We may not be able to stop evil in the world, but how we treat one another is entirely up to us.

I refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. I'm not going to ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me, making over $250,000, aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes.

I refuse to give in to the notion that the American people can't handle complicated information.

Each wave of immigrants that have come in have been able to assimilate, integrate and then rise up and become part of this great American Dream.

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history ..... Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth

Israel is a true friend. It is our greatest ally in the region. And if Israel is attacked, America will stand with Israel. I've made that clear throughout my presidency.

In the campaign back in 2007, 2008, people would say, "Oh, he's being naïve. He thinks that there's no red states and blue states. And wait 'til he gets here." And I will confess that, I didn't fully appreciate the ways in which individual senators or members of Congress now are pushed to the extremes by their voter bases. I did not expect, particularly in the midst of crisis, just how severe that partisanship would be.