Michelle Obama

Be passionate about something and lean to that strength.

I will always be engaged in some way in public service and public life. The minute I left my corporate-law firm to work for the city, I never looked back. I’ve always felt very alive using my gifts and talents to help other people. I sleep better at night. I’m happier.

Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you. We realized that being successful isn’t about being impressive, it’s about being inspired. That’s what it means to be true to yourself.

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

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

And let’s be clear: It’s not enough just to limit ads for foods that aren’t healthy. It’s also going to be critical to increase marketing for foods that are healthy.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return.

I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I – if I’m not interested in something, I don’t grasp it.

All the learnin’ my father paid for was a bit o’ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

Studying in countries like China isn’t only about your prospects in the global marketplace. It’s not just about whether you can compete with your peers in other countries to make America stronger. It’s also about whether you can come together and work together with them to make our world stronger. It’s about the friendships you make, the bonds of trust you establish and the image of America that you project to the rest of the world.

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.

Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.

No one will ever get anywhere in this world unless he becomes a teacher, one who can show others how to do things.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop…. I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn’t do it for fifteen.

Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Education… has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

One of the things that make community colleges so special is they do not pick and choose their students – they work with all students.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don’t want to be a master. When I’m learning something, I’m in my element.