Barack Obama Quotes & Sayings

We Shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women — Barack Obama

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values ... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.
Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. — Barack Obama

I think the American people have a generous instinct. They understand that we're a nation of immigrants. But if those folks are going to live in this country, they have to be put on a pathway to citizenship that involves them paying a fine, making sure that they are at the back of the line and not cutting in front of people who applied legally to come into the country. — Barack Obama

It is true, I worry about the hype. The only person more over-hyped than me is you. — Barack Obama

She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She's talking like she's Annie Oakley. — Barack Obama

After 2014, we will support a unified Afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own future. — Barack Obama

America's nurses are the beating heart of our medical system. — Barack Obama

We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard. — Barack Obama

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. — Barack Obama

the world was shrinking, sympathies changing; — Barack Obama

Do something, Congress. Do anything. — Barack Obama

Effective immediately, we will only pursue phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization instead of three. — Barack Obama

The silence killed your faith. — Barack Obama

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. — Barack Obama

Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq's future is not. — Barack Obama

From the first moment a woman dared to speak that hope - dared to believe that the American Dream was meant for her too - ordinary women have taken on extraordinary odds to give their daughters the chance for something else; for a life more equal, more free, and filled with more opportunity than they ever had. In so many ways we have succeeded, but in so many areas we have much work left to do. — Barack Obama

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. — Barack Obama

When the United States stands up for human rights, by example at home and by effort abroad, we align ourselves with men and women around the world who struggle for the right to speak their minds, to choose their leaders, and to be treated with dignity and respect. We also strengthen our security and well being, because the abuse of human rights can feed many of the global dangers that we confront - from armed conflict and humanitarian crises, to corruption and the spread of ideologies that promote hatred and violence. — Barack Obama

What is the empathy deficit? The inability of people to stand in other folks shoes. It's hard to empathize with people who have different values than you — Barack Obama

I'm a warrior for the middle class. — Barack Obama

By the end of this decade, a majority of our Navy and Air Force fleets will be based out of the Pacific, because the United States is and always will be a Pacific power. — Barack Obama

I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country. Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law. I've made that clear. — Barack Obama

Scripture tells us to run with endurance the race that is set before us. As we do, may God hold close those who have been taken from us too soon. — Barack Obama

And I've said this all across the country when I talk to parents about education, government has to fulfill its obligations to fund education, but parents have to do their job too. We've got to turn off the TV set, we've got to put away the video game, and we have to tell our children that education is not a passive activity, you have to be actively engaged in it. If we encourage that attitude and our community is enforcing it, I have no doubt we can compete with anybody in the world. — Barack Obama

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges. — Barack Obama

I don't presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing. — Barack Obama

And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet - because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They're a threat to our children's future. And in this election, you can do something about it. — Barack Obama

We are the change we have been waiting for. — Barack Obama

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors - found the courage to keep it alive. — Barack Obama

John Conyers and I were the ones who wrote the bill that provides for Medicare for all. And, so, even though the single-payer plan is not what's before the Congress, to expand Medicare, so that people 55 and up would be - would have the chance to buy in, that's - that would be a step in the right direction, no question about it. — Barack Obama

The problem is that because the voucher wouldn't necessarily keep up with health care inflation, it was estimated that this would cost the average senior about $6,000 a year. — Barack Obama

No development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. — Barack Obama

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. — Barack Obama

What can I do to make sure that middle-class families are feeling more secure, that more young people are able to access opportunity, that we are safe, that we are working with our international partners to try to create more order at a time when there's a lot of chaos? How do we deal with terrorism in a way that's consistent with our values? As long as I stay focused on those north stars, then I tend not to get too rattled. — Barack Obama

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

Since taking office, I've made it clear that the United States was prepared to begin a new chapter of engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We offered the Iranian government a clear choice. It could fulfill its international obligations and realize greater security, deeper economic and political integration with the world, and a better future for all Iranians. Or it could continue to flout its responsibilities and face even more pressure and isolation. — Barack Obama

In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri - where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. — Barack Obama

