Sisters, do you realize the breadth and scope of your influence when you speak those things that come to your heart and mind as directed by the Spirit?

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

When I did ‚Bird,‘ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

I’ve always felt heroic about my life… As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn’t think that was the case at all. My parents didn’t treat me as a girl.

You and I, the people of God, have permission to come before the throne of Heaven at any time we will, and we are encouraged to come there with great boldness.

If I have a platform and a voice, I should use it for my people.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

Language is the dress of thought.

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

We live in a day that nobody’s lived in before: where you can touch more people. The message I’ll speak tonight and the message that I speak at home, people in India will hear. It’s just an amazing day.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

When things are going bad, don’t get all bummed out. Don’t get startled; don’t get frustrated. If you can say the word ‚good,‘ guess what? It means you’re still alive. It means you’re still breathing.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

Fashion is here to help make people look very important. If they have good taste and choose what suits them, I give them options on how they can do that. It’s always sexy, and it’s always with the same result: making women look fantastic.

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

Our minds work in real time, which begins at the Big Bang and will end, if there is a Big Crunch – which seems unlikely, now, from the latest data showing accelerating expansion. Consciousness would come to an end at a singularity.

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.

There is no man on Earth or devil in Hell who can keep you from the very best God put in you.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name.

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

I don’t mind living in a man’s world as long as I can be a woman in it.

Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

I defy gravity.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

The movement of search can only be from the known to the known, and all that the mind can do is to be aware that this movement will never uncover the unknown. Any movement on the part of the known is still within the field of the known.

I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.