Michelle Obama

The times when Barack and I are at our most relaxed are when we invite some friends over who we have known forever. And you put a little music on top of that? Some good food? It renews your spirit to get back in the game.

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.

My number one daily habit is to give myself permission to be happy. It’s physical and mental; it’s my diet, physical activity, and emotional state. That’s all tied together.

At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

Just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who think diffenrently…

We have no guns – we have only stones, boxes of matches and petrol. Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country.

The internet provides access to an extraordinary range of information, opinion, and interpretation. But as with any source, it is useful to the extent that it is used with discrimination and insight.

Going to war creates a legacy of bitterness and problems, let us be a force for change in the world, a force for humanity in the world, a force for peace in the world, and a force that recognizes we can not go on like this, with grotesque levels of global inequality, grotesque threats to our environment all around the world, without the rich and powerful governments stepping up to the plate to make sure our world becomes safer and better — and those people don’t end up in poverty, in refugee camps, wasting their lives away.

In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered; national traditions, differences in nation and culture are being erased.

As in the past, the costs and risks of the coming phases of the industrial economy were to be socialized, with eventual profits privatized …

We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.

Edward Bernays’ next famous achievement was Guatemala. He took over, at the request of the United Fruit Company, public relations activities to try to lay the basis for the U.S.-backed invasion, which destroyed an experiment in Guatemalan democracy…

You cannot put Russia down on its knees and hold it there because Russia will ultimately pull out.

The Russian people and Russian culture are the linchpin, the glue that binds together this unique civilization.

[on Bill and Hillary Clinton] Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.

I would like to stress here that a lasting peace in the Chechen republic and so-called peace talks with the bandits are not the same thing, and I would ask everyone to make no mistake about that.

History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.

Scholars per se do not have deeper political insights than other persons and are not morally superior to others. But they are obligated to help politicians seek and find the truth.

The production of souls is more important than the production of tanks…. And therefore I raise my glass to you, writers, the engineers of the human soul.

There will come a day, I promise you, when the thought of your son, or daughter, or your wife or your husband, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner than later.