A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

He who is brave is free.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

I don’t worry about stress. I create it.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

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

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

Contraceptive protection is something every woman must have access to, to control her own destiny.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know – not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that’s kind of different from the information you put in your profile.

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

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.

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

We should not underestimate ourselves, because if lots of individuals go together then we can accomplish almost anything.

Most of us are raised to believe we are ordinary. The anchor of the universe is present in every child. A parent only needs to guide and step aside and let them fulfill their dharma. Help children remember that they can do or be anything.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

I’ve been lucky – all the ads I’ve got, I’ve got to be myself. I haven’t had to act too much or tried too hard to be someone I’m not. I think that’s why people sort of like them. Even the Fastrack ads I did with Genelia.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

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.

A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

The best fashion advice I’d say would be just to do what makes you comfortable and what makes you feel cute, and that’s how you’re gonna look your best ‚cause when you feel your best, everybody else can feel it, too.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

Nobody is my boss.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

I was raised to be independent.

Bring them on.

I have to write because if I don’t get something down then after a while I feel it’s going to bang the side of my head off.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.