Barack Obama Quotes

I don't have a philosophical objection, necessarily, to a travel ban if that is the thing that is going to keep the American people safe.

Our lives are now in a telephone, all our data, all our finances, all our personal information, and so it's proper that we have some constraints on that. But it's not going to be 100 percent. If it is 100 percent, then we're not going to be able to protect ourselves and our societies from some people who are trying to hurt us.

I'm going to insist on making sure that we've got decent funding, that we've got enough teachers, that we've got computers in the classroom, but unless you turn off the television set and get over a certain anti-intellectualism that I think pervades some low-income communities, our children are not going to achieve.

We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment.

We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. This happened because of you. Thank you.

Just listen to what Mr. [Donald] Trump has to say and make your own judgment with respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things like our nuclear triad.

After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It's easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What's hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that's what we must do. Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend.

It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law - for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11.

What I want to try to do is unify the two wings of the Democratic Party. What's considered the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party - the more centrist wing of the party. I think we can craft an approach that is more American, pro-worker, pro-business, pro-growth.

I've enjoyed the conversations that we've had. [Donald Trump] is somebody who I think is not lacking in confidence.

I can't really characterize any country, except to say that we work well with a number of our foreign counterparts.

You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth.

We are willing to uphold principles that have resulted in unprecedented prosperity and security throughout Europe and around the world. With the threat of climate change only becoming more urgent, Angela [Merkel] and I focused on the need for American and E.U. leadership to advance global cooperation.

I was raised by a single mom who had to put herself through school while looking after two kids. And she worked hard every day and made a lot of sacrifices to make sure we got everything we needed. My grandmother, she started off as a secretary in a bank. She never got a college education, even though she was smart as a whip. And she worked her way up to become a vice president of a local bank, but she hit the glass ceiling. She trained people who would end up becoming her bosses during the course of her career.

It's no wonder that America's engagement in the region has strong, sustained, bipartisan support. So I'll be handing my successor a strong foundation - including closer ties with Singapore - on which to continue building, and I'm optimistic that will happen.

The quibble I have with President [Barack] Obama is,and I think some other people will have it, too is that the rhetoric is fine, and identifying the problem is fine. But it`s to use a football analogy, he sort of pushes it into the red zone, and then tends to settle for a field goal.

The window is closing.

After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land.

If I were German and I had a vote, I might support Angela Merkel.

We [USA] don't have diplomatic leverage to eliminate every vestige of a peaceful nuclear program in Iran. What we do have the leverage to do is to make sure that they don't have a weapon.

We are committed to a world in which we keep America safe, but we recognize that our power doesn't just flow from our extraordinary military but also flows from the strength in our ideals and our principles and our values.

Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.

There are times where I've made mistakes or our administration hasn't always aligned ourselves with the values we need to align ourselves with. It's a work of constant improvement.

You may want to prove that you're worthy of other kids or neighbors who were wealthier than you and teased you. You may want to prove that you're worthy of high expectations. But I do think that there is a youthful ambition that very much has to do with making your mark in the world. And I think that cuts across the experiences of a lot of people who end up achieving something significant in their field.

Libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest but who has the right information.

Over the last several days, we have heard from members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree.

It probably wouldn't be good for our economy for a bunch of these jobs to come back because, there's no way that people could be getting paid a living wage on some of these jobs - at least in order to be competitive in an international setting.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'

Together, we're going to finish the job we started.

As progressives we believe in affordable health care for all Americans.

Unless you're one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else. Somebody brought you.

I think that most Americans don't resent people for getting rich. They want to get rich themselves.

I hope that this [hacking] does not continue to be viewed purely through a partisan lens.I think there are Republicans as well as Democrats who are concerned about this.

It could be another election where the alignments between Republicans and Democrats are different than they were this time and who a foreign country prefers.

My guiding principle as president has been to try to do the right thing even when it's not politically convenient.

I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

We can rattle our sabers all we want but, realistically, we don't have troops for an invasion [Iran] and surgical strikes aren't going to work.

To try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions on issues that have nothing to do with the budget.

Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.

Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.

As I said in my State of the Union address ensuring the security of the United States and the safety of our people demands a smart, patient and disciplined approach to the world.

We have to ensure free and open exchange of information. That starts with an open internet. I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality. Because once providers start to privilege some applications or websites over others then the smaller voices get squeezed out and we all lose. The internet is perhaps the most open network in history, and we have to keep it that way.

I just want to repeat that there's nothing that we've proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm.

Michelle [Obama] never fully took to the scrutiny. I mean, she's thrived as a first lady, but it's not her preference.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

[With Donald Trump] we are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone.