Quotes from Barack Obama

Fear, uncertainty and discomfort are your compasses toward growth. If you run you stand a chance of losing, but if you don't run you've already lost.

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.

That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.

Where the stakes are the highest, in the war on terror, we cannot possibly succeed without extraordinary international cooperation. Effective international police actions require the highest degree of intelligence sharing, planning and collaborative enforcement.

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded.

I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it's been tested by recession and all manner of challenges - I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed.

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed, we're getting back to basics, and doing what America has always done best: We're making things again.

In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.

Those who oppose reform will also tell you that under our plan, you won't get to choose your doctor - that some bureaucrat will choose for you. That's also not true.

Michelle and I don't want anyone telling us who our family's doctor should be - and no one should decide that for you either. Under our proposals, if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story.

Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.

Our individualism has always been bound by a set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy society depends.

Every life must be given the chance to realize its full potential - that every life matters.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.

We live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained.

Nothing in life that's worth anything is easy.

I can be much more sarcastic and, I think, sometimes withering in my assessments of things than I allow to show in my public life.

Life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story, and along the way, we start to realize we are not the author.