Quotes by Michelle Bachelet

"For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected."

"I believe that if you want to fight inequality you have to do it starting at infancy."

"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."

"My message to women is: Women: We can do it. We are capable of doing almost anything, but we must learn we cannot do it all at once, we need to prioritize."

"We have had scarce investment in women... One of my tasks is that everyone spends much more on women."

"I don't like stereotypes - no kind of stereotypes."

"Gender equality will only be reached if we are able to empower women."

"Women's strength, women's industry, women's wisdom are humankind's greatest untapped resource. The challenge then for U.N. Women is to show our diverse constituencies how this resource can be effectively tapped in ways that benefit us all."

"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."

"I'm working for the women in the world, today; that's my essential issue."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"When women earn the money for the family, everyone in the family benefits. We also know that when women have an income, everyone wins because women dedicate 90% of the income to health, education, to food security, to the children, to the family, or to the community, so when women have an income, everybody wins."

"We simply can no longer afford to deny the full potential of one half of the population. The world needs to tap into the talent and wisdom of women. Whether the issue is food security, economic recovery, health, or peace and security, the participation of women is needed now more than ever."

"One of the factors a country's economy depends on is human capital. If you don't provide women with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, you lose at least half of your potential. So, gender equality and women's empowerment bring huge economic benefits."

"There's full consensus in the military that women shouldn't be in person-to-person combat. I don't know if we have enough experience to know whether this is the right approach. But women can be elsewhere. We have mandatory military service in Chile. I pushed for women in all areas."

"My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women's economic empowerment and political participation."

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

"U.N. Women was created due to the acknowledgement that gender equality and women's empowerment was still, despite progress, far from what it should be. Transforming political will and decisions, such as the Member States creating U.N. Women, into concrete steps towards gender equality and women's empowerment, I think is one of the main challenges."

"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."

"In artillery exercises, women always win because they're more accurate."

"In today's interdependent world, a threat to one becomes a menace to all. And no state can defeat these challenges and threats alone."

"There is no city or country in the world where women and girls live free of the fear of violence. No leader can claim: 'this is not happening in my backyard.'"

"As the old joke goes, I have all the sins together. I am a woman, a Socialist, separated and agnostic."

"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."

"You all want to know what is my dream? Very simple. To walk along the beach, holding the hand of my lover."

"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."

"You have to be doing things that matter - responsibility, but also responsibility with epic and beautiful and noble tasks."

"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."

"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."

"Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates."

"I took a gamble to exercise leadership without losing my feminine nature."

"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."

"The United Nations should become a proactive agent in the dissemination of democratic principles."