My family, frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn't raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.
Barack ObamaIn addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education.
Barack ObamaMy sister is a teacher, so I am a strong support of teachers, but I'm not going to be bound by just a certain way of talking about these things, in order for us to move forward on behalf of our kids.
Barack ObamaHistorically - when you look at how America has evolved, typically we make progress on race relations in fits and starts. We make some progress, and then there's maybe some slippage.
Barack ObamaThere is a little bit of that schoolyard attitude of, it's one thing for a guy your own size to mouth off to you, but if there's a little guy, you should just smack him around. And it's probably bad advice in the schoolyard. It's certainly not a good way to run a foreign policy because even when you are dealing with a non-peer, militarily, war is complicated.
Barack ObamaI have to be able to implement a policy that doesn't completely erase borders and boundaries. Not because I think that Honduran child who's gotten here is less worthy of love, attention, opportunity than my child, but because I'm the president of the United States of America and I'm not speaking as a religious leader.
Barack Obama