Part of what makes me most optimistic is if you look at the attitudes of young people. Across the board, young people are much more comfortable with respecting differences. They are much more comfortable with diversity.

With respect to the pledge I made that if you like your plan you can keep it. The way I put that forward unequivocally ended up not being accurate.

It's also wonderful to be back with my great friend and ally, Chancellor [Angela] Merkel. As I reflect back over the last eight years, I could not ask for a steadier or more reliable partner on the world stage, often through some very challenging times.

I wouldn't be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago

I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 11 years ago - crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter's future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had - that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father. I knew that day that my own life wouldn't count for much unless she had every opportunity in hers.

There have been times where, let's say on LGBT issues, when we were trying to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and I got the Pentagon and Bob Gates, a Republican holdover from the [George W.] Bush administration, to authorize a study of how you might end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, headed up by Jeh Johnson, who at that time was a council to the Justice Department. And it was going to take a year to conduct that study, issue a report, and figure out how it might be implemented, what effect it would have on unit cohesion and military effectiveness.

There are places and moments in America where this nation’s destiny has been decided...Selma is such a place.