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

I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks 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.

Empowering women isn’t just the right thing to do - it’s the smart thing to do.

Solyndra is a great investment in our future

And, as a consequence of the pressure that we've applied over the last couple of weeks, we have Syria -- for the first time -- acknowledging that it has chemical weapons, agreeing to join the convention that prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and the Russians -- their primary sponsors -- saying that they will push Syria to get all of their chemical weapons out. The distance that we've traveled over these couple of weeks is remarkable.

Anybody who gets into bed and turns out the lights the first night in the White House probably feels a little bit of a start, where you say, "Goodness ... "

The young are going to be the messengers of this continued strengthening of the diversity in America.