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I'm Inspired By The People I Meet In My Travels--hearing Their Stories, Seeing The Hardships They Overcome, Their Fundamental Optimism And Decency. I'm Inspired By The Love People Have For Their Children. And I'm Inspired By My Own Children, How Full They Make My Heart. They Make Me Want To Work To Make The World A Little Bit Better. And They Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

-Barack Obama

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I'm Inspired By The

Barack Obama

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I'm Inspired By The People I Meet In My Travels--hearing Their Stories, Seeing The Hardships They Overcome, Their Fundamental Optimism And Decency. I'm Inspired By The Love People Have For Their Children. And I'm Inspired By My Own Children, How Full They Make My Heart. They Make Me Want To Work To Make The World A Little Bit Better. And They Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

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We Do Have To Balance This Issue Of Privacy And Security. Those Who Pretend That There's No Balance That Has To Be Struck And Think We Can Take A 100-percent Absolutist Approach To Protecting Privacy Don't Recognize That Governments Are Going To Be Under An Enormous Burden To Prevent The Kinds Of Terrorist Acts That Not Only Harm Individuals, But Also Can Distort Our Society And Our Politics In Very Dangerous Ways.

Many Of Us Were Kind Of Irritated With Obama For Larding It With Tax Cut, Which We Didn't Think Was Going To Be Stimulative.

But While They're Adding Teachers In Places Like South Korea, We're Laying Them Off In Droves. It's Unfair To Our Kids. It Undermines Their Future And Ours. And It Has To Stop. Pass This Bill, And Put Our Teachers Back In The Classroom Where They Belong.

Stamina. There Is A Greater Physical Element To This Job Than You Would Think, Just Being Able To Grind It Out. And I Think Your Ability To Not Just Mentally And Emotionally, But Physically Be Able To Say, "we Got This. We're Going To Be Ok."

I Want To Control Our Own Energy By Developing Oil And Natural Gas But Also The Energy Sources Of The Future.

The Problem Is That Because The Voucher Wouldn't Necessarily Keep Up With Health Care Inflation, It Was Estimated That This Would Cost The Average Senior About $6,000 A Year.

I Look Forward To Hosting An Iftar Dinner Celebrating Ramadan Here At The White House Later This Week, And Wish You A Blessed Month.

We Remain More Than A Collection Of Red States And Blue States. We Are And Forever Will Be The United States Of America.

These Days, The House Republicans Actually Give John Boehner A Harder Time Than They Give Me. Which Means Orange Really Is The New Black.

I've Said To [donald Trump], And I Think Others Have Said To Him That The Day That He Is The President Of The United States, There Are World Capitals And Financial Markets And People All Around The World Who Take Really Seriously What He Says, And In A Way That's Just Not True Before You're Actually Sworn In As President.

Don't Shortchange The Future, Because Of Fear In The Present.

I Believe That The Free Enterprise System Is The Greatest Engine Of Prosperity The World's Ever Known. I Believe In Self-reliance And Individual Initiative And Risk-takers Being Rewarded. But I Also Believe That Everybody Should Have A Fair Shot And Everybody Should Do Their Fair Share And Everybody Should Play By The Same Rules, Because That's How Our Economy's Grown. That's How We Built The World's Greatest Middle Class.

A Relentless Focus On The Outward Markers Of Success Can Lead To Complacency. It Can Make You Lazy.

Funny Graduation

I Said That America’s Role Would Be Limited; That We Would Not Put Ground Troops Into Libya; That We Would Focus Our Unique Capabilities On The Front End Of The Operation And That We Would Transfer Responsibility To Our Allies And Partners.

Our Enemies Are Fully Aware That They Can Use Oil As A Weapon Against America. And If We Don't Take This Threat As Seriously As The Bombs They Build Or The Guns They Buy, We Will Be Fighting The War On Terror With One Hand Tied Behind Our Back.

