Top 639 Quotes & Sayings by Famous First ladies - Page 9

Women have a better chance to secure freedom and protect themselves from violence, from abuse, from injustice, if they are well-educated and know their rights.

People don't understand that all presidents, the minute they become president, get a knock at the door. And there's a man there saying, 'Let's talk about your funeral.' At the time I thought, God, that's a terrible thing. Later on, I thought it was pretty wise.

I am a full-time mom; that is my first job. The most important job ever. I started my business when he started school. When he is in school, I do my meetings, my sketches, and everything else. I cook him breakfast. Bring him to school. Pick him up. Prepare his lunch. I spend the afternoon with him.

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. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.

Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.

I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learnt from experianence that the greater part of our happiness or misary depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances; we carry the seeds of the one, or the other about with us, in our minds, wherever we go.

I style myself and choose what to wear based on what I feel good in it.

I said from the very beginning, I don't want a big house, I don't want big grounds, I don't want the trouble with the maintenance and all of that.

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.

Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.

When you read with your child, you show them that reading is important, but you also show them they're important - that they are so important to you that you will spend 20 minutes a day with your arm around them.

Elections aren't just about who votes but who doesn't vote.

I love San Francisco. I have a lot of memories there.

I also want to encourage anybody who was affected by Hurricane Corina to make sure their children are in school.

Beautiful, Glorious Scotland, has spoilt me for every other country.

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.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we're all sweating it - when we're worried that the bill won't pass, and it seems like all is lost - Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward... with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

It's really important for people who are HIV positive to reach out to let other people know that they can be tested, they can find out they can still live a life -- a positive life, a happy life.

It's always written that my father was a rich, conservative John Bircher. That is untrue. He was not rich. He was not a John Bircher.

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

I believe the equal rights amendment is a necessity of life for all citizens. The cabinet sometimes felt that I shouldn't be so outspoken.

I only know what I read in the papers.

The challenge we now face is to build on the record of the past, to continue accepting new responsibilities and seeking new opportunities to serve.

Great learning and superior abilities...will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.

[When her daughter suggested the President refer in his conversation with foreign dignitaries about lawn care to 'fertilizer' instead of to 'manure':] But remember, it took me almost thirty years to get him to call it manure.

[On refusing to allow photos to be published of herself and her children:] A lady's name should appear in print only three times, at her birth, marriage, and death.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

We always get up about 5:30, and George gets up and goes in and gets the coffee and brings it to me, and that's been our ritual since we got married. And we read the newspapers in bed and drink coffee for about an hour probably, read our briefing papers.

Such widely different things as war and picnics will surely show a man up.

How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking!

Many politicians, celebrities, businessmen and women, and community leaders now are open about their struggles with mental illnesses, something almost unheard of when I began. Together, we are spreading the word that mental health affects all of us and deserves our support and attention.

I would rather marry a good man, a man of mind, with a hope and bright prospects ahead for position, fame and power than to marry all the houses, gold and bones in the world.

I have learned that you can do anything you want to. They used to ask me if I thought the first lady ought to be paid. If you get paid, then I have to do what first lady is supposed to do. But you can do anything you want to, and it's such a great soap box.

We see all around the world where women's rights are denied, where governments don't believe in educating their girls. There are 800 million people in the world who are illiterate and 75 percent of them are women and girls.

My opinion is that more languages you speak, better it is, but when you come to America, you speak English.

I love my childhood. It was a beautiful childhood.

Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.

I've been blessed with a wonderful husband, two caring daughters and sons-in-law, and four really special grandchildren. They have each enhanced my life.

Your husband is the boss - and don't forget it.

Education is the key. With a really good education, you have a much broader view of the world. Well-educated people can seek help for themselves. They can help others.

I am accordingly ready; I have pressed as many Cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation.

The movies were custard compared to politics.

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?

The First Lady is an unpaid public servant elected by one person - her husband.

If I had a choice, I'd rather be admired less and have my husband tormented less. I'd prefer that people concentrate on a fair assessment of him and his Presidency.

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

For eight years, I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn't give you special access, I don't know what does!

I don't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs.

I do not believe in abortion at will. I do not believe that if a woman just wants to have an abortion she should... I do believe if you have an abortion you are committing murder.

People who worry about their hair all the time, frankly, are boring.

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.

When you reach out to others in need, when you reach out to the world, you really do have a satisfying life by helping others.

I'll be a wife and mother first, then First Lady.

Without volunteers, we'd be a nation without a soul.

What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the weak?

I think togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life.