60+ Michelle Obama Quotes on Chasing Your Dreams.

Every day, you have the power to choose our better history—by opening your hearts and minds, by speaking up for what you know is right.

I never cut class. I loved getting As, and I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart was cooler than anything in the world.

I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.

Being president doesn’t change who you are – it reveals who you are.

When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, ‘When they go low, we go high.’

I was determined to be someone who told the truth, using my voice to lift up the voiceless when I could and not disappear from people in need.

Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.

Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s the vulnerability that breeds self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear.

How hard you work matters more than how much you make.

Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.

The punches hurt, even if I understood that they had little to do with who I really was as a person.

Success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.

Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an ‘angry black woman.’ I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it ‘angry’ or ‘black’ or ‘woman’?

My job, I realized, was to be myself, to speak as myself. And so I did.

Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.

I knew from my own life experience that when someone shows genuine interest in your learning and development, even if only for ten minutes on a busy day, it matters. It matters especially for women, for minorities, for anyone society is quick to overlook.

You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

Grief and resilience live together.

You don’t really know how attached you are until you move away until you’ve experienced what it means to be dislodged, a cork floating on the ocean of another place.

Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.

Confidence, I’d learned then, sometimes needs to be called from within. I’ve repeated the same words to myself many times now, through many climbs: ‘Am I good enough? Yes, I am.

No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s the power of using your voice. I tried my best to speak the truth and shed light on the stories of people who are often brushed aside.

Focus on what you can control. Be a good person every day. Vote. Read. Treat one another kindly. Follow the law. Don’t tweet nasty stuff.

What I knew from working in professional environments—from recruiting new lawyers for Sidley & Austin to hiring staff at the White House—is that sameness breeds more sameness, until you make a thoughtful effort to counteract it.

Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result

We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.

Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?

The easiest way to disregard a woman’s voice is to package her as a scold.

Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people.

When you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.

I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.

I am so tired of fear. And I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.

You see, our glorious diversity—our diversity of faiths, and colors and creeds―that is not a threat to who we are, it makes us who we are.

Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.

Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, and to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us.

We should always have three friends in our lives. One who walks ahead who we look up to and follow; one who walks beside us, who is with us every step of our journey; and then, one who we reach back for and bring along after we’ve cleared the way.

Bullies were scared people hiding inside scary people.

My father’s life is a testament to that basic American promise that no matter who you are or how you started out if you work hard you can build a decent life for yourself and an even better life for your kids.

Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization. It’s the ugliest kind of power.

There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others.

I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of being in the room?

I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as “us” and “them” – he doesn’t care whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or none of the above…he knows that we all love our country…and he’s always ready to listen to good ideas…he’s always looking for the very best in everyone he meets.

In life, you control what you can.

For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others.

I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values—and follow my own moral compass—then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

We have this window of opportunity; we have a chance to make something real happen. Something possible happens, to live beyond our fear — think about that, and help us. Help lift us up, help us fight this fight to change — transform — this country in a fundamental way…. This chance won’t come around again

Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances.

Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.

For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.

Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses… swapped back and forth and over again.

Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?

Kids wake up each day believing in the goodness of things, in the magic of what might be.

Even if we didn’t end up winning, we were making progress that mattered.

You belong. You matter. I think highly of you.

Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected.

We had no choice but to stay positive and carry on.

Every girl, no matter where she lives, deserves the opportunity to develop the promise inside of her.

If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.

Life was teaching me that progress and change happen slowly.

No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

It challenged me and humbled me, lifted me up, and shrank me down, sometimes all at once.

Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.

There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them.

When I thought I had a good idea about something, I didn’t like being told no.

You don’t have to be somebody different to be important. You are important in your own right.

Most people were good people if you just treated them well.

Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar.

You have to fill your bucket with positive energy—and if you have people hanging around you that are bringing you down and not lifting you up, whether that’s your ‘boo’ or your best friend—you have to learn how to push these people to the side.

Let’s just be clear, you don’t want to be with a boy who’s too stupid to know and appreciate a smart young lady.

The one way to get me to work my hardest was to doubt myself.

When girls are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous.

Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.

No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.

Together, we can help make sure that every family that walks into a restaurant can make an easy, healthy choice.