In Our Democracy And Our Civic Discourse, It Seems As If Folks Who Take Religion The Most Seriously Are Sometimes Also Those Who Are Suspicious Of Those Not Like Them.

Even As Ramadan Holds Profound Meaning For The World’s 1.5 Billion Muslims, It Is Also A Reminder To People Of All Faiths Of Our Common Humanity And The Commitment To Justice, Equality, And Compassion Shared By All Great Faiths. In That Spirit, I Wish Muslims Across America And Around The World A Blessed Month, And I Look Forward To Again Hosting An Iftar Dinner Here At The White House. Ramadan Kareem.

Reading Is The Gateway Skill That Makes All Other Learning Possible

If The Critics Are Right That I've Made All My Decisions Based On Polls, Then I Must Not Be Very Good At Reading Them.

Let Me Tell You Another Place To Look For Some Savings. We Are Currently Spending $10 Billion A Month In Iraq When They Have A $79 Billion Surplus. It Seems To Me That If We're Going To Be Strong At Home As Well As Strong Abroad, That We Have To Look At Bringing That War To A Close.

We Cannot Stop Every Act Of Senseless Violence. We Cannot Know Every Evil That Lurks In Troubled Minds. But If We Can Prevent Even One Tragedy Like This, Save Even One Life, Spare Other Families What These Families Are Going Through, Surely We've Got An Obligation To Try.

Keep In Mind That, When I Came In, We Had Had A Crisis That Was The Worst We've Seen Since The 1930s, And Working With People Like Chancellor Merkel, Working With The G-20 And Other Institutions Internationally, We Were Able To Stabilize The Financial System, Stabilize The Us Economy And Return To Growth.

We Must Educate Our Children To Become Like Young Egyptian People.

Egyptian Revolution

You Don't Need To See My Birth Certificate, Or My College Records, Or My Legal Writings, Or... Anything.

If Poverty Is A Disease That Infects The Entire Community In The Form Of Unemployment And Violence, Failing Schools And Broken Homes, Then We Can't Just Treat Those Symptoms In Isolation . We Have To Heal That Entire Community.

The United States Does Not Have A Monopoly On Crazy People. It's Not The Only Country That Has Psychosis. And Yet We Kill Each Other In These Mass Shootings At Rates That Are Exponentially Higher Than Anyone Else. Well, What's The Difference? The Difference Is That These Guys Can Stack Up A Bunch Of Ammunition In Their Houses, And That's Sort Of Par For The Course.

It Is Time To Do Away With Work Place Policies That Belong In A Mad Men Episode.

Rather Than Double-down On The Top-down Economics That Let A Fortunate Few Play By Their Own Rules, Let’s Embrace An Economic Patriotism That Says We Rise Or Fall Together, As One Nation, And As One People.

It Took A Lot Of Blood, Sweat And Tears To Get To Where We Are Today, But We Have Just Begun. 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.

But Let Me Perfectly Clear, Because I Know You'll Hear The Same Old Claims That Rolling Back These Tax Breaks Means A Massive Tax Increase On The American People: If Your Family Earns Less Than $250,000 A Year, You Will Not See Your Taxes Increased A Single Dime. I Repeat: Not One Single Dime.

The Nation That Leads The Clean Energy Economy Will Be The Nation That Leads The Global Economy.

Throughout History, Islam Has Demonstrated Through Words And Deeds The Possibilities Of Religious Tolerance And Racial Equality.

To Keep Nigeria One, Is A Task That Must Be Done.

If You Like Your Health Care Plan, You Can Keep Your Health Care Plan.

Keeping Promises

Broken Promises

If We Can't Meet With Our Friends, I Don't Know How We're Going To Lead The World In Terms Of Dealing With Critical Issues Like Terrorism.

I Know There Are Problems That I Say To Myself, If Maybe I Was A Little More Gifted I Might Have Been Able To Solve. But That's Not Because I Believe What I Did Was A Mistake. It's That Maybe It Required The Talents Of A Lincoln.

