We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God – my daughter to my country.

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

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

I pity the fool who just gives up.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.

A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.

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 was a fighting machine with a will of iron.

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.

I think if you follow anyone home, whether they live in Houston or London, and you sit at their dinner table and talk to them about their mother who has cancer or their child who is struggling in school, and their fears about watching their lives go by, I think we’re all the same.

When we trust God more than our feelings, it confuses the devil. I mean, when he throws you his best shot and he can’t budge you from believing God, he won’t know what to do with you anymore.

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Sikhs. I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Christians. All the citizens, all the voters, are my countrymen.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens.

True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education.

We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

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.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what they had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

You’ve got to learn to survive a defeat. That’s when you develop character.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same.

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Our inquiring friends and neighbors not of our faith can also catch the wave. We encourage them to keep all that is good and true in their lives. And we invite them to receive more, especially the glorious truth that through God’s eternal plan, families can be together forever.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

A president can ask for reconciliation in the racial conflict that divides Americans. But reconciliation comes only from the hearts of people.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

My sisters are stronger and my brother’s bigger than me.