Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

I think I’m like most people – we fear the unknown and the things that have yet to come to pass, which are the very things that don’t deserve to be feared. When you give God complete control, it’s very hard not to be fearless.

Be not a slave of words.

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn’t done in life. They wish they hadn’t kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

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.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

Prayer doesn’t just change things – it changes us. If we are diligent in seeking God, slowly and surely we become better people.

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

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

I’m crazy and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

I always thought it was wrong for me to take credit for the work that I did. I don’t think that anymore.

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.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

I do understand it’s not easy to run an I-league club. I have been part of many and I know the scene.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

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

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

When I was younger, I felt pressure to become someone else once I became successful.

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

The one thing about the business of entertainment is that you have to learn patience.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that’s horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

Everything I learned I learned from the movies.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

Start a part-time business and make as many mistakes as you possibly can while you still have your daytime job.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don’t know nothing. I mean, that’s my life lesson.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

I don’t concern myself with award. I’d been to the party enough times to know it really didn’t matter.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

The same thing I did in 2013 is what I’m trying to do in 2014, which is continue to improve, continue to shock people. You know, I have several projects coming up between 2014 and 2015, and hopefully by 2015, I’ll have another hour of stand-up material where I’ll be able to go on the road and tour again.