I Know That Campaigns Can Seem Small, And Even Silly. Trivial Things Become Big Distractions. Serious Issues Become Sound Bites. And The Truth Gets Buried Under An Avalanche Of Money And Advertising. If You're Sick Of Hearing Me Approve This Message, Believe Me - So Am I.

The Ability Of Republican Leaders To Rile Up Their Base - Helped Along By Folks Like Rush Limbaugh, Some Commentators On Fox News - I Think Created An Environment In Which Republican Voters Would Punish Republicans For Cooperating With Me. That Hothouse Of Back-and-forth Argument And - And Really Sharp Partisanship I Think Has Been Harmful To America.

Leaving The Broken System The Way It Is, That`s Not A Solution.

When We Send Our Young Men And Women Into Harm's Way, We Have A Solemn Obligation Not To Fudge The Numbers Or Shade The Truth About Why They're Going, To Care For Their Families While They're Gone, To Tend To The Soldiers Upon Their Return, And To Never Ever Go To War Without Enough Troops To Win The War, Secure The Peace, And Earn The Respect Of The World.

I Have Always Had Extraordinarily Good Relations With Very Conservative Colleagues. And That's Not Because I Agree With Any Of Them Or Fudge On My Positions, But People Feel I Listen To Them And Give Them The Benefit Of The Doubt. I Assume The Best Of People. And That, I Think, Is An Attitude That Is Maybe Rare In Politics.

Now, As A Nation, We Don't Promise Equal Outcomes, But We Were Founded On The Idea Everybody Should Have An Equal Opportunity To Succeed. No Matter Who You Are, What You Look Like, Where You Come From, You Can Make It. That's An Essential Promise Of America. Where You Start Should Not Determine Where You End Up.

I Will Never Forget Who This Victory Truly Belongs To. It Belongs To You. It Belongs To You. I Was Never The Likeliest Candidate For This Office. We Didn't Start With Much Money Or Many Endorsements. Our Campaign Was Not Hatched In The Halls Of Washington. It Began In The Backyards Of Des Moines And The Living Rooms Of Concord And The Front Porches Of Charleston. It Was Built By Working Men And Women Who Dug Into What Little Savings They Had To Give $5 And $10 And $20 To The Cause.

It Was Into My Father's Image, The Black Man, Son Of Africa, That I'd Packed All The Attributes I Sought In Myself, The Attributes Of Martin And Malcolm, Dubois And Mandela.

Which Passages Of Scripture Should Guide Our Public Policy? Should We Go With Leviticus, Which Suggests Slavery Is Ok And That Eating Shellfish Is An Abomination? Or We Could Go With Deuteronomy, Which Suggests Stoning Your Child If He Strays From The Faith?

Even When You Go Up Ramp, And You Think About [franklin D. Roosevelt] Wheeling Himself Up, You Know, Got A Little Cigarette Holder In His Mouth, And It, That, That Awe That You Feel, That Reverence That You Feel For The Place Never Entirely Leaves.

No Country Can Hide From The Dangers Of Carbon Pollution

One Of The Best Parts Of The Holiday Season Is Spending Time With The Special People In Your Life.

People In Your Life

I'm Less Interested In How We Label Ourselves. I'm More Interested In How We Treat Each Other. And If We're Treating Each Other Right, Then I Can Be African-american, I Can Be Multi-racial, I Can Be You Name It, What Matters Is, Am I Showing People Respect, Am I Caring For One, For Other People.

The United States And Saudi Arabia Have An Extraordinary Relationship And Friendship That Dates Back To Franklin Roosevelt And King Faisal.

Part Of American Leadership Is Making Sure That We're Doing Nation Building Here At Home. That Will Help Us Maintain The Kind Of American Leadership That We Need.

We Can Give Our Intelligence And Law Enforcement Community The Powers They Need To Track Down And Take Out Terrorists Without Undermining Our Commitment To The Rule Of Law, Or Our Basic Rights And Liberties.

