Barack Obama Quotes

We need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there's a crisis. I mean, we've had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what's good for Wall Street, but not what's good for Main Street.

I hope people appreciate Chancellor Merkel because, although she traditionally is considered center-right and I'm considered center-left, the truth is that we share those core values, and those are worth protecting. As the senior leader in Europe, as the leader who's been longest lasting, I think she has great credibility, and she is willing to fight for those values. I'm glad that she's there, and I think the German people should appreciate her. Certainly, I have appreciated her as a partner.

My first job as commander in chief is to keep the American people safe.

We had a farewell dinner for some of my senior staff, and generally everybody likes to talk about how cool I was.

I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them.

In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria's crisis once and for all.

We should foster a culture in which people's private religious beliefs, including atheists and agnostics, are respected.

It would be good for the workers in Vietnam even as it helps make sure that they're not undercutting competition here in the United States.

We must begin by acknowledging a hard truth. We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations, acting individually or in concert, will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I very much believe in reforming the tax system.

I know what the counterterrorism feels like because I was there. But I also operated within limits. And within the United States government, we've decided long ago that there are limits on what we're going to do in the war against terrorism.

I continue to believe when I said in Hanover, that the E.U. remains one of the world's great political and economic achievements, and that those achievements should not be taken for granted.

Everybody potentially can make the claim that we should all be treated fairly.

I've been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.

Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security.

I think there are a lot of people who are involved in the Tea Party who have very real and sincere concerns about spending that's out of control or generally philosophically believe that the government should be less involved in certain aspects of American life rather than more involved. And they have every right and obligation as citizens to be involved and engaged in this process.

First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge don't underestimate the guy [Donald Trump], because he's going to be 45th president of the United States.

As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known - this bond is unbreakable.

Families across America are feeling the pinch as they watch debts mount, bills pile up and savings disappear.

The only reason I send a single young man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world is because I think it's necessary to keep us safe.

We are God's partners in matters of life and death.

Does that mean that all vestiges of past discrimination would be eliminated, that the income gap or the wealth gap or the education gap [between Afro-Americans and white] would be erased in five years or 10 years? Probably not, and so this is obviously a discussion we've had before when you talk about something like reparations.

I was able to excite and engage people who previously hadn't been involved in politics, and part of the reason that I was able to be re-elected and stay relatively popular in the United States was because even when the economy was bad or we had problems, people sensed that I listened to them and I was on their side.

Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.

The amount of information, the amount of incoming that any administration has to deal with today and respond to much more rapidly than ever before, that makes it different.

On the one hand information is moving quick or the way in which people consume information is changing so fast. Clearly this worked for [Donald Trump], and it gives him a direct connection to a lot of the people that voted for him.

The shift to a cleaner energy economy wont happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.

I use a different style if I'm speaking to a big crowd; I can gin up folks pretty well. But when I'm in these town hall settings, my job is not to throw them a lot of red meat. I want to give them a sense of my thought process.

We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page.

Degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL

Today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.

Those of us in positions of responsibility, we'll need to be less concerned with the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned with the judgment of posterity.

Our country was born out of a desire to be free. And every day since, it's been protected by our men and women in uniform - people who believed so deeply in America, they were willing to give their lives for it.

A low-carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come.

[Donald Trump] ran an extraordinarily unconventional campaign and it resulted in the biggest political upset in perhaps modern political history. American history.

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions

There's no question that a lot of Americans on both the right and the left are expressing some fears and frustrations about the dislocations brought on by globalisation. Many of those frustrations are legitimate and they need to be addressed.

I believe in returning the nation's wealth to its rightful owners.

The rise in health care costs since Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act was passed, have been at their lowest rate in 50 years. Those savings have extended the Medicare trust fund by 11 years. So we've got a baseline of facts.So it is true theoretically that all that progress can be undone, and suddenly 20 million people or more don't have health insurance.

I don't want my generals or my defense secretary or my national-security team to ever feel deploying weapons to kill people as routine or abstract, even if the targets are bad people.

Nobody's changing what you've got. You get to keep it.

It's up to [Angela Merkel] whether she wants to stand again and then ultimately, it'll be up to the German people to decide what the future holds. If I were here and I were German and I had a vote, I might support her.

It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name - modern slavery.

America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

I'm a warrior for the middle class.

Heaven forbid we've got a problem where we could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who is engaged in dangerous activity, but we didn't do so simply because of inaction in the Senate.