the work continues.

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.

People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

How you gonna win if you ain’t right within?

Wherever there is power there is age.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

The reward of one’s duty is the power to fulfill another.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.