Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

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.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

When you face a ‚performance‘ that might provoke the ‚I’m scared‘ response, choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God. It’s more fun than ‚Dancing with the Stars!‘

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

I think I have always had a little humor.

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

Only the shallow know themselves.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.

It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children. I know, because for many years my life was not peaceful, and I was miserable.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‚always do what you are afraid to do.‘

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

I’m tender on the inside.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

I was a bit challenged when I was younger to stay on the right path.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

Over the years I’ve learned how to lock myself up in a prison of hope, knowing that God has nothing but His best planned for me. He promised me things concerning my ministry and my life.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria – when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

My life is my argument.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

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.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it’s not like I am hopeless.

There’s definitely going to be things that I’m not very good at, things I can improve.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.