You want to be commander-in-chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient.

We forget now, but during his life, Dr. King wasn't always considered a unifying figure. Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical. He was even attacked by his own people, by those who felt he was going too fast or those who felt he was going too slow; by those who felt he shouldn't meddle in issues like the Vietnam War or the rights of union workers.

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

To break our addiction to oil is one of the greatest challenges that our generation will have to master.

There's something about these steps [in Oval Office] and thinking about everybody who's walked here and all the business that's been done here.

We will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it - not by turning it over to Wall Street.

One of the gratifying things, I think, about the end of my presidency even though admittedly my successor ran against a lot of what we stood for, is when you look at the individual issues and the progress that we've made on a lot of those issues, we got the support of a pretty decent majority.