Great challenges confront our great nation. We seek to meet them by rising to the task, not by defining our country down.

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 have a plan to protect the environment so that we leave this place in better shape to our children than we were handed it by our parents.

The future belongs to freedom, not to fear.

Each and every child in this country is valuable because they are our future as a society. We cannot afford to lose a single child to ill-health, under-education, abuse, addiction, jail, or gun violence. America's highest goal should be for every child to grow up to be a successful young adult -- healthy, educated, free, secure, and a good citizen.

I mean, all of these things that [Bashar Assad] has done, there's no way even if President Obama wanted to just play along that you could actually achieve peace, because there are 65 million Sunni in between Baghdad and the border of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, who will never, ever again accept Assad as a member - as a legitimate leader.

Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid down in scriptures, clearly.