You don’t have to fear defeat if you believe it may reveal powers that you didn’t know you possessed.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist, but I don’t like girls pretending to be stupid because it’s easier.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

My mother had a saying: ‚Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.‘

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

Apple has given me a platform to spread music. They’re giving us Latinos a chance to shine.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

I will not be triumphed over.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.

The sexiest thing that a woman can do, wear, and say all fall under one word to me: subtlety. To be subtle in the things that she does and the things she says and the things she wears – I appreciate the details.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

God helps those who help themselves.

If I can be a leader, I will.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don’t care what they say, they like it.

The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.

There is no man on Earth or devil in Hell who can keep you from the very best God put in you.

In the duel of sex woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.

Every summer’s mine.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

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.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

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.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men.

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

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.

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.

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary – not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

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.

You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed – you’re not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

I hope that people around the world will be as inspired as I am to step up and to speak out on behalf of girls around the world who struggle to go to school.

Nobody is my boss.

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out.

In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you’re a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that’s so lame.

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

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it.

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy – entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.