Michelle Obama

We should always have three friends in our lives-one who walks ahead who we look up to and follow; one who walks beside us, who is with us every step of our journey; and then, one who we reach back for and bring along after we’ve cleared the way.

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.

I always touch people, because I know that there’s a level of anxiety, people are teary or they’re nervous, and I just try to physically hold them and bring them down and say: ‘We’re here. I’m just Michelle.’

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way!

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

Changing the big picture takes time.. and the best things to do is focus on the things that we can make in our lives if we’re doing all that. That becomes the collage of real change.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

You must learn to drink the cup of life as it comes … without stirring it up from the bottom. That’s where the bitter dregs are!

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.

When I feel like dancing, I dance. I don’t care if anyone else is dancing or if everyone else is laughing at me. I dance.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

Talent for talent’s sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.