“It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those who are struggling. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.”
―
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
“My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
―
Barack Obama
“Let's be honest. Sometimes art is dangerous, though. And that's why governments sometimes get nervous about art. But one of the things I truly believe is if you try to suppress the arts, then I think you are suppressing the deepest dreams and aspirations of the people.”
―
Barack Obama
“There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”
―
Barack Obama
“You might be locked in a world not of your own making, her eyes said, but you still have a claim on how it is shaped. You still have responsibilities.”
―
Barack Obama
“A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.”
―
Barack Obama
“There's nobody to guide through the process of becoming a man... to explain to them the meaning of manhood. And that's a recipe for disaster.”
―
Barack Obama
“the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...”
―
Barack Obama
“At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better”
―
Barack Obama
“Once I found an issue enough people cared about, I could take them into action. With enough actions, I could start to build power
―
Barack Obama
“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”
―
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.”
―
Barack Obama
“perhaps that’s how any love begins, impulses and cloudy images that allow us to break across our solitude, and then, if we’re lucky, are finally transformed into something firmer.”
―
Barack Obama
