Michelle Obama Inspirational Quotes

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don't invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.

Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work.

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

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

I've been lucky enough now in my life to meet all sorts of extraordinary and accomplished people - world leaders, inventors, musicians, astronauts, athletes, professors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, pioneering doctors and researchers. Some (though not enough) of them are women. Some (though not enough) are black or of color. Some were born poor or have lives that to many of us would appear to have been unfairly heaped with adversity, and yet still they seem to operate as if they've had every advantage in the world. What I've learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring, stadium-sized collection of critics and naysayers who will shout I told you so at every little misstep or mistake. The noise doesn't go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.

The choice, as he saw it, was this: You give up or you work for change. “What’s better for us?” Barack called to the people gathered in the room. “Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?” It was a phrase borrowed from a book he’d read when he first started out as an organizer, and it would stay with me for years. It was as close as I’d come to understanding what motivated Barack. The world as it should be.

Im not loud, I just have a lot to say

We simply do not allow space in our hearts, minds, or souls for darkness. Instead, we choose faith. Faith in ourselves and the power of hard work. Faith in our God whose overwhelming love sustains us every single day. That's what we choose. We choose love. Our love for our children. Our commitment to leaving them a better world. Our love for our country which has given us so many blessings and advantages. Our love for our fellow citizens: parents working hard to support their kids, men and women in uniform who risk everything to keep us safe, young people from the toughest background who never stop believing in their dreams, some people like so many of you. That's what we choose. And we choose excellence. We choose to tune out all the noise and strive for excellence in everything we do. No cutting corners, no taking shortcuts, no whining. We give 120% every single time. Because excellence is the most powerful answer you can give to the doubters and the haters. It's also the most powerful thing you can do for yourself. Because the process of striving, and struggling, and pushing yourself to new heights, that's how you develop your God-given talent. That's how you make yourself stronger, and smarter, and more able to make a difference for others.

Even when it's not pretty or perfect. Even when it's more real that you want it to be. Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.

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.

All of us believe you belong here,” I’d said to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson girls as they sat, many of them looking a little awestruck, in the Gothic old-world dining hall at Oxford, surrounded by university professors and students who’d come out for the day to mentor them. I said something similar anytime we had kids visit the White House—teens we invited from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation; children from local schools who showed up to work in the garden; high schoolers who came for our career days and workshops in fashion, music, and poetry; even kids I only got to give a quick but emphatic hug to in a rope line. The message was always the same. You belong. You matter. I think highly of you. An economist from a British university would later put out a study that looked at the test performances of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson students, finding that their overall scores jumped significantly after I’d started connecting with them—the equivalent of moving from a C average to an A. Any credit for improvement really belonged to the girls, their teachers, and the daily work they did together, but it also affirmed the idea that kids will invest more when they feel they’re being invested in. I understood that there was power in showing children my regard.

The passion in Michelle words, the idealism of president Obama, the hard work of their parents and their humbles begining in life, things that make me a lot closer to them, will always be a guide for me and also an inspiration.

This was simply my reality. I couldn't be shy or embarrassed about my needs.

...Chúng tôi trồng những bụi dâu và rất nhiều loại thảo mộc khác. Rồi chúng tôi sẽ có gì từ đó? Tôi không biết, cũng giống như tôi chẳng biết điều gì đang chờ chúng tôi phía trước tại Nhà Trắng, những gì chờ đợi đất nước này hay chờ đợi những đứa trẻ đáng yêu đang ở quanh tôi. Khi đó, tất cả những gì chúng tôi có thể làm là đặt niềm tin vào những nỗ lực của mình, tin rằng với ánh mặt trời, mưa và thời gian, cái gì đó hay hay sẽ từ đất vươn lên.

Your story is yours, and it will always be yours. It's yours for the taking!

At 54 I'm still in progress. And I hope that I always will be. For me becoming isn't arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion.

This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on an established path-the my-isnt -that-impressive path- and keep you there for a long time

Pero, con independencia de cómo salieran las cosas, sabía que había hecho bien en hablar de mis necesidades. Tenía la sensación de que decirlo simplemente en voz alta me confería cierto poder.

Si no sales tú a definirte, no tardarán en definirte otros de forma injusta

Para mí, forjar tu historia no consiste en llegar a algún lugar o alcanzar una meta determinada. En vez de esto, lo veo como un movimiento hacia delante, como una forma de evolucionar, de intentar avanzar hacia una versión mejor de nosotros mismos. El viaje no se acaba.

It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. 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. This, for me, is how we become

Ahora el retrato de Barack y el mío están colgados en la National Portrait Gallery de Washington, por lo que ambos nos sentimos muy honrados. Dudo que alguien, al analizar nuestra infancia, nuestras circunstancias, hubiera predicho jamás que acabaríamos en una de aquellas salas. Los cuadros son preciosos, pero lo más importante es que están allí para que los jóvenes los vean, para que nuestros rostros ayuden a desmontar la creencia de que, para ocupar un lugar en la historia, hay que tener un aspecto determinado. Si nosotros hemos llegado hasta allí, muchos otros podrán.

Forjar tu historia requiere paciencia y rigor a partes iguales. Significa no renunciar a la idea de que hay que seguir creciendo como persona.

The ability to read, write, and analyze; the confidence to stand up and demand justice and equality; the qualifications and connections to get your foot in that door and take your seat at that table – all of that starts with education. And trust me, girls around the world, they understand this. They feel it in their bones, and they will do whatever it takes to get that education.

It's an image that we're given. People have told us "No, these are the things that aren't for you." So one of the most empowering things as a young person was to go to one of the top schools and realize that there are all kinds of affirmative action. You know, there's legacy.. there's the college athlete. And colleges and universities have a right and an interest in diversifying. The problem is that when it comes to students of color, poor kids, all of a sudden that's affirmative action and that's a problem. And they're lesser than. I have been at probably every powerful table there is in the world. I've been at G-summits, I've been in castles and palaces, in boardrooms and academic universities, and I'm coming down from the mountaintop to tell every young person that is poor and working class and has been told regardless of the color of your skin that you don't belong, don't listen to them. They don't even know how they got at those seats.

Without Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, there'd be no Nelson Mandela. Without Michelle Obama, there'd be no Barack Obama. But no-one is ready for that discussion yet.

Bullies are scared people hiding inside scary people.

Choose people who lift you up.

Trata-se de aprendermos a lidar com o medo de forma sensata, de encontramos uma maneira de deixarmos que os nervos nos guiem, em vez de nos deterem.

18. Johnson, Sophie, Inspiring Women: Biographies of Oprah Winfrey, J. K. Rowling, Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg and Serena Williams, publicación independiente,

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

Work hard, laugh often, and keep my word

The most important thing to me is raising strong women and raising my daughters well . . . I think that is the most important job that I will ever have.

Don't just be book-smart, be smart about the world - know your community, know your politics.

Whenever I think about Michelle Obama, I think, “When I grow up, I want to be just like her.” I want to be that intelligent, confident, and comfortable in my own skin.

My parents never sugarcoated what they took to be the harder truths about life. Craig, for example, got a new bike one summer and rode it East to lake Michigan, to the paved pathway along Rainbow Beach, where you could feel the breeze off the water. He’d been promptly picked up by a police officer who accused him of stealing it, unwilling to accept that a young black boy would have come across a new bike in an honest way. (The officer, an African American man himself, ultimately got a brutal tongue-lashing from my mother, who made him apologize to Craig.) What had happened, my parents told us, was unjust, but also unfortunately common. The color of our skin made us vulnerable. Is was a thing we’d always have to navigate.

For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us.