“in the state capital. But the years had also taken their toll. Some of it was just a function of my getting older, I suppose, for if you are paying attention,”
―
Barack Obama
“Chicago, a town that’s accustomed to its racial wounds and prides itself on a certain lack of sentiment.”
―
Barack Obama
“Change won't come from the top, Change will come from mobilized grassroots.”
―
Barack Obama
“The boarded-up homes, the decaying storefronts, the aging church rolls, kids from unknown families who swaggered down the streets - loud congregations of teenage boys, teenage girls feeding potato chips to crying toddlers, the discarded wrappers tumbling down the block - all of it whispered painful truths.”
―
Barack Obama
“Conservative or liberal, we are all constitutionalists.”
―
Barack Obama
“This victory alone is not the change we seek; it is only the chance for us to make that change.”
―
Barack Obama
“Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future.”
―
Barack Obama
“There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter.”
―
Barack Obama
“It was like - It was like Special Olympics or something.”
―
Barack Obama
“I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn’t do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves.”
―
Barack Obama
“right; maybe once you stripped away the rationalizations, it always came down to a simple matter of escape. An escape from poverty or boredom or crime or the shackles of your skin.”
―
Barack Obama
“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”
―
Barack Obama
“What I would say to my successor is that it is important not just to shoot but to aim”
―
Barack Obama
“Well, amigo … you can talk all you want about saving the world, but this city tends to eat away at such noble sentiments.”
―
Barack Obama
“Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”
―
Barack Obama
