Quotes from Barack Obama

I don't distinguish between struggling with the world and struggling with myself . . . I enter a pact with other people, other forces in the world, that their problems are mine and mine are theirs . . . The minute others imprint my senses, they become me and I must deal with them or else close part of myself off and make myself and the world smaller, lukewarm.

The cynics may be the loudest voices, but I promise you, they will accomplish the least.

En ese mundo —de cadenas de suministro globales, transferencias de capital instantáneas, redes terroristas transnacionales, cambio climático, migraciones masivas y cada vez mayor complejidad— aprenderemos a convivir, a cooperar los unos con los otros y a reconocer la dignidad de los demás, o pereceremos.

We drilled our drinks onto the checkered-tile floor. And for that moment, at least, I felt like the luckiest man alive.

Buddy said. "See, you and the First Lady don't really know what this means to us, Mr. President. Having you here…" He shook his head. "You just don't know.

I promised to raise taxes on high-income Americans to pay for vital investments in education, research, and infrastructure. I promised to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage as well as to deliver universal healthcare and make college more affordable.

People missed their children's soccer games and dance recitals. People got home too late to tuck toddlers into bed. Those like Rahm, Axe, and others, who'd decided against putting their families through the disruption of moving to Washington, barely saw their spouses and kids at all.

And in the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), American families now had a powerful advocate in their corner. Through its work, they could expect a fairer, more transparent credit market, and real savings as they tried to buy a house, finance a car, deal with a family emergency, send their kids to college, or plan for retirement.

WHEN WOMEN SUCCEED, AMERICA SUCCEEDED

I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear.

if Abbas had been a younger man, more intent on making his mark than protecting himself from criticism.

I know that she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and that what is best in me I owe to her.

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.

the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done. It was a pretty convincing

I often think about that stretch of time spent sitting helplessly at the state dinner in Chile, contemplating the knife's edge between perceived success and potential catastrophe

I recognized that in running for Congress I'd been driven not by some selfless dream of changing the world, but rather by the need to justify the choices I had already made, or to satisfy my ego, or to quell my envy of those who had achieved what I had not.

Craig, a basketball star at Princeton who had worked in investment banking before getting into coaching, used to joke that the family didn't think Michelle ("Miche," they called her) would ever get married because she was too tough—no guy could keep up with her. The weird thing was, I liked that about her; how she constantly challenged me and kept me honest.

Then, during the course of our conversation, he repeated the same story that my grandfather had told, about the white man who had tried to purchase my father's forgiveness

But she wasn't prepared for the loneliness. It was constant, like a shortness of breath

What I couldn't fully appreciate yet was just how malleable this technology would prove to be; how quickly it would be absorbed by commercial interests and wielded by entrenched powers; how readily it could be used not to unify people but to distract or divide them; and how one day many of the same tools that had put me in the White House would be deployed in opposition to everything I stood for.

En el mundo hay personas que solo piensan en ellas mismas. Les da igual lo que les pase a los demás, con tal de conseguir lo que quieren. Menosprecian a los demás para sentirse importantes. Y también hay gente que hace lo contrario, que es capaz de imaginar lo que sienten los demás y se esfuerza por evitar hacerles daño.

centuries of state-sponsored violence by whites against Black and brown people, and that who controlled legally sanctioned violence, how it was wielded and against whom, still mattered in the recesses of our tribal minds much more than we cared to admit.

caution dressed up as wisdom.

The name's Obama. Where do I belong?