black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.

Michelle Obama

Even white people were recognizing him now.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Himself People Recognize Worth
And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Human Myself Willing
The easiest way to disregard a woman’s voice is to package her as a scold.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Easy Herself Oppression Voice Woman
His money went largely toward books, which to him were like sacred objects, providing ballast for his mind.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Book Himself Money
I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stick place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Beginning Beyond Hope Myself Place Thinking Understand Yourself
there’s no straight line between effort and reward.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Effort Limitation Reward
What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Family God Man Myself
Even if we didn’t know the context, we were instructed to remember that context existed. Everyone on earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Carry Deserve Existence History Remember Tolerance
[Y]ou may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Creation Live World Yourself
Life was teaching me that progress and change happen slowly. Not in two years, four years, or even a lifetime. We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Change Life Myself Patience Teaching
Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses, swapped back and forth and over again.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Friendship Kindness Woman
I like the idea of being rigorous about friendship.
MICHELLE OBAMA

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

Doubt Failure Fear Feeling Result Vulnerable
Everyone on Earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Alone Carry Deserve History See Tolerance
We explain when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you do not stoop to their level. Our motto is when they go low, you go high.
MICHELLE OBAMA

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

Character Quick Yourself

Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Michelle Obama Quotes