Theresa May Quotes

I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.

if you ask me, nobody really likes people who are always doing their duty.

Everyone expects me to do certain things.

Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.

A lot of times, I get asked, 'Do you feel you have a responsibility to young girls to be a role model?' I don't see that happening as much to guys. I feel like, just because I'm a girl, I'm supposed to take more responsibility? Is that how it works?

A tremendous social responsibility comes with being a successful public performer.

Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.

That hunger of the flesh, that longing for ease, that terror of incarceration, that insistence on tribal honour being obeyed: all of that exists, and it exists everywhere.

The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.

If you're put on a pedestal, you're supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.

I think once you're in the public eye, whether you're a boss, a teacher or whatever you do, that you're automatically in the position of role model. You have people looking up to you, so whether you choose to accept it or not is a different question.

Right before I left New York, I had my manager tell me, 'You need to get a girl on your arm, or people will start talking.'

It's dangerous to get too far from what they identify you with.

I got a family I got to answer to. I got kids... my older parents and my preachers and everybody.

Once you achieve a certain level of success or fame, it becomes really difficult to go against type.

I don't think you should do things in your personal life differently because you're a role model.

I spent my whole life trying to play the games males play.

There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.

A man must know how to act in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

How can I do this and leave the clergy, the churches of God, the empire, and all of the people? What will the world think of me? … No my lords, no! I will die here with you.

My mother's mantra was, 'How would it look to the neighbors?' And so you don't do anything because you're worried about how it would look to the neighbors.

You have to watch out because being an athlete and playing at the college level with the opportunity to go the NFL, you're under the microscope and everybody's watching. There are people that look up to us. So you have to watch out for what you do and who you're around.

I would much rather be on the couch all the time. But it turns out, I'm also agreeable. I'll agree to do a lot of things.

You just have to know that there's people watching you, and you've got to be a positive role model and not put yourself in bad situations.

Someone will always be looking at you as an example of how to behave. Don't let him down.