You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

I didn’t want to become a professor or get tenure or teach or anything. All I wanted to do was get a degree because Louis Leakey said I needed one, which was right, and once I succeeded I could get back to the field.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

Earth might one day soon resemble the planet Venus.

People have told me, ‚You shouldn’t bring your daughter onto the podium, ‚cause it’s the workplace,‘ and things like that. But I’m not gonna really listen to that. I’m gonna do what I think is fun for me and my family, and everything’ll be all right.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.

I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church – things like that – I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria – when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

When I first stopped going to high school, I was about 15, 16. It had to be, like, 2000, 2001.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

After my first year of college, each course I took in every field was so boring that I didn’t even go to the classes.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

I just use fashion as an excuse to talk about politics. Because I’m a fashion designer, it gives me a voice, which is really good.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

Not one person can make or break what I’m doing, except me or God.

Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Racism and sexism, misogyny and homophobia, they’re so visible. They’re out in the open. When they’re visible, it’s a lot easier to deal with them.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

A lot of dumb pictures have made a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be anything cinema students will revel over in the future.

Democracy is not static. It is a living force. Every new idea, every new invention offers opportunity for both good and evil.

I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.

He who is brave is free.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

For me, education has never been simply a policy issue – it’s personal. Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in the neighborhood where I grew up went to college. But thanks to a lot of hard work and plenty of financial aid, I had the opportunity to attend some of the finest universities in this country.

Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge – the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.

Those 62 million girls who are not being educated around the world impact my life in Washington, D.C., in the United States of America. Because if we aren’t empowering and providing the skills and the resources to half of our population, then we’re not realizing our full potential as a society, as mankind.

Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.

Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

Who will take responsibility for raising the next generation?

We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,‘ he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. ‚Shake it off. Stop complainin‘. Stop grumblin‘. Stop cryin‘. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

I was terrible in English. I couldn’t stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention – it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody’s ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the ‚n‘ word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren’t pretty or they weren’t rich or they weren’t clever.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don’t need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.

It was because the chimps are so eye-catching, so like us and teach us so much that my work was recognised worldwide.

Over the holidays, and even during filming, I realized that I actually like my body, even if it’s not perfect according to the book. I just feel sexy. For the first time, I don’t want to get rid of the curves. I just want to tone it up. My body is comfortable, and it’s not unhealthy, so I’m going to rock with it.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.