“Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”
―
Barack Obama
“There is another, grimmer history to the filibuster, though, one that carries special relevance for me. For almost a century, the filibuster was the South's weapon of choice in its efforts to protect Jim Crow from federal interference, the legal blockade that effectively gutted the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Decade after decade, courtly, erudite men like Senator Richard B Russell of Georgia used the filibuster to choke off any and every piece of civil rights legislation before the Senate, whether voting rights bills, or fair employment bills, or anti-lynching bills.”
―
Barack Obama
“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.”
―
Barack Obama
“I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer’s lobby.”
―
Barack Obama
“India, US to resume talks on investment pact; US President Barack Obama lauds reforms”
―
Barack Obama
“A nation ringed by walls will only imprison itself.”
―
Barack Obama
“Still, I strongly resisted the idea of offering up my past in a book, a past that left me feeling exposed, even slightly ashamed.”
―
Barack Obama
“Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.”
―
Barack Obama
“The man had received a chemical treatment, the article explained, to lighten his complexion. He had paid for it with his own money. He expressed some regret about trying to pass himself off as a white man, was sorry about how badly things had turned out. But the results were irreversible. There were thousands of people like him, black men and women back in America who’d undergone the same treatment in response to advertisements that promised happiness as a white person.
―
Barack Obama
“Five days a week, she came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast, and proceeded to teach me my English lessons for three hours before I left for school and she went to work.”
―
Barack Obama
“No, no. I have been practicing...I bowled a 129. It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something." --making an off-hand joke during an appearance on "The Tonight Show", March 19, 2009”
―
Barack Obama
“White folks. The term itself was uncomfortable in my mouth at first; I felt like a non-native speaker tripping over a difficult phrase.”
―
Barack Obama
“Look at yourself before you pass judgment. Don’t make someone else clean up your mess.”
―
Barack Obama
“I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help we diminish ourselves.”
―
Barack Obama
“The emotions between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves.”
―
Barack Obama
