Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

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.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

People are looking for something a little more stable; people are feeling like they need to get closer to God.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be?

I still consider it a summer job, though. So, I try to maintain that summer job as long as I can. But it’s exciting to be able to have the opportunity to do things I always dreamed of as a kid.

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.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don’t live angry, let go now!

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

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

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

I don’t mind people hating me, because it pushes me.

You can’t put your feet on the ground until you’ve touched the sky.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

At the end of the day, I understand that life has road blocks, and life is like school – you’ll be tested; we gotta pass it.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go.

Sometimes, you might meet somebody that you love that’s turning into a ‚they.‘ My key is invite them to Miami and take them to the ocean and let them jump off the boat in the ocean, on the sand bar, and cleanse off and pray and then go take a shower, and hopefully the ‚they‘ is out of you.

I used to have insecurity about my finances, then I announced that I had debt, and now I don’t have any insecurities.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

I was so rude when I was a little girl.

I think I’ve developed, as many people do, this sense of, ‚Don’t say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.‘

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

It definitely has learning a lesson about the way you’re living your life. I wouldn’t compare our movie to that, but it has a structure where it’s about a man who doesn’t appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?

I don’t think I’m an unlucky person.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.