Physically, I Feel Probably As Good As I've Ever Felt. And I've Got As Much Energy As I Ever Did. But What You Feel After Eight Years - And I Think You'd Feel This No Matter What, But Anytime You Have A Big Transition, It Gets Magnified - Is Time Passes.

Do I Wish That Things Were More Orderly In Washington And Rational And People Listened To The Best Arguments And Compromised And Operated In A More Thoughtful And Organized Fashion? Absolutely. But When You Look At History That's Been The Exception Rather Than The Norm.

I Think The Most Important Thing Is To Take The Long View On Things. We Live In Such A 24/7, Twitter-fed, Constant News Cycle, And Everything's A Crisis, Everything Is Terrible, Everything Is Doomsday, Everything Is - If It Doesn't Get Solved Tomorrow, Your Presidency Is Going Off The Rails.

This Is America, And Our Commitment To Religious Freedom Must Be Unshakeable. The Principle That People Of All Faiths Are Welcome In This Country, And Will Not Be Treated Differently By Their Government, Is Essential To Who We Are.

You Have To Exercise, Or At Some Point You'll Just Break Down.

The Actions Of Those In Power Can Have Enormous Consequences - A Price That They Themselves Almost Never Have To Pay.

For More Than 60 Years, The United States Has Stood By Our Allies And Partners In The Asia Pacific. That Includes Our Defence Partnership With Singapore, Which Stretches Back More Than Two Decades.

We Cannot Simply Look To Austerity As A Strategy And It Is Incredibly Important That The Greek People See Improvements In Their Daily Lives So That They Can Carry With Them The Hope That Their Lives Will Get Better.

If You've Got A Business, You Didn't Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen.

We Can Have Reasonable, Thoughtful Gun Control Measure That I Think Respect The Second Amendment And People's Traditions.

As The World's Largest Economy And Second-largest Carbon Emitter, As A Country With Unsurpassed Ability To Drive Innovation And Scientific Breakthroughs, As The Country That People Around The World Continue To Look To In Times Of Crisis, We've Got A Vital Role To Play. We Can't Stand On The Sidelines. We've Got A Unique Responsibility.

There's No Straight Line To Progress.

I Think It's Fair To Say That [donald Trump] And I Are Sort Of Opposites In Some Ways.

Throughout American History, There Have Been Moments That Call On Us To Meet The Challenges Of An Uncertain World, And Pay Whatever Price Is Required To Secure Our Freedom.

Your Voice Can Change The World.

We Are Not Going To Keep The Window Open Forever.

We Have Come From A Time Of The Large-scale, Planned, Al Qaeda-style Attacks, To The Encouragement Of Lone Wolves: Fort Hood, Chattanooga. To The Encouragement Of People To Act On Their Own.

Our Challenges May Be New. The Instruments With Which We Meet Them May Be New. But Those Values Upon Which Our Success Depends -- Honesty And Hard Work, Courage And Fair Play, Tolerance And Curiosity, Loyalty And Patriotism -- These Things Are Old. These Things Are True. They Have Been The Quiet Force Of Progress Throughout Our History. What Is Demanded, Then, Is A Return To These Truths.

The Reason We're Governing Right Now Is Because We Defeated Moderate Republicans With Moderate Democrats. And People Need To Be Patient About That And Realize That Compromise Is Not Evil.

On Syria, It's Clear That The Indiscriminate Attacks On Civilians By The [bashar] Assad Regime And Russia Will Only Worsen The Humanitarian Catastrophe And That A Negotiated End To The Conflict Is The Only Way To Achieve Lasting Peace In Syria.

What We've Said To The Girls Is: 'if You Guys Ever Decide That You're Going To Get A Tattoo, Then Mommy And Me Will Get The Exact Same Tattoo, In The Same Place.' And We'll Go On Youtube And Show It Off As A Family Tattoo.

