“To be black was to be the beneficiary of a great inheritance, a special destiny, glorious burdens that only we were strong enough to bear.”
―
Barack Obama
“The conservative revolution that Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight - that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing the pie - contained a good deal of truth.”
―
Barack Obama
“That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.”
―
Barack Obama
“I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.”
―
Barack Obama
“inexhaustible...our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.”
―
Barack Obama
“Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes....”
―
Barack Obama
“It's in the misery of some unnamed slum that the next killer virus will emerge.”
―
Barack Obama
“In return, I gave him a sounding board for his frustrations.”
―
Barack Obama
“There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter.”
―
Barack Obama
“Better to be strong,' he [Lolo] said...'if you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong. But always better to be strong yourself.”
―
Barack Obama
“I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.”
―
Barack Obama
“You seem like a nice enough guy. Why do you want”
―
Barack Obama
“And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”
―
Barack Obama
“The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.”
―
Barack Obama
“We must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side; and yet at times we must act nonetheless, as if we are certain, protected from error only by providence.”
―
Barack Obama
