Our government shouldn't make promises we cannot keep, but we must keep the promises we've already made.

We are an American family and we rise and fall together as one nation.

And we remember the end of our combat mission and the emergence of a new dawn - the precision of our efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq, the professionalism of the training of Iraqi security forces, and the steady drawdown of our forces. In handing over responsibility to the Iraqis, you preserved the gains of the last four years and made this day possible.

I think that to the extent that we focus on problems where we can build a moral and a political consensus, then I think that we move the country forward and when we are divided and our politics is focused on dividing, then I think we're less successful, not just from the perspective of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party but from the perspective of the nation as a whole.

We are in what we hope is an intensive diplomatic phase now. It will not be open-ended.

What drags down our entire economy is when there's an ever-widening chasm between the ultra-rich and everybody else.

The most important thing we can do is to make sure that we've got very high standards, we expect a lot out of all of our young people, and we make sure that we have the best teachers possible in every classroom.