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Quotes by First-lady
"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be."
28
"Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice."
28
"Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one."
28
"It is often the people who refuse to assume any responsibility who are apt to be the sharpest critics of those who do."
28
"A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water."
28
"Don't worry about polls, but if you do, don't admit it."
27
"Not my power, but the power of the position, a power which could be used to help."
26
"Somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision."
26
"My son, George, has been a bad, bad boy! Right, George?"
26
"Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart."
26
"Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give."
26
"When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell."
26
"It seems to me I spent my life in car pools, but you know, that's how I kept track of what was going on."
25
"Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we're scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don't have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list."
25
"A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world."
25
"Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!"
25
"I have commenced my auspicious reign and am in quiet possession of the Presidential Mansion... this winter I intend to do something in the way of entertaining that shall be the admiration and talk of all Washington world."
25
"I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me 'understand' something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country."
25
"You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority."
25
"My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief. Making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls... that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe."
24
"Even if we give parents all the information they need and we improve school meals and build brand new supermarkets on every corner, none of that matters if when families step into a restaurant, they can't make a healthy choice."
24
"All of life is a constant education."
24
"Life has got to be lived - that's all there is to it. At seventy I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that 'this too shall pass!'"
24
"A woman's place in public is to sit beside her husband, be silent, and be sure her hat is on straight."
24
"It was the dumbest thing I had ever seen, but it's a family thing, and I guess it's clean."
24
"Cherish your human connections - your relationships with friends and family."
23
"I may be the only mother in America who knows exactly what their child is up to all the time."
23
"I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances."
23
"You may invite the entire 35th Division to your wedding if you want to. I guess it's going to be yours as well as mine. We might as well have the church full while we are at it."
23
"Exercise is really important to me - it's therapeutic. So if I'm ever feeling tense or stressed or like I'm about to have a meltdown, I'll put on my iPod and head to the gym or out on a bike ride along Lake Michigan with the girls."
23
"No one can afford not to be a man. No position can compensate for coming face to face with a robot when you are alone."
23
"One must not let oneself be overwhelmed by sadness."
23
"Every time you meet a situation though you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the torture of the damned once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you were before."
23
"The giving of love is an education in itself."
23
"Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one's world."
23
"My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?"
22
"It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire a knowledge of other people's business."
22
"Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it."
22
"We always get up about 5:30, and George gets up and goes in and gets the coffee and brings it to me, and that's been our ritual since we got married. And we read the newspapers in bed and drink coffee for about an hour probably, read our briefing papers."
22
"You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat."
22
"I think togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life."
22
"So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty, and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating and destructive effect upon society than the others."
22
"The winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream, not society's dream, her own personal dream."
21
"Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since."
21
"Do what you can to show you care about other people, and you will make our world a better place."
21
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