We can't afford more top-down economics. What we need are policies that will grow and strengthen the middle class. — Barack Obama

It is very important for I think those of us who desperately want peace, who see war as, at some level, a break-down, a manifestation of human weakness, to understand that sometimes it's also necessary - and you know, to be able to balance two ideas at the same time; that we are constantly striving for peace, we are doubling up on our diplomacy, we are going to actively engage, we are going to try to see the world through other people's eyes and not just our own. — Barack Obama

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning ... — Barack Obama

When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s. — Barack Obama

know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder - alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware - is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all. And — Barack Obama

When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting. They're not making a statement. They're stealing. When they burn down a building, they're committing arson. — Barack Obama

Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty. — Barack Obama

When we think about immigration, we have to understand there are folks all around the world who still see America as the land of promise. And they provide us energy, and they provide us innovation. And they start companies like Intel and Google, and we want to encourage that. — Barack Obama

Across the globe there are girls who will one day lead nations, if only we afford them the chance to choose their own destinies. — Barack Obama

If you're 54 or 55, you might want to listen because this will affect you. The idea, which was originally presented by Congressman Ryan, your running mate, is that we would give a voucher to seniors and they could go out in the private marketplace and buy their own health insurance. — Barack Obama

We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. — Barack Obama

Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and work to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology. — Barack Obama

Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table. — Barack Obama

Peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. — Barack Obama

If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that was all there was to it, people wouldn't have to keep coming to church, would they. — Barack Obama

Legislatively, the thing I'm most proud of is healthcare, and I will continue to be most proud of it because not only do we have 30 million people who are going to get healthcare, we've got six million young people who are able to stay on their parents' plan until they're 26. — Barack Obama

You have young men of color in many communities who are more likely to end up in jail or in the criminal justice system than they are in a good job or in college. And, you know, part of my job, that I can do, I think, without any potential conflicts, is to get at those root causes. — Barack Obama

The thing I know for sure is that at the end of my life, what I'm going to remember is the love I felt for my family and my friends, and whatever good I did for other people. — Barack Obama

If you're looking for the safe choice, you shouldn't be supporting a black guy named Barack Obama to be the next leader of the free world. — Barack Obama

The role of government has never been to plan every detail or dictate every outcome. At its best, government has simply knocked away barriers to opportunity and laid the foundation for a better future. Our people
with all their drive and ingenuity
always end up building the rest. And if we can do that again
if we can continue building that foundation and making those hard decisions on behalf of the next generation
I have no doubt that we will leave our children the America that we all hope for. — Barack Obama

Non-Islamic, non-foreign-motivated terrorist actions have killed at least as many Americans on American soil as those who were promoted by jihadists. But what we have also seen is ISIL evolve, because of the sophistication of their social media, to a point where they may be inspiring more attacks - even if they're self-initiated, even if they don't involve complex planning - than we would have seen some time ago. — Barack Obama

If you run you stand a chance of losing, but if you don't run you've already lost. — Barack Obama

A nation ringed by walls will only imprison itself. — Barack Obama

Let's be grateful for what we have. Let's be mindful of those who have less. Let's appreciate those who hold a special place in our lives, and make sure they know it. And let's think about those who can't spend the holiday with their loved ones - especially the members of our military serving overseas. — Barack Obama

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time. — Barack Obama

We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings. — Barack Obama

And we remember the end of our combat mission and the emergence of a new dawn
the precision of our efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq, the professionalism of the training of Iraqi security forces, and the steady drawdown of our forces. In handing over responsibility to the Iraqis, you preserved the gains of the last four years and made this day possible. — Barack Obama

We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year — Barack Obama

Even limited military actions end up carrying with them great costs and unintended consequences. — Barack Obama

So here's what I want you to know, and here's what I want all our men and women in uniform to know: Because of you, we are ending these wars in a way that will make America stronger and the world more secure. Because of you. — Barack Obama

