Barack Obama Quotes

We can get this done! Take a vote, and send me that bill.

We've seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants - farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities, the Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers and who helped unlock the secrets of our universe.

Immigration is part of the reason why our economy is stronger and better positioned than most of our other competitors, is because we've got a younger population that's more dynamic when it comes to trade.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

I think [ unpopular presidential candidates ] indicates, at least on the Democratic side, that we've got more work to do to strengthen our grassroots networks.

I don't think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.

When it comes to crime, the violent crime rate in America has been lowered during my presidency and any time in the last three, four decades.

Companies in Mexico are not going to do well if they don't have some connection to not just markets, but also suppliers and technology from the United States.

I make no apologies for us wanting to do this [bombing Iraq and Syria] appropriately and in a way that is consistent with American values.

Yes, this is hard. But there should be no question that the United States of America is stepping up to the plate. We recognize our role in creating this problem; we embrace our responsibility to combat it. We will do our part, and we will help developing nations do theirs. But we can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every nation - developed and developing alike. Nobody gets a pass.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, are motivated by all kinds of issues. They're sincerely interested in the economy, in terrorism, in social issues. But the one overriding thing they're interested in is getting reelected. And if they think that it's harder for them to get reelected by cooperating with each other, then they won't cooperate.

I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.

To the extent that we've got a fiscal crisis right now, part of it is prompted by a bullheaded insistence on the part of the president, for example, that we should extend all of his tax cuts, make all of them permanent.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.

What I've said to [my team] is, "Look, we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job."

I could say, as a member of Congress, we usually get an alert if something is going to happen at the Capitol.

In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri - where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions.

People will still be looking to the United States. Our example will still carry great weight.

Chancellor [Angela] Merkel is perhaps the only leader left among our closest allies that was there when I arrived. So in some ways we are now the veterans of many challenges over the last eight years.

My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.

In a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people. Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country alarmed at one common danger came forth to meet it.

What is true in the South is true for America.

Lieutenant al-Kaseasbeh's dedication, courage and service to his country and family represent universal human values that stand in opposition to the cowardice and depravity of ISIL, which has been so broadly rejected around the globe.

So, let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look over not only ourselves, but each other.

Iran 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.

I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.

And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they've got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.

I want to make sure America has got the best education system in the world. And we're retaining our workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

I see tragedy and comedy and pain and irony and all that stuff. But in the end I think life is fascinating, and I think people are more good than bad, and I think that the possibilities of prog­ress are real.

If we truly believe in our public schools, then we have a moral responsibility to do better - to break the either-or mentality around school reform, and embrace a both-and mentality. Good schools will require both the structural reform and the resources necessary to prepare our kids for the future.

I think the Prime Minister is the first to acknowledge that Malaysia's still got some work to do. Just like the United States, by the way, has some work to do on these issues. Human Rights Watch probably has a list of things they think we should be doing as a government.

It may be something that future generations are more open to, but I am pretty confident that for the foreseeable future, using the argument of nondiscrimination, and "Let's get it right for the kids who are here right now," and giving them the best chance possible, is going to be a more persuasive argument.

We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.

I've been saying for years, we're gonna have to spend a lot more time on cyber security.

Sometimes I wonder how much of these debates have to do with the desire, the legitimate desire, for that history to be recognized. Because there is a psychic power to the recognition that is not satisfied with a universal program, it's not satisfied by the Affordable Care Act, or an expansion of Pell grants, or an expansion of the earned-income tax credit.

What I've seen in my own life is that when I get something important done it's because of a lot of other people - some who get credit, some who don't.

Senator Joe Biden is pretty clean and articulate for a white guy.

Part of what we have to do a better job of, if our democracy is to function in a complicated diverse society like this, is to teach our kids enough critical thinking to be able to sort out what is true and what is false, what is contestable and what is incontestable. And we seem to have trouble with that. And our political system doesn't help.

We reaffirm that on days like this, there are no Republicans or Democrats. We are Americans, united in concern for our fellow citizens.

We live in a moment when the dream of equal opportunity is within reach.

In America, we started the public school system very early in the century, and as a consequence we had more skilled workers than any nation on Earth, which meant that we were more productive than any nation on Earth.

Obviously I'm grayer, a few more wrinkles. One of the things I'm proud about is that I think my basic character and outlook actually have not changed much. And people who are closest to me will tell you that the guy who came here is the same guy who's leaving.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether government works.

The theater is necessary. Dance is necessary. Song is necessary. The arts are necessary- they are a necessary part of our lives

This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Sustaining the energy and focus involved in doing a good job I think starts to - starts to gets tougher the longer you do it.

I think [Obamacare] will survive. Or it may be called something else. And as I said I don't don't mind.