I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

Within all of us is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that we need and desire.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have.

The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

I don’t do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

You’ll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.

The people who truly know me know what I’m like. There have been people who try to say things that aren’t fair, and I check them. And then they don’t like me because I checked them.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

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

The narrow bandwidth of TV has made us think that we are stupider than we are.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.

I love the attention but I don’t like too much of it.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy – but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that’s how I am guided.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

I’ve learned that we all change constantly. It’s rare to find that person who is growing with you in the same way at the same time, who encourages you to grow.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

Now that I’m a parent, I understand why my father was in a bad mood a lot.

You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

Many people have an intense feeling about what they’re best at. Too often, they’re driven away from it by other people.

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

It has been hard for me to find it, but I have found love.

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.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

They died hard, those savage men – like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

I don’t ever want to be caught up in a system of thinking I can do one thing ‚cos that’s just… that’s just telling yourself a lie.