Michelle Obama Quotes

There is so much focus on being self-sufficient, and it makes it very difficult to ask for things. I've been crippled by this notion of high-functioning self-sufficiency. And I see it a lot in younger girls. Asking for help brings people closer in a way that I suspected but didn't actually put into practice.

The American way is to not need help, but to help.

When I started to see that I had two or three pair of shoes to wear to school and I had multiple pants, my mental health started getting stronger. I could focus on school, and my grades started to go up. I was eating, so I could focus on other things rather than being hungry, that's when I really started to excel. I started to create that path because I didn't have the small things to worry about and it all came from help. It all came from help from other people and other resources and without that, I wouldn't be here.

It's always good to have other people who you can lean on and pick you up when you're down and vice versa.

The challenge that so many people have is not knowing how to take that first step of reaching out to another person for help.

We have to tell people who need help that it's OK to ask for it.

My mom always instilled in me that it was braver to ask for help when you need it. That has absolutely stuck with me over the years but became even more important in practice once I became a mother. It may sound trite, but the concept of 'it takes a village' really could not be more true.

There were so many people who were instrumental in helping me get better. They say it takes a village, and the tennis community has been my village. That's why I've always felt that I have a responsibility to give back.

It is okay to ask for help. I give help when others need it, and ask for help when I need it.

You have to rely on your support system. Growing up, I always thought it was a sign of weakness to ask for help, but now I realize it's really a sign of strength to say, 'I need help, I can't do it all.'

At every step of the way, when I had trouble, there were people that came in, in my life that helped me. It's important to go seek help when you need it, and to give help when other people need it. And that is really more important than coming in with a gigantic brain into the astronaut program.

You don't have to be famous. You just have to find your own coven of bad-asses that you trust and want to empower.

One of the biggest defects in life is the inability to ask for help.

The best advice I can give to anyone going through a rough patch is to never be afraid to ask for help.

the government can do nothing for you. But you can do everything for yourselves

Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.

The ideal of helping is to make others independent of you. You help them to become more independent rather than making them addicted to you.

No one may forsake their neighbors when they are in trouble. Everybody is under obligation to help and support their neighbors as they would themselves like to be helped.

So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others...before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.

Many people I know who are doing truly helpful and healing ministry find their primary support from a couple of enlightened friends, and only secondarily, if at all, from the larger organizations.

That's the only way we're going to get through these programs. That is true compassion. Having people become dependent on others is not compassion at all.

We ask for nothing more than the chance to blaze our own trail, and yet each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, helped us find our path. That's part of what makes America exceptional. We are family and we'll do anything to help each other along the way.

The real truth of that is that much as you want to believe that it's you being on top of everything, you're actually relying massively on the people around you.

It doesn't do any good to hold the door open for someone if they don't have a way to walk through it. And if they do have a way to pass through it then you probably don't need to hold it open because they can open it for themselves.

Befriending provides a valuable lifeline to many people who feel isolated in their communities often as a result of ill health or poverty. I would like to thank all those who volunteer as befrienders and I hope that your numbers will increase in coming years. Your kindness and hard work is, I know, very much appreciated by those you help.