Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
Barack ObamaWe have to have better intelligence. We have to have better interdiction capabilities. And so the issue is not how much we spend or how hard we try; the issue is are we doing it the right way? Are we being smart about it?
Barack ObamaIran is the latest expression of a deep, ancient, powerful culture that's different than ours. And we don't know how it's going to play itself out.
Barack Obama