The biggest deficit that we have in our society and in the world right now is an empathy deficit. We are in great need of people being able to stand in somebody else's shoes and see the world through their eyes.

Climate change is one of the issues I worry most about because its impacts are enormous. But they're gradual, they're not immediate.

And if that child should ever get the chance to travel the world and someone should ask her where is she from, we believe that she should always be able to hold her head high with pride in her voice when she answers, "I am an American." That is the course we seek. That is the change we are calling for.

One faction of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government, doesn't get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election.

And so our goal on health care is, if we can get, instead of health care costs going up 6 percent a year, it's going up at the level of inflation, maybe just slightly above inflation, we've made huge progress. And by the way, that is the single most important thing we could do in terms of reducing our deficit. That's why we did it.

In America, we've set up a system whereby when you take on college debt, you will never have to pay more than 10 percent of your income in repayments. And what that will do is make sure that you will never be prevented from going to school just because of money. We want to make sure that you and others like you can succeed.

This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.