When I Think About What I'm Going Through, As President, It Doesn't Compare To What The Folks That I'm Representing Are Going Through. They're Losing Jobs. They're Trying To Figure Out How To Pay Their Medical Bills. They've Seen Retirements Suddenly Dissipate Because Of What's Happening In The Stock Market. And So As Tough As The Job Might Be, And The Politics Of Washington Can Sometimes Be I'm Always Reminded Of How Fortunate I Am To Be Here, And What An Extraordinary Responsibility I Have To Try To Deliver On Some Of The Promises That I Made During The Election.

We All Knew This. We All Knew That It Would Take More Time Than Any Of Us Want To Dig Ourselves Out Of This Hole Created By This Economic Crisis.

We Do Not Want To Keep Our Troops In Afghanistan. We See No Military - We Seek No Military Bases There. It Is Agonizing For America To Lose Our Young Men And Women. It Is Costly And Politically Difficult To Continue This Conflict. We Would Gladly Bring Every Single One Of Our Troops Home If We Could Be Confident That There Were Not Violent Extremists In Afghanistan And Now Pakistan Determined To Kill As Many Americans As They Possibly Can.

Know That America Is A Friend Of Each Nation And Every Man, Woman, And Child Who Seeks A Future Of Peace And Dignity...[for] We Are Shaped By Every Language And Culture, Drawn From Every End Of This Earth.

I Think It's About Time! Who Cares Whether He Is Looking For Votes Or Not! At Least Your Country Is Moving Forward With The Times!

It's Harder To End A War Than Begin One. Indeed, Everything That American Troops Have Done In Iraq -- All The Fighting And All The Dying, The Bleeding And The Building, And The Training And The Partnering -- All Of It Has Led To This Moment Of Success. Now, Iraq Is Not A Perfect Place. It Has Many Challenges Ahead. But We're Leaving Behind A Sovereign, Stable And Self-reliant Iraq, With A Representative Government That Was Elected By Its People. We're Building A New Partnership Between Our Nations.

I Am Here For My Mother And All The Americans Who Are Forced To Spend Time Arguing With Health Insurance Companies Instead Of Focusing On Getting Well. I Am Here For The Millions Of Lives That Will Be Touched And In Some Cases, Saved, By Health Insurance Reform. I Am Here For The Small Businesses Who Are Forced To Choose Between Health Care And Hiring. I Am Here For The Seniors Who Are Unable To Afford The Prescriptions They Need.

There Are Times Where I'd Say The Oval Office, You Use To Gather The Facts. The Decisions You Probably Make Late At Night, Or At Least I Do. But There Are Some Times Where You Think You've Made A Decision, But During That Walk, Where You're Announcing The Decision, You've Just Got To Make Sure That, You're Prepared To Live With It, Because As You Know George, A Lot Of These Decisions Are Not - The Outcomes Are Uncertain.

I Can No More Disown (jeremiah Wright) Than I Can Disown The Black Community. I Can No More Disown Him Than I Can My White Grandmother - A Woman Who Helped Raise Me, A Woman Who Sacrificed Again And Again For Me, A Woman Who Loves Me As Much As She Loves Anything In This World, But A Woman Who Once Confessed Her Fear Of Black Men Who Passed By Her On The Street, And Who On More Than One Occasion Has Uttered Racial Or Ethnic Stereotypes That Made Me Cringe.

For Now, Decisions Are Upon Us And We Cannot Afford Delay. We Cannot Mistake Absolutism For Principle Or Substitute Spectacle For Politics, Or Treat Name-calling As Reasoned Debate.

Congress Is Hard To Deal With, Dealing With, You Know, Multiple Parliaments And Commissions And Unions And This And That And The Other, That's Very Complicated.

The Amount Of Information, The Amount Of Incoming That Any Administration Has To Deal With Today And Respond To Much More Rapidly Than Ever Before, That Makes It Different.

The Russians Sought To Interfere With The Election Process - That The Cyber Hacking That Took Place By The Russians Was Part Of That Campaign, And That They Had A Clear Preference In Terms Of Outcomes.

