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

Michelle Obama

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
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
And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Character Life People Relationship Respect Value Word
Fulfillment, I’m sure, struck her as a rich person’s conceit.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Person Rich Satisfaction
You’ve got to be twice as good to get half as far.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Character Goodness Success Yourself
I wanted Americans to understand that words matter—that the hateful language they heard coming from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Country Hate Language Myself Reflection Spirit True Understand Word
It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Death Hurt Live Myself
His money went largely toward books, which to him were like sacred objects, providing ballast for his mind.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Book Himself Money
Bullies were scared people hiding inside scary people.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Fear Hide Mental People
a happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Alone Happiness Marriage Private Quiet
[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
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
Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts, good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Friendship Goodness Hurt Life Marriage People Relationship Right Trust
I just wanted to achieve. Or maybe I didn’t want to be dismissed as incapable of achievement.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Achievement Myself Success Worth
Everything was not lost. This was the message we needed to carry forward. It’s what I truly believed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was our reality—the world as it is. We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Believe Direction Ideal Lost Myself Need Ourselves Reality True
In my blinding drive to excel, in my need to do things perfectly, I’d missed the signs and taken the wrong road.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Myself Need Perfection Road Wrong
failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Failure Feeling Result
I’ve smiled for photos with people who call my husband horrible names on national television, but still want a framed keepsake for their mantel.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Husband Myself Photograph Smile
Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this, I’d never forgive him.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Family Forgiveness Himself Myself Risk Safety
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.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Energy Goal Grow Up Investment Lesson Negative Oneself True
I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Beginning Beyond Hope Myself Place Understand
I like the idea of being rigorous about friendship.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Friendship Idea Myself
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.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Art Design Fashion Freedom History Music Poetry Time
Marriage, he told me early on, struck him as an unnecessary and overhyped convention.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Himself Marriage Necessary
America, our moment is now, Barack said. Our moment is now.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Moment Ourselves Present
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
No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Effort Inspirational Myself

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

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

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