Politics has always been the art of the possible. Today it's too often the art of the probable - tinkering around the edges without any greater vision, without a sense of optimism and imagination.

I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goosebumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up 'Stars and Stripes Forever.'

As President, I will not be the last to know what is going on in my command.

What we have to do is go on the offensive. [The science on climate change] has been maligned and misinterpreted, and we need to fight back... [P]eople [need to] stop being moved by these talk show [hosts] and start looking for the facts themselves.

Values spoken without actions taken are merely slogans.

I think that too far, too much, to a greater degree than is anywhere near appropriate, America and our politics are being governed by more and more powerful interests, by fewer and fewer people in the sense of the amount of money that has controlled access and other kinds of things.

Our troops are terrorizing women and children in the dark of night in Iraq.