“And I would shrug and play the question off, unable to confess that I could no longer distinguish between faith and mere folly, between faith and simple endurance; that while I believed in the sincerity I heard in their voices, I remained a reluctant skeptic, doubtful of my own motives, wary of expedient conversion, having too many quarrels with God to accept a salvation too easily won.”
―
Barack Obama
“the words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms...”
―
Barack Obama
this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal ..."~~Barack Obama upon winning the Democratic nomination for presidency conveys his thinking of what that means ....for the world, Tuesday, JUNE 03, 2008”
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Barack Obama
“For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.”
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Barack Obama
“This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
It is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend”
―
Barack Obama
“I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn’t do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves.”
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Barack Obama
“Unfortunately, too many of our schools depend on inexperienced teachers with little training in the subjects they're teaching, and too often those teachers are concentrated in already struggling schools.”
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Barack Obama
“Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”
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Barack Obama
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.
Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
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Barack Obama
“You might be locked in a world not of your own making, her eyes said, but you still have a claim on how it is shaped. You still have responsibilities.”
―
Barack Obama
“doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”
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Barack Obama
“the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done. It was a pretty convincing”
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Barack Obama
“Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models.”
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Barack Obama
“I realized that in some unspoken, still tentative way, she and I were already becoming a family.”
―
Barack Obama
“If you’re going to do this work, Barack, you’ve got to stop worrying about whether people like you. They won’t.” Patronage,”
―
Barack Obama
