“A healthy, dose of guilt never hurt anybody. It’s what civilization was built on, guilt. A highly underrated emotion.”
―
Barack Obama
“The stakes involved in Washington policy debates are often so high-- whether we send our young men and women to war; whether we allow stem cell research to go forward-- that even small differences in perspective are magnified. The demands of party loyalty, the imperative of campaigns, and the amplification of conflict by the media all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion. Moreover, most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives-- professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems. I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values-- indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people.”
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Barack Obama
“The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They’re operated as holding pens—miniature jails, really. It’s only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated.”
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Barack Obama
“Kita menganggap keimanan sebagai sumber kenyamanan dan pemahaman, tetapi mendapati ekspresi kita akan hal itu justru menyebarkan perpecahan. Kita percaya, diri kita adalah orang-orang yang toleran meskipun berbagai ketegangan rasial, agama, dan kultural mencemari lanskap kehidupan kita. Dan alih-alih berusaha menyelesaikan atau memediasi konflik ini, politik kita justru mengipasinya, mengeksploitasinya, dan menjadikan kita terpecah-belah.”
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Barack Obama
“Well, amigo … you can talk all you want about saving the world, but this city tends to eat away at such noble sentiments.”
―
Barack Obama
“What I would say to my successor is that it is important not just to shoot but to aim”
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Barack Obama
“Illinois preschoolers were temporarily saved from the debilitating effects of cereal and milk.”
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Barack Obama
“What's missing is not money, but a national sense of urgency.”
―
Barack Obama
“All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.”
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Barack Obama
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
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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
“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.
―
Barack Obama
“I couldn’t rid myself of the sense that Roy was in danger somehow, that old demons were driving him toward an abyss, and that if only I was a better brother, my intervention would prevent his fall.”
―
Barack Obama
“J'étais tombé sur l'un des secrets les mieux gardés sur les Noirs: la plupart d'entre nous n'étaient pas intéressés par la révolte; la plupart d'entre nous étaient fatigués de penser tout le temps au problème racial; si nous préférions rester entre nous, c'était surtout parce que c'était le meilleur moyen d'arrêter d'y penser, que c'était plus facile que de passer notre temps en colère ou à essayer de deviner ce que les Blancs pensaient de nous.”
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Barack Obama
“Conservative or liberal, we are all constitutionalists.”
―
Barack Obama
