“To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”
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Barack Obama
“We now live in a world where the most valuable skill you can sell is knowledge.”
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Barack Obama
“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works”
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Barack Obama
“inexhaustible...our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.”
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Barack Obama
“I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.”
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Barack Obama
“Our values call upon us to care about people we'll never meet.”
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Barack Obama
“But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew—Frank or Ray or Will or Rafiq—fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own—my father’s voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval.”
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Barack Obama
“the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy ... betrays a poverty of ambition.”
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Barack Obama
“No, no. I have been practicing...I bowled a 129. It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something." --making an off-hand joke during an appearance on "The Tonight Show", March 19, 2009”
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Barack Obama
“Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up”
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Barack Obama
“We may come from different places and have different stories, but we share common hopes, and one very American dream.”
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Barack Obama
“To the furniture worker's child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president -- that's the future we hope for. That's the vision we share. That's where we need to go -- forward”
―
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.”
―
Barack Obama
