“A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.”
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Barack Obama
“We will outstretch the hand if you unclench your fist. ”
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Barack Obama
“in a climate of constant technological change.”
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Barack Obama
“The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.”
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Barack Obama
“We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.”
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Barack Obama
“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a (flag) pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear THAT pin on my chest…”
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Barack Obama
“For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
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Barack Obama
“I've been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.”
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Barack Obama
“That's what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried with them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories. ”
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Barack Obama
“Still, I strongly resisted the idea of offering up my past in a book, a past that left me feeling exposed, even slightly ashamed.”
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Barack Obama
“The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.”
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Barack Obama
“What's happened here, Sayid? There never used to be such begging."
"You are right," he said. "I believe they have learned this thing from those in the city. People come back from Nairobi or Kisumu and tell them, 'You are poor.' So now we have this idea of poverty. We didn't have this idea before. You look at my mother. She will never ask for anything. She has always something that she is doing. None of it brings much money, but it is something, you see. It gives her pride. Anyone could do the same, but many people here, they prefer to give up.”
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Barack Obama
“For my grandfather, race wasn’t something you really needed to worry about anymore; if ignorance still held fast in certain locales, it was safe to assume that the rest of the world would be catching up soon.
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Barack Obama
“The emotions between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves.”
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Barack Obama
“What’s certain is that I don’t need the stress.”
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Barack Obama