Election Process

The United States Has Been Enriched By Muslim Americans. Many Other Americans Have Muslims In Their Families Or Have Lived In A Muslim-majority Country - I Know, Because I Am One Of Them.

It's Important To Listen To What Scientists Have To Say, Even When It's Inconvenient, Especially When It's Inconvenient

I Think That We've Had An Economy That's Been Out Of Balance For Too Long. So The General Principle Of Raising Taxes On Higher Income Americans, Like Myself, And Providing Relief To Those Who Haven't Benefited As Much From This New Global Economy, I Think Is A Sound One.

Obviously [my Daughters] - And Michelle - Have Made A Lot Of Sacrifices On Behalf Of My Cockamamie Ideas, The Running For Office And Things.

There's Been A Lot Of Talk About Body Cameras As A Silver Bullet Or A Solution. I Think The Task Force Concluded That There Is A Role For Technology To Play In Building Additional Trust And Accountability, But It's Not A Panacea, It Has To Be Embedded In A Broader Change In Culture And A Legal Framework That Ensures That People's Privacy Is Respected And That Not Only Police Officers But The Community Themselves Feel Comfortable With How Technologies Are Being Used.

I Can't Really Characterize Any Country, Except To Say That We Work Well With A Number Of Our Foreign Counterparts.

Weapons That Were Designed For Soldiers In War Theaters Don’t Belong On Our Streets.

If You Look At Sort Of How Politics Has Divided Itself Here In This Country, The Big Divide Right Now Is Between Urban Areas, Which Have Become Increasingly Democratic, And Rural Or Exurban Areas That Feel As If They're Being Ignored.

We Will Keep The Promise Of Social Security By Taking The Responsible Steps To Strengthen It - Not By Turning It Over To Wall Street.

The Most Important Thing We Can Do Is To Make Sure That We've Got Very High Standards, We Expect A Lot Out Of All Of Our Young People, And We Make Sure That We Have The Best Teachers Possible In Every Classroom.

If We're Serious About Building An Economy That Lasts, We Have Got To Get Serious About Education. We Are Going To Have To Pick Up Our Games And Raise Our Standards.

My Hope Is That We Can Get A Republican-democratic Agreement On How We Strengthen Social Security As Well As Looking At Some Of These Other Major Expenditures That We Have That We've Got To Deal With To Make Sure That We're Not Just Leaving You Guys With A Mountain Of Debt.

Any Strategy To Reduce Intergenerational Poverty Has To Be Centered On Work, Not Welfare--not Only Because Work Provides Independence And Income But Also Because Work Provides Order, Structure, Dignity, And Opportunities For Growth In People's Lives.

If People, Whether They Are Conservative Or Liberal, Left Or Right, Are Unwilling To Compromise And Engage In The Democratic Process, And Are Taking Absolutist Views, And Demonizing Opponents, Then Democracy Will Break Down.

A Nuclear Iran Is A Threat To America's National Security, And It Is A Threat To Israel's National Security. We Cannot Afford To Have A Nuclear Arms Race In The Most Volatile Region Of The World.

There Was No Such Thing As Al Qaeda In Iraq, Until George Bush And John Mccain Decided To Invade Iraq.

It’s Important To Make Sure That We’re Talking With Each Other In A Way That Heals, Not In A Way That Wounds." - Barack Obama, 44th U.s. President

We All Want The Greek People To Prosper, To Be Able To Provide A Good Life For Their Families And Their Children. That Would Be Good For Greece, That Would Be Good For The European Union, Good For The United States, And Ultimately, Good For The World.

I Think, The Argument Sometimes That I've Had With Folks Who Are Much More Interested In Sort Of Race-specific Programs Is Less An Argument About What Is Practically Achievable And Sometimes Maybe More An Argument Of "we Want Society To See What's Happened, And Internalize It, And Answer It In Demonstrable Ways." And Those Impulses I Very Much Understand.

