Michelle Obama

Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.

So early in our lives we are shushed. And not just directly shushed but sometimes in our lives we’re treated too preciously. We may have a father that loves us and treats us like a doll. They don’t treat us like real beings and equal partners.

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.

I always said to myself, this would be really hard if I were 20 or 30. That’s why I look at these young celebrities, and I just feel for them, because you have to be grown up enough to know yourself in this. And that just takes time.

My daughters are the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood.

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.

Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, young and old shared just a little of what he is good at doing.

[Moving to the West] was a culture shock. I had never seen cereal before! We had cottage cheese and pancakes in Russia, not colorful circles that came in cardboard boxes.

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance.

Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Common sense needs to be more common.

You must demand nothing less than the best of yourself and for yourself. You must tell yourself that it is not wrong to want it all.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.

We all wish to live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance, poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us.