The very technologies that empower us to do great good can also be used to undermine us and inflict great harm.

If you want to right-size executive power relative to the other branches of government, the best way to do that is to have a healthy Congress in which the two parties are debating, disagreeing, but also occasionally working together to pass legislation.

One of the things that you come pretty early on to understand in this job, and you start figuring out even during the course of the campaign, is that there's Barack Obama the person and there's Barack Obama the symbol, or the office holder, or what people are seeing on television, or just a representative of power. And so when people criticize or respond negatively to me, usually they're responding to this character that they're seeing on TV called Barack Obama, or to the office of the presidency and the White House and what that represents.

This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.

I don't regret at all saying that if I saw Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people that that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria.

The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.