So While An Incredible Amount Of Progress Has Been Made, On This Fifth Anniversary, I Wanted To Come Here And Tell The People Of This City Directly: My Administration Is Going To Stand With You - And Fight Alongside You - Until The Job Is Done. Until New Orleans Is All The Way Back, All The Way.

You Can Be Stylish, And Powerful Too.

We Are Reorganizing How We Work With State And Local Governments To Make Sure That We Are Not Prioritizing Families [for Deportation], And You Are Gonna See, I Think, A Substantial Change Even As The Case Works Its Way Through The Courts.

We Did Not Come To Fear The Future. We Came Here To Shape It.

Our Government Should Work For Us, Not Against Us. It Should Help Us, Not Hurt Us. It Should Ensure Opportunity Not Just For Those With The Most Money And Influence, But For Every American Who's Willing To Work. That's The Promise Of America - The Idea That We Are Responsible For Ourselves, But That We Also Rise Or Fall As One Nation; The Fundamental Belief That I Am My Brother's Keeper; I Am My Sister's Keeper.

I Am Looking Forward To Getting Out Of The Bubble. I Am Glad That I'm Leaving This Place At A Relatively Young Age, At 55. So I Have The Opportunity For A Second Maybe Even A Third Act In A Way That I Think Would Be Tougher If I Were, You Know, The Age Of Some Presidents When They Left.

As Progressives We Believe In Affordable Health Care For All Americans.

When You're Out Of Work And You Can't Buy A Home Or You've Lost Your Home And You're Worried About Paying Your Bills, Then You Become More Worried About What Other Folks Are Doing. And Sometimes That Organizes Itself Around Kind Of A Tribal Attitude, And Issues Of Race Become More Prominent.

I Don't Expect To Get 100 Percent Of What I Want, But What We Can't Do Is Go Back To The Kind Of Top-down Economics That Doesn't Work.

Only A Handful Of Men And Women Leave An Imprint On The Conscience Of A Nation And On The History That They Helped Shape.

The More We Can Encourage Participation, I Think The Better Off We Are.

I Think There Are Hard-liners Inside Of Iran That Think It Is The Right Thing To Do To Oppose Us, To Seek To Destroy Israel, To Cause Havoc In Places Like Syria Or Yemen Or Lebanon, If They Don't Change At All, We're Still Better Off Having The Deal.

That's Part Of What I Tried To Describe To My Team And Supporters After The Election, There Was A Lot Of Disappointment.

When You've Got A Economy In Which 40 Percent Of Economic Growth Is Happening In The Financial Sector, That Turns Out That Was All An Illusion, That It Wasn't Growth Based On Real Products And Services, But Just A Bunch Of Paper Shuffling And A House Of Cards, Then What's Gonna Emerge, At Some Point, Is A Sense Of Resentment, A Sense That The System's Rigged, And It's Not Working For Ordinary People. And It's Not Fulfilling The Basic American Dream.

Often The Best Source Of Information About Waste, Fraud, And Abuse In Government Is An Existing Government Employee Committed To Public Integrity And Willing To Speak Out. Such Acts Of Courage And Patriotism, Which Can Sometimes Save Lives And Often Save Taxpayer Dollars, Should Be Encouraged Rather Than Stifled As They Have Been During The Bush Administration. We Need To Empower Federal Employees As Watchdogs Of Wrongdoing And Partners In Performance.

There Is No Doubt That Thanks To The Steps That We Took Early On To Rescue Our Economy And To Rebuild It On A New Foundation, We Are Entering Into The New Year With New Confidence That America Is Coming Back.

You Can't Change Washington From The Inside. You Can Only Change It From The Outside.

We The People Declare Today That The Most Evident Of Truth That All Of Us Are Created Equal ... That Our Individual Freedom Is Inextricably Bound To The Freedom Of Every Soul On Earth.

