83 Inspiring Michelle Obama Quotes on ‘Becoming’ That’ll Empower You

In this post we’ll read quotes from Michelle Obama who is an American lawyer, writer, and former First Lady of the United States.

Michelle Obama grew up in a working-class family on the South Side of Chicago and after completing her education, she worked as a lawyer at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her future husband, Barack Obama.

She published her memoir, “Becoming” in 2018, where she shared her reflections on her life, career, and experiences as First Lady and the book became an instant bestseller.

Michelle Obama has been a vocal advocate for education, empowerment, health and social justice.

Here we have collected some of the best Michelle Obama quotes on education, relationships and ‘becoming’.

Table of Contents

Michelle Obama Quotes

1. “No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.”

2. “Choose people who lift you up. Find people who will make you better.”

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

4. “People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.”

5. “I have no intention of running for office, ever. I’ve never been a fan of politics, and my experience over the last ten years has done little to change that.”

6. “When it comes to social media, there are just times I turn off the world, you know. There are just some times you have to give yourself space to be quiet, which means you’ve got to set those phones down.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Becoming

1. “It’s all a process, steps along a path. Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.”

2. “That whole ‘so you can have it all.’ Nope, not at the same time. That’s a lie. And it’s not always enough to lean in, because that s*it doesn’t work all the time.”

3. “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self.”

4. “When somebody walks up to me, don’t look around, don’t look beyond them. Look them in the eye, take in the story.”

5. “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.”

6. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s the power of using your voice.”

7. If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Confidence

1. “Am I good enough? Yes, I am.”

2. “You don’t have to be somebody different to be important. You’re important in your own right.”

3. “Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.”

4. “I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values. and follow my own moral compass, then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.”

5. “No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, YOU are beautiful.”

6. “There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Success

1. “Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.”

2. “We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.”

3. “We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.

4. “Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you. We realized that being successful isn’t about being impressive; it’s about being inspired. That’s what it means to be true to yourself.”

5. “Like so many American families, our families weren’t asking for much. They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success or care that others had much more than they did… in fact, they admired it.”

6. “The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Hope

1. “Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn’t.”

2. “Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.”

3. “You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Hard Work

1. “The one way to get me to work my hardest was to doubt me.”

2. “Our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted – folks who work hard for what they have, then reach back and help others after them.”

3. “You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.”

4. “Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.”

5. “Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work.”

6. “The only limit to THE HEIGHT OF YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS IS THE REACH OF YOUR DREAMS and your willingness to WORK HARD FOR THEM.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Compassion

1. “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”

2. “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.”

3. “Bullies were scared people hiding inside scary people.”

4. “When you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you, you reach back and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Fear & Failure

1. “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.”

2. “Our hurts become our fears. Our fears become our limits. For many of us, this can be a heavy inheritance, carried by generations. It’s a lot to try to push back against, to try to unlearn.”

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

4. “Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.”

5. “Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Education

1. “Through my education, I didn’t just develop skills, I didn’t just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence.”

2. “Public education is our greatest pathway to opportunity in America. So we need to invest in and strengthen our public universities today, and for generations to come.”

3. “You have to stay in school. You have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because that’s the one thing people can’t take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.”

4. “For me, education was power.”

Michelle Obama Quotes for Students

1. “Do not be afraid to ask for help. Nobody gets through college on their own.”

2. “I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.”

3. “It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.”

4. “If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.”

5. “One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody says distract you from your goals.”

6. “I am coming down from the mountaintop to tell every young person that is poor and working class, and has been told regardless of the color of your skin that you don’t belong, don’t listen to them. They don’t even know how they got at those seats.”

7. “The future of our world is only as bright as the future of our girls.”

8. “Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Health

1. “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.”

2. “I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains.”

3. “When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.”

4. “I can’t say this enough – the food that you put into your bodies can actually help you get better grades. And it can also affect your performance in sports and other activities too. You see, when you give your body the best possible fuel, you have more energy, you’re stronger, you think more quickly.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Women

1. “We as women, we have to understand that we know more, just even instinctively, than we think we do.”

2. “I always tell young girls, surround yourself with goodness. I learned early on how to get the haters out of my life.”

3. “Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up.”

4. “I view myself as being the average woman. While I am first lady, I wasn’t first lady my whole life. I’m a product of pop culture. I’m a consumer of pop culture, and I know what resonates with people.”

5. “Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses… swapped back and forth and over again.”

6. “I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.”

7. “I always say that women should wear whatever makes them feel good about themselves. That’s what I always try to do.”

Michelle Obama Quotes about Barack

1. “Barack intrigued me. He was not like anyone I’d dated before, mainly because he seemed so secure. He was openly affectionate. He told me I was beautiful. He made me feel good. To me, he was sort of like a unicorn—unusual to the point of seeming almost unreal. He never talked about material things, like buying a house or a car or even new shoes. His money went largely toward books, which to him were like sacred objects, providing ballast for his mind. He read late into the night, often long after I’d fallen asleep.”

2. “The choice, as he saw it, was this: You give up or you work for change. “What’s better for us?” Barack called to the people gathered in the room. “Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?”

3. “I was deeply, delightfully in love with a guy whose forceful intellect and ambition could possibly end up swallowing mine.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Relationships

1. “A happy marriage can be a vexation, that it’s a contract best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone.”

2. “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.”

3. “Find people who will make you better.”

Michelle Obama Quotes on Family

1. “When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.”

2. “Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances.”

3. “When it came to the home-for-dinner dilemma, I installed new boundaries, ones that worked better for me and the girls. We made our schedule and stuck to it. …It went back to my wishes for them to grow up strong and centered and also unaccommodating to any form of old-school patriarchy: I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.”

These Michelle Obama quotes reflect her grace, intelligence, and commitment to public service.

Michelle is considered a role model for women and girls everywhere and has inspired countless individuals with her advocacy for social justice, equality, and empowerment.

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