You always want your people to be proud of what you have accomplished.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

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.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

We are Divine enough to ask and we are important enough to receive.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

Don’t ever doubt yourselves or waste a second of your life. It’s too short, and you’re too special.

I don’t go to bed at 1 A.M. and wake up at 5 A.M. and say, ‚Let’s see if I can get this done today.‘

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

If my edge is dull, my sword is dull, and I don’t want to fight another guy whose sword is dull. If you’ve got two steel swords going back and forth hitting each other, what’s gonna happen? Both of them are going to get sharper. Everybody that’s in the industry has lost their edge.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

In all my work, I try to say – ‚You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?‘

People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice… they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.

As long as I’m learning something, I figure I’m OK – it’s a decent day.

What really motivates people at Facebook is building something that’s worthwhile, that they’re going to be proud to show to friends and family.

I’m used to seeing it, but it’s weird having an Academy Award. You usually only see one of them on the TV show when they give them out, so it’s kind of surreal to have one in your house.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

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

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

He that can have patience can have what he will.

Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands.

It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can’t do anything with that except do it.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

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.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around.

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools.

With drive and a bit of talent, you can move mountains. I know. I’ve done it.

Life loves the liver of it.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Most of us are raised to believe we are ordinary. The anchor of the universe is present in every child. A parent only needs to guide and step aside and let them fulfill their dharma. Help children remember that they can do or be anything.

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

I am not designed to come second or third. I am designed to win.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

I don’t believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.