I Hope That This [hacking] Does Not Continue To Be Viewed Purely Through A Partisan Lens.i Think There Are Republicans As Well As Democrats Who Are Concerned About This.

The Reforms We Seek Would Bring Greater Competition, Choice, Savings And Inefficiencies To Our Health Care System.

I Just Want People To Know The Facts And Science And The Information... Measles Is Preventable.

What Used To Be Racial Segregation Now Mirrors Itself In Class Segregation, This Great Sorting (has) Taken Place. It Creates Its Own Politics. There Are Some Communities Where Not Only Do I Not Know Poor People, I Don't Even Know People Who Have Trouble Paying The Bills At The End Of The Month. I Just Don't Know Those People. And So There's Less Sense Of Investment In Those Children.

We, The People, Still Believe That Our Obligations As Americans Are Not Just To Ourselves, But To All Posterity.

Writing Has Been An Important Exercise To Clarify What I Believe, What I See, What I Care About, What My Deepest Values Are. The Process Of Converting A Jumble Of Thoughts Into Coherent Sentences Makes You Ask Tougher Questions.

I Have Somehow, Continued To Miss Oktoberfest So That's Probably Something That Is Better For Me To Do As A Former President Rather Than As President, I'll Have More Fun.

I Think That To The Extent That We Focus On Problems Where We Can Build A Moral And A Political Consensus, Then I Think That We Move The Country Forward And When We Are Divided And Our Politics Is Focused On Dividing, Then I Think We're Less Successful, Not Just From The Perspective Of The Democratic Party Or The Republican Party But From The Perspective Of The Nation As A Whole.

Don't Just Consume Things, Create Things

What Reagan Ushered In Was A Skepticism Toward Government Solutions To Every Problem. I Don't Think That Has Changed

If You Look At What Happened, I Came In The Middle Of The Worst Financial Crisis Since The Great Depression. And Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt Who Waited, Well, Didn't Take Office Until About Three Years Into The Great Depression, It Was Happening Just As I Was Elected.

Look, First Of All, The Climate Is Changing. I Don't Think The Science Is Clear What Percentage Is Man-made And What Percentage Is Natural. It's Convoluted. And For The People To Say The Science Is Decided On, This Is Just Really Arrogant, To Be Honest With You, It's This Intellectual Arrogance That Now You Can't Even Have A Conversation About It. The Climate Is Changing, And We Need To Adapt To That Reality.

What I Think Is Fair To Say Is That, Coming Out Of The Republican Camp, There Have Been Efforts To Suggest That Perhaps I'm Not Who I Say I Am When It Comes To My Faith - Something Which I Find Deeply Offensive, And That Has Been Going On For A Pretty Long Time.

Shooting In Orlando Is A Sobering Reminder That Attacks On Any American, Regardless Of Race, Ethnicity, Religion Or Sexual Orientation, Is An Attack On All Of Us And On The Fundamental Values Of Equality And Dignity That Define Us As A Country. And No Act Of Hate Or Terror Will Ever Change Who We Are Or The Values That Make Us Americans.

There May Be No Greater Tribute To Steve Jobs' Success Than The Fact That Much Of The World Learned Of His Passing On A Device He Invented.

Making Products We Sell Around The World, Stamped With Three Proud Words, 'made In The Usa!'

There Are A Lot Of Very Religious Scientists Around. I Think The Problem Here Is That In Our School Systems, And To Some Degree - And This Is Where It Is Relevant - With School Boards Around The Country That Are Mandating Curriculums And Textbooks, You Start Seeing This Weird Watering Down Of Scientific Fact So That Our Kids Are Growing Up In An Environment - And This Connects To What I Was Saying Earlier Abou The Media - Where Everything's Contested. Where Nothing Is True.

If The Court Finds That There Is Not A State Interest In Discriminating And Showing Moral Disapproval Of Homosexuality Then We Can't Stop Equal Marriage Rights.

You Didn't Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen.

Presidential Election

There's No Doubt That Probably At