“We have our own ways, our own memories, and what has happened between all of us is hard to undo.”
―
Barack Obama
“Cynicism is a choice, and hope is a better choice.”
―
Barack Obama
“Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up”
―
Barack Obama
“Change won't come from the top, Change will come from mobilized grassroots.”
―
Barack Obama
“But by the end of two years, most have either changed careers or moved to suburban schools - a consequence of low pay, a lack of support from the educational bureaucracy, and a pervasive feeling of isolation.”
―
Barack Obama
“At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”
―
Barack Obama
“Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”
―
Barack Obama
“We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.”
―
Barack Obama
“We are the change we have been waiting for.”
―
Barack Obama
“Later, when I became more familiar with the narrower path to happiness to be found in television and the movies, I’d become troubled by questions.”
―
Barack Obama
“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”
―
Barack Obama
“church socials, beauty shops and barbershops. If two guys were standing on a corner, I would cross the street to hand them campaign literature. And everywhere I went, I’d get some version of the same two questions. “Where’d you get that funny name?” And then: “You seem”
―
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
“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person…”
―
Barack Obama
