“We don't ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours.”
―
Barack Obama
“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”
―
Barack Obama
“We’re never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we’re bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives—although that’s what we tell ourselves—but because we’re wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger.”
―
Barack Obama
“A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.”
―
Barack Obama
“But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.”
―
Barack Obama
“the worlds that they thought they’d left behind reclaimed each of them, I occupied the place where their dreams had been.”
―
Barack Obama
“In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I would pretend to close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended.”
―
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
“It was as if he had come to mistrust words somehow. Words, and the sentiments words carried.”
―
Barack Obama
“In the face of our common dangers, in this wintr of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.”
―
Barack Obama
“But it’s just that he is basically a very honest person. That makes him uncompromising sometimes.”
―
Barack Obama
“I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer’s lobby.”
―
Barack Obama
“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
―
Barack Obama
“At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”
―
Barack Obama
“I don't worry about the survival of the novel. We're a storytelling species.”
―
Barack Obama
