Barack Obama Quotes

Donald Trump will be the next president, the 45th president of the United States. And it will be up to him to set up a team that he thinks will serve him well and reflect his policies. It takes a while for people to reconcile themselves with that new reality. Hopefully, it`s a reminder that elections matter. I think it`s important for us to let him make his decisions, and I think the American people will judge over the course of the next couple of years whether they like what they see.

I've said consistently that I always reserve the right, in conjunction with a broader international effort, to prevent genocide or any wholesale slaughter than might happen inside of Iraq or anyplace else.

Our intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of governments - as opposed to ordinary citizens - around the world, in the same way that the intelligence services of every other nation does. We will not apologize simply because our services may be more effective.

If you were president 50 years ago, the tragedy in Syria might not even penetrate what the American people were thinking about on a day to day basis. Today, they're seeing vivid images of a child in the aftermath of a bombing.

Iran will for sure have pledged to the international community that it will not develop a nuclear weapon, and now will be subject to an additional protocol, a more vigorous inspection and monitoring regime that lasts in perpetuity.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.

I started as a community organizer. Every one of my campaigns was premised on getting new people involved. And if there's a theme in my public career it's that if ordinary people get involved then good things happen. So I want to see the Democratic Party move in that direction. And what that means is that we aren't just micro-targeting to eke out presidential victories; it means that we're showing up in places where right now we're not winning a lot.

Reinvigorating the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, making sure that in our Department of Education, where we see evidence of black boys being suspended at substantially higher rates than white boys for the same behavior, in the absence of that kind of rigorous enforcement of the nondiscrimination principle, then the long-standing biases that I believe have weakened, but are still clearly present in our society, assert themselves in ways that usually disadvantage African Americans.

Women deserve equal pay for equal work.

A political consultant, when we first started thinking about Senate race, said, "You can have one funny name. You can be 'Barack Smith.' Or you can be 'Joe Obama.' But 'Barack Obama' - that's not gonna work."

The Russians don't make determinations about what our defense posture is.

Hillary Clinton has been in politics for the same reason I am - because we can improve other people's lives by doing this work.

Now, I've lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago no matter what some folks say. You can see it not just in statistics, you see it in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum. But we're not where we need to be. And all of us have more work to do.

The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote.

I have much more confidence in my ability, or any president or any leader's ability, to mobilize the American people around a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to help every child in poverty in this country than I am in being able to mobilize the country around providing a benefit specific to African Americans as a consequence of slavery and Jim Crow.

That is the nature of democracy. It is hard. It is not always inspiring.

When you've got a economy in which 40 percent of economic growth is happening in the financial sector, that turns out that was all an illusion, that it wasn't growth based on real products and services, but just a bunch of paper shuffling and a house of cards, then what's gonna emerge, at some point, is a sense of resentment, a sense that the system's rigged, and it's not working for ordinary people. And it's not fulfilling the basic American dream.

I think what is true is that there's been an underlying division in the United States. Some of it has to do with the fact that economic growth and recovery tends to be stronger in the cities and in urban areas. In some rural areas, particularly those that were reliant on manufacturing, there has been weaker growth, stagnation, people feeling as if their children won't do as well as they will.

There's no one who I believe has ever captured the soul of America more profoundly than Abraham Lincoln has.

I do think that saving the economy was a pretty big deal. We did a lot of stuff early that ended up having an impact. I believe that the work we've done in moving our energy future in a cleaner direction is going to stick even if some of the individual steps that we took are reversed by future administrations. I think that it's embedded itself in the economy.

I'm named Barack Hussein Obama. I'm African-­American.

Now suddenly you got members of your [White House] team who were 23, 24. They've met their wives here, or their husbands here.

In Missouri, it's a 50/50 state, so I'm kind of used to half the state being mad at me.

I reiterated our hope that negotiations over the United Kingdom's exit from the E.U. will be conducted in a smooth and orderly and transparent fashion and preserve as closely as possible the economic and political and security relationships between the U.K. and E.U.

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.

You Can't Rest on Your Laurels. Your Own Body of Work Is Yet to Come.

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That's just not part of my religious makeup.

Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. We were strangers once, too.

If you only think about yourself - how much money can I make, what can I buy, how nice is my house, what kind of fancy car do I have? - over the long term, I think, you get bored. I think your life becomes diminished. The way to live a full life is to think: What can I do for others?

As I've said many times, the nuclear deal was never intended to resolve all of our differences with Iran. But still, engaging directly with the Iranian government on a sustained basis for the first time in decades has created a unique opportunity, a window, to try to resolve important issues.

In the absence of sound oversight,responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system.

Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets.

We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare.

Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.

We've evolved a lot since 9/11 also, in terms of our law enforcement capabilities, our intelligence capabilities, military, counterterrorism.

Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.

I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else's web. Sometimes I think that's why I like accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful, you will always have a solution. There's a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have control.

And above all, children need our unconditional love - whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough.

If you've got a business - you didn't build that.

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you - and fight alongside you - until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

[White House] feels even more like home now because you have all these memories that were formed watching your kids grow up.

The size of your paycheck shouldn’t determine your child’s future.

Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science.

I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.

Believe it or not, entertainment is part of our American diplomacy, it is part of what makes us exceptional, part of what makes us such a world power. Hundreds of millions of people may never set foot in the United States, but thanks to you, they've experienced a small part of what makes our country special. They've learned something about our values. We have shaped a world culture through you...in a way that has made the world better.

Weapons of war have no place on our streets.

I do not accept that we cannot find a common sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic second amendment freedoms and the rights of law abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.