Quotes from Barack Obama

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you - and fight alongside you - until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment. But community colleges provide lifetime employability.

Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They've got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law.

It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.

I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that.

What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending - that's the whole point! Seriously.

When BP was not moving fast enough on claims, we told BP to set aside $20 billion in a fund - managed by an independent third party - to help all those whose lives have been turned upside down by the spill.

Why can't I just eat my waffle?

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn't do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.

While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving into that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.

I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln - just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it.

A child's course in life should be determined not by the zip code she's born in, but by the strength of her work ethic and the scope of her dreams.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.

Let me tell your something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break.

Even when our heart aches, we summon the strength that maybe we didn't even know we had, and we carry on; we finish the race.

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Rise to their needs.

A relentless focus on the outward markers of success can lead to complacency. It can make you lazy.

There may be no greater tribute to Steve Jobs' success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.

I'm personally very grateful to my many friends in the Greek-American community, sons and daughters of Greece who have found success in every walk of American life.

Andrew Cuomo own story taught Andrew Cuomo that as Americans, we are bound together as one people, and our country's success rests on the success of all of us, not just a fortunate few.

If there's even one thing we can do - even one life we can save - we have an obligation to try