“But for a younger generation of conservative operatives who would soon rise to power... They were true believers who meant what they said, whether it was 'No New Taxes' or 'We are a Christian Nation.' In fact, with their rigid doctrines, slash-and-burn style, and exaggerated sense of having been aggrieved, this new conservative leadership was eerily reminiscent of some of the New Left's leaders during the sixties. As with their left-wing counterparts, this new vanguard of the right viewed politics as a contest not just between competing policy visions, but between good and evil. Activists in both parties began developing litmus tests, checklists of orthodoxy, leaving a Democrat who questioned abortion increasingly lonely, any Republican who championed gun control effectively marooned. In this Manichean struggle, compromise came to look like weakness, to be punished or purged. You were with us or you were against us. You had to choose sides.”
―
Barack Obama
“A nation ringed by walls will only imprison itself.”
―
Barack Obama
“As she spoke, her voice never wavered; it was the voice of someone who has forced a larger meaning out of tragedy.
―
Barack Obama
“If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.”
―
Barack Obama
“A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.”
―
Barack Obama
“It was Jefferson, not some liberal judge in the sixties, who called for a wall between church and state—and if we have declined to heed Jefferson’s advice to engage in a revolution every two or three generations, it’s only because the Constitution itself proved a sufficient defense against tyranny.”
―
Barack Obama
“I've been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.”
―
Barack Obama
“it’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”
―
Barack Obama
“I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that striving for power and rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience.”
―
Barack Obama
“And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.”
―
Barack Obama
“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-old debates about the role of government for all time — but it does require us to act in our time,”
―
Barack Obama
“Sometimes you can’t worry about hurt. Sometimes you worry only about getting where you have to go.” We”
―
Barack Obama
“in the state capital. But the years had also taken their toll. Some of it was just a function of my getting older, I suppose, for if you are paying attention,”
―
Barack Obama