Several Americans, unjustly detained by Iran, are finally coming home. In some cases, these Americans faced years of continued detention, and I've met with some of their families. I've seen their anguish, how they ache for their sons and husbands. I gave these families my word. I made a vow that we would do everything in our power to win the release of their loved ones, and we have been tireless. — Barack Obama

As I said last week in the wake of the grand jury decision, I think Ferguson laid bare a problem that is not unique to St. Louis or that area, and is not unique to our time, and that is a simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color. — Barack Obama

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal - that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will. — Barack Obama

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. — Barack Obama

I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. — Barack Obama

Let us reach for the world that ought to be
that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. — Barack Obama

The president is eager to get to work and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery, but the president is clear that he will not let this Congress undo important protections gained
particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment. — Barack Obama

Today's decision was a victory for people all across this country whose lives will be more secure. — Barack Obama

I am not in favor of concealed weapons. I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations. — Barack Obama

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra - (applause) - as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer. (Applause.) — Barack Obama

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this. — Barack Obama

Never read Who Moved My Cheese in the workplace when you can read The Joy of Not Working. — Barack Obama

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party. — Barack Obama

Our higher education system is one of the things that makes America exceptional. There's no place else that has the assets we do when it comes to higher education. People from all over the world aspire to come here and study here. And that is a good thing. — Barack Obama

What we saw was that the Ferguson Police Department in conjunction with the municipality saw traffic stops, arrests, tickets as a revenue generator, as opposed to serving the community, and that it systematically was biased against African-Americans in that city who were stopped, harassed, mistreated, abused, called names, fined. — Barack Obama

The importance of making sure that the sense of accountability when, in fact, law enforcement is involved in a deadly shooting is something that I think communities across the board are going to need to consider, we have a great opportunity, coming out of some great conflict and tragedy, to really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations so that everybody feels safer and our law enforcement officers feel, rather than being embattled, feel fully supported. — Barack Obama

Greatness is never free; it must be earned. — Barack Obama

Why can't I just eat my waffle? — Barack Obama

I would have to ... investigate more of Bill's dancing abilities, you know, and some of this other stuff before I accurately judge whether he was in fact a brother. — Barack Obama

Our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice. — Barack Obama

The United States is imposing sanctions on individuals and companies working to advance Iran's ballistic missile program, and we are going to remain vigilant about it. We're not going to waver in the defense of our security or that of our allies and partners. — Barack Obama

We are now at a point where because we in fact have been successful at stopping a number of plots, a threat has evolved. We do see these lone-wolf actors. We do see these encouragements for troubled individuals to pick up a gun and act out of this ideology. — Barack Obama

But that's part of what makes America wonderful, is we always had this nagging dissatisfaction that spurs us on. That's how we ended up going west, that's how we
"I'm tired of all these people back east; if I go west, there's going to be my own land and I'm not going to have to put up with this nonsense, and I'm going to start my own thing, and I've got my homestead." ... It is true, though, that that restlessness and that dissatisfaction which has helped us go to the moon and create the Internet and build the Transcontinental Railroad and build our land-grant colleges, that those things, born of dissatisfaction, we can very rapidly then take for granted and not tend to and not defend, and not understand how precious these things are. — Barack Obama

I'm really excited about the prospect of a woman president of the United States. — Barack Obama

In the midst of economic recovery and global upheaval, disasters like this remind us of the common humanity that we share. — Barack Obama

Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22-out-of-30 top al-Qaida leaders who've been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that. — Barack Obama

I just want people to know the facts and science and the information ... measles is preventable. — Barack Obama

Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody's who is willing to work for it. — Barack Obama

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. — Barack Obama

For the United States of America, the best is yet to come. — Barack Obama

A good GI bill would increase the recruit pool. — Barack Obama

I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks. — Barack Obama

You bomb ISIL. You're not trying to bomb innocent people. And that requires intelligence and confidence in our military to be able to develop the kinds of targets that we need. We're already doing Special Forces, who are going to help us gather that intelligence and help advise and assist and train local forces so that they can go after ISIL in areas like Raqqah and Mosul. — Barack Obama