Michelle Obama

I was the most productive when I was in a flex situation. Do not check for me for needless meetings.

Always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

[on the 2016 election] When the most qualified person running was a woman, and look what we did instead, I mean that says something about where we are. That’s what we have to explore, because if we as women are still suspicious of one another, if we still have this crazy, crazy bar for each other that we don’t have for men… if we’re not comfortable with the notion that a woman could be our president compared to… what, then we have to have those conversations with ourselves as women.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

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.

No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.

Liberty is not merely one particular value…it is the source and condition of most moral values. What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.

The message will be very, very clear that we are campaigning to defend and extend workers rights and trade union rights in Britain.

I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.

One who views Latin America today [1981] might well assume that Hitler had won the war, though in fact it is American liberalism that a bears a major responsibility for the plague of terror and torture regimes that often mimic the Nazis.

There are still independent newspapers and magazines, they do exist. But as for television, the situation is not as good. It’s one of the main problems. I would say, as regards the development of democracy, of democracy laying down roots – that is something that Russia still needs to address.

Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.

There should be no unemployment. There is large percentage of labor now which cannot make a living because wages are not high enough. That is industry’s 2nd job. 1st job is to make good product. 2nd pay a good wage.

Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship.

As yet we do not plan to withdraw these forces. But I direct your attention to the fact that I did not call these bases by any other name – I called them bases. We are not building long-term military structures there and if we need to, we could withdraw our military personnel very quickly, without incurring any financial losses.

People apply for a job, are asked to work for three or four weeks on probation and are then told to go and are replaced by colleagues. There are shops even in the West End [of London] using large numbers of totally unpaid staff on a permanent basis.

The world is changed by idealists.

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

The financial industry, that means Goldman Sachs, if managed properly, will calculate the potential cost to itself if a loan goes bad, but not the impact on the financial system, which can be severe. This inherent deficiency of markets is well known.

Take Spain. It was admitted into the European Community with some conditions, one of which was that it is to be what is pretty openly called a ‘barrier’ to these hordes of North Africans who the Europeans are afraid are going to flock up to Europe. It’s a narrow distance.