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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

Here’s a memory, which like most memories is imperfect and subjective—collected long ago like a beach pebble and slipped into the pocket of my mind.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Collection Imperfection Memories Mindset
It was possible, I knew, to live on two planes at once—to have one’s feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction of progress.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Direction Live Plant Possible Success
Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an angry black woman. I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it angry or black or woman ?
MICHELLE OBAMA

Black Life Oppression Power Woman
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
The burden of assimilation is put largely on the shoulders of minority students.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Education Student
I was determined to be someone who told the truth, using my voice to lift up the voiceless when I could, and to not disappear on people in need. I understood that when I showed up somewhere,
MICHELLE OBAMA

Determination Myself Need People True Understand Voice
The easiest way to disregard a woman’s voice is to package her as a scold.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Easy Herself Oppression Voice Woman
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

Alone Carry Challenge Change Deserve Existence History Remember See Tolerance
Changing the big picture takes time.. and the best things to do is focus on the things that we can make in our lives if we’re doing all that. That becomes the collage of real change
MICHELLE OBAMA

Change Focus Live Photograph Reality
Fulfillment, I’m sure, struck her as a rich person’s conceit.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Person Rich Satisfaction
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’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
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
I look back on the discomfort of that moment now and recognize the more universal challenge of squaring who you are with where you come from and where you want to go.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Challenge Comfortable Moments Myself Yourself
Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Father Gift People Time
Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Inspirational Shallow Success

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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