Quotes from Barack Obama

I was tempted to exit my perch, make my way down the aisle, and smack the guy in the head.

Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.

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

The trick is not caring that it hurts.

Please proceed, Governor.

I found god in myself and I loved her / I loved her fiercely

I knew a time would come when I would disappoint them, falling short of the image that my campaign and I had helped to construct.

Isn't that what you say in America? Just go with the flow.…" Roy laughed again, loud enough for the people at the next table to turn around. Only the magic was gone out of it now; it sounded hollow, as if it were traveling across a vast, empty distance.

communities had never been a given in this country, at least not for Blacks. Communities had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens.

Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future.

Some of it was just a function of my getting older, I suppose, for if you are paying attention, each successive year will make you more intimately acquainted with all of your flaws – the blind spots, the recurring habits of thought that may be genetic or may be environmental, but that will almost certainly worsen with time, as surely as the hitch in your walk turns to pain in your hip.

In few other professions are you required, each and every day, to weigh so many competing claims—between different sets of constituents, between the interests of your state and the interests of the nation, between party loyalty and your own sense of independence, between the value of service and obligations to your family. There is a constant danger, in the cacophony of voices, that a politician loses his moral bearings and finds himself entirely steered by the winds of public opinion.

We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

Enthusiasm makes up for a host of deficiencies, I tell my daughters—and at least that was true for me at Harvard.

When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal.

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.

We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.

We think of faith as a source of comfort and understanding but find our expressions of faith sowing division; we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape.

What I hadn't anticipated was the media's reaction to Trump's sudden embrace of birtherism—the degree to which the line between news and entertainment had become so blurred, and the competition for ratings so fierce, that outlets eagerly lined up to offer a platform for a baseless claim. It was propelled by Fox News, naturally, a network whose power and profits had been built around stoking the same racial fears and resentments that Trump now sought to exploit.

In the hands of the shrewd and the ruthless, chaos had proven a gift.

Joe looked at the name on Axe's BlackBerry and then turned to me. "Who the hell is Sarah Palin?

This world is like a big classroom, and USA is the teacher, while other countries are the students, as one student tries to mess with the teacher, or does something really bad. The teacher shall teach him a nice lesson. Use your brain before you try to mess with the odds.

McConnell raised his hand like a traffic cop and said, "You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.