18 Soul-Stirring Quotes From Michelle Obama's DNC Speech That'll Give You Chills

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18 Soul-Stirring Quotes From Michelle Obama's DNC Speech That'll Give You Chills

First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the 2016 DNC National Convention on July 25th. Here are some of her most powerful words

Jacob GeersJuly 26, 2016

How we explain that 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.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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I want someone [as President] with the proven strength to persevere, someone who knows this job and takes it seriously, someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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As my daughters prepare to set out into the world, I want a leader who is worthy of that truth, a leader who is worthy of my girls’ promise and all our kids’ promise, a leader who will be guided every day by the love and hope and impossibly big dreams that we all have for our children.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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Don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country isn’t great, that somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on earth!

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.

And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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That is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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And when crisis hits, we don’t turn against each other. No, we listen to each other, we lean on each other, because we are always stronger together.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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Heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to keep passing down those blessings of liberty, police officers and the protesters in Dallas who all desperately want to keep our children safe.

People who lined up in Orlando to donate blood because it could have been their son, their daughter in that club.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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In this election, we cannot sit back and hope that everything works out for the best. We cannot afford to be tired or frustrated or cynical. No, hear me. Between now and November, we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago.

We need to knock on every door, we need to get out every vote, we need to pour every last ounce of our passion and our strength and our love for this country into electing Hillary Clinton as president of the United States of America!

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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You see, Hillary understands that the president is about one thing and one thing only, it’s about leaving something better for our kids. That’s how we’ve always moved this country forward, by all of us coming together on behalf of our children, folks who volunteer to coach that team, to teach that Sunday school class, because they know it takes a village.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models. And let me tell you, Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as president and first lady because we know that our words and actions matter, not just to our girls, but the children across this country, kids who tell us I saw you on TV, I wrote a report on you for school.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase form and fortune for ourselves, we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well-informed.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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And look, there were plenty of moments when Hillary could have decided that this work was too hard, that the price of public service was too high, that she was tired of being picked apart for how she looks or how she talks or even how she laughs. But here’s the thing. What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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And when Hillary Clinton didn’t win the nomination eight years ago, she didn’t get angry or disillusioned. Hillary did not pack up and go home, because as a true public servant Hillary knows that this is so much bigger than her own desires and disappointments.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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See, I trust Hillary to lead this country because I’ve seen her lifelong devotion to our nation’s children, not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection, but every child who needs a champion, kids who take the long way to school to avoid the gangs, kids who wonder how they’ll ever afford college, kids whose parents don’t speak a word of English, but dream of a better life, kids who look to us to determine who and what they can be.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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And make no mistake about it, this November when we go to the polls that is what we’re deciding, not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. No, in this election and every election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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When our daughters set off for their first day at their new school, I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls, just 7 and 10 years old, pile into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns. And I saw their little faces pressed up against the window, and the only thing I could think was, what have we done?

See, because at that moment I realized that our time in the White House would form the foundation for who they would become and how well we managed this experience could truly make or break them. That is what Barack and I think about every day as we try to guide and protect our girls through the challenges of this unusual life in the spotlight, how we urge them to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith.

— Michelle Obama, Read Michelle Obama's Emotional Speech at the Convention

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