We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

I always entertain great hopes.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

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.

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.

Have you not learned that strength comes to an ordinary soul when given an extraordinary calling?

For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.

I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

I wanted to get a job being creative, and I did.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

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.

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

I just think it’s so important not to take yourself too seriously.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.

Confidence is always a good thing to have going into the weekend. Especially where it’s quite difficult to put the lap together.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

Anything I do, I want to do it well.

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

I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God’s creation, woman, the object of our lust.

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

It’s rare for anyone to value the opinions of a teenage girl.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.

Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.

It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either.

Winning, to me, is easy. Winning more is the challenge.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

I love imperfections.

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

Really, you don’t lose until you stop trying.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don’t want to be a colony in a nation.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

I knew through the surgeries that he was on my side and that this wasn’t something where I was gonna feel less of a woman, because my husband wasn’t gonna let that happen.

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.

You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.

Well done is better than well said.

What someone else does or doesn’t do has no effect on me and what I do.

If you give a person a fish, they’ll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they’ll fish for a lifetime.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.