Michelle Obama

Our greatness has never, ever come from sitting back and feeling entitled to what we have. It's never come from folks who climb the ladder of success, or who happen to be born near the top and then pull that ladder up after themselves. No, our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted.

Your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, black young women — head off to school, waving goodbye to their father, the President of the United States.

They seem to view our diversity as a threat to be contained rather than as a resource to be tapped. They tell us to be afraid of those who are different, to be suspicious of those with whom we disagree.

No dream is too big, no vision is too bold; as long as we stay hungry for education and let that hunger be our North Star, there is nothing, graduates, nothing that we cannot achieve.

We're the lucky ones, and we can never forget that we didn't get where we are today all on our own. We got here because of so many people who toiled and sweat and bled and died for us. We owe them.

Education is still the key to real and lasting freedom — it is still true today. So it is now up to us to cultivate that hunger for education in our own lives and in those around us.

That is the story of Spelman College — that unyielding presumption of promise, that presumption of brilliance, that presumption that every woman who enrolls at this school has something infinitely valuable to offer this world. And ladies, that is now your story. That legacy is now your inheritance.

Every defeat to me was a challenge. And for six generations, that is what Spelman women have done. They have seen every defeat as a challenge.

Sometimes I'd save them the trouble and raise the questions myself, in my own head, lying awake at night, doubting whether I had what it took to succeed.