Michelle Obama Quotes

For me, education has never been simply a policy issue - it's personal. Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in the neighborhood where I grew up went to college. But thanks to a lot of hard work and plenty of financial aid, I had the opportunity to attend some of the finest universities in this country.

Barack himself is very much a regular guy, not a silver spoon, incredibly smart, but, you know, he's a scholarship kid, made good use of the resources that were available to him, worked incredibly hard.

I grew up in a household that was a labor household. My dad was a Teamster and a milk truck driver. My mother was a secretary. Neither of them got through high school. But they worked hard and they gave me very, very important opportunities to go to school, get a good education.

When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.

My mother's passion for something more, to write a different destiny for a dirt-poor farmer's daughter, was to shape my entire life.

Hard work and a good education will take you further than any government program.

They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them. But I inherited something far better - the real opportunity to accomplish my dreams.

I got my degree. More importantly, I got a key to American opportunity. That's who we are - a nation that rewards ambition with opportunity. Where hard work can lead to success, no matter where you start.

The current leadership of the Labor party react to the idea that working-class students might study the subjects they studied with the same horror that the Earl of Grantham showed when a chauffeur wanted to marry his daughter.

My earliest memories are of my father explaining to me the American Dream and how he expected me to do better than he did.

I am the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his kids get out of the mines. My dad got his first job when he was six years old, in a little village in Wales called Nantyffyllon, cleaning bottles at the Colliers Arms.

I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification - education, hard work, success, and ambition - are those groups that succeed in America, regardless of discrimination.

I talked my parents into sending me to Roedean at 16. I had this idea that if I could get into Cambridge, then I could join Footlights. My problem was that I went to a comprehensive in Brighton. I thought I'd have to start from a good school, and the best I could think of was Roedean.

My parents both came to the United States from the Dominican Republic, and they were deeply grateful for the opportunities this country provided. They raised my siblings and me to want to make a difference and give back. They taught us to work hard and aim high, but to also make sure the ladder was down to help others climb up.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto - I tell people you don't have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

My grandmother instilled in me two important lessons: I was just as good as anyone else, and education was my salvation. Fortunately, I was able to get scholarships to excellent schools, but I was one of the lucky ones. All of this is what draws me to anti-poverty organizations like Oxfam.

In America, with education and hard work, it really does not matter where you came from; it matters only where you are going.

It is worthwhile to engage in something that is close to one's heart. I had a scholarship. So if I donate money to give brilliant Chinese students an opportunity to study abroad, then this embodies everything I believe in: education, globalization, social mobility. I am an example of social mobility.

This country of ours, this system of ours, the rule of law, the opportunity to get an education and go as far as your hard work and ambition will take you, and we created the biggest engine of economic growth in the world, the American middle class.

I wanted to get that scholarship to - a division one scholarship and play ball and go to school for free. And that, to me, was - I was always about getting to that next step. If I could get to that next place, then I could figure out essentially what to do with being in that space and how to manage my time and handle those - handle all the benefits of being in that space in a way that would get me to the next place.

It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.

I'm not guaranteeing that if you work hard you'll be able to duplicate my success. But in America, if you work hard, you just might. I'm a perfect example of that.

As a kid, I would do all of the plays at my school, and I was notorious for being in five numbers in one show. I'd go onstage, run backstage for a wardrobe change, and then go back out onstage. I'm always trying to do more than I should but when I got my lucky break (or whatever it's called), I was prepared because I studied and worked really hard for it.

People should be able to rise as hard, high as their hard work, their ambition, their talent will take them.

The American dream means that you have the chance to work hard, get an education and do great things for yourself, for your kids. The great thing in American is it doesn't matter what your last name is, doesn't matter if you're wealthy.