Michelle Obama

When I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

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.

How hard you work matters more than how much you make.

Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.

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

I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of being in the room?

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

Your dreams may have shattered, but that doesn’t mean they are over. They can still be turned into a mosaic of success.

Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

He hates chess. He says it is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something clever when they are only wasting their time.

Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.

Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid of.

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.

Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.