Michelle Bachelet's Quotes

As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.

As a major economic force worldwide, India and Indian companies have the opportunity to set the standards in Asia in terms of women's right to decent work.

As a vibrant force in civil society, women continue to press for their rights, equal participation in decision-making, and the upholding of the principles of the revolution by the highest levels of leadership in Egypt.

As more and more women, men and young people raise their voices and become active in local government, and more local leaders take action for the safety of women and girls, change happens.

As women politicians, we talk about the most difficult themes of state security, foreign relations and development models, then ask, 'How do you make it work with your husband?' The interesting thing is that these women - most of them - don't lose the perspective that the focus is not the position but the job at hand.

Because I'm a doctor, I know when you have an injury it will heal if it's clean enough to heal; if your injury is dirty, it won't heal. And so when you are talking in societies, we are also talking in healing processes, and for a good healing process, you need to make things right.

By including women in decision-making, city governments will be in a better position to fulfill their responsibility to ensure the safety of their residents, especially women and girls.

Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice.

During my lifetime, I realized that discrimination was not accidental, that there were structural roots and causes to it. So if we wanted to change women's lives, we need to deal with those root causes.

Educational equality doesn't guarantee equality on the labor market. Even the most developed countries are not gender-equal. There are still glass ceilings and 'leaky pipelines' that prevent women from getting ahead in the workplace.

Given political history in Chile, it seemed to me that there was a critical task of consolidating a democracy and creating healthy civic-military and political-military relationships.

Having experienced personally and through my family the tragedy of Chile is something always present in my memory. I do not want events of that nature ever to happen again, and I have dedicated an important part of my life to ensuring that and to the reunion of all Chileans.

Having more women in company boards, in senior management, supervisory positions and workers in the formal sector is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. It's good for the bottom line.

I was not born in a home where there were stereotypes. So that was very useful because it gave me the sense of possibilities, of flying, if I may say, of making my hopes and dreams a reality.

I wouldn't be honest if I told you that in some moment of my life I had a lot of rage - probably hate - I'm not sure of hate, but rage. But you know what happens is that then you realize you cannot do to others what you think nobody has to do to anybody. Life is important for me and not any kind of life, quality too of life.

It was said that Chile was not ready to vote for a woman, it was traditionally a sexist country. In the end, the reverse happened: the fact of being a woman became a symbol of the process of cultural change the country was undergoing.

My father respected and admired my mother and was a person who was always standing by my side, encouraging me to do more and believed in my capacity. So in that sense, my own experience was very good in becoming an empowered woman. From early on, I carried that strong message: 'You can do it.' So I never had any doubt that women can do a lot.

People see I am a mother and head of a household. Today in Chile, one-third of households are run by women. They wake up, take the children to school, go to work. To them I am hope.

The 2010 global gender gap report by the World Economic Forum shows that countries with better gender equality have faster-growing, more competitive economies.

The current global landscape is quite different from the not-too-distant past. The process of globalization has intensified, and the world is moving towards new forms of governance.

The possibility of my presidential candidacy emerged spontaneously in public opinion polls. For my part, I noticed people's affection when I was doing work on the ground. I think the important thing is that my candidacy was born from citizens themselves, driven by the people and which the parties picked up favorably.

The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.

There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn't respond to the needs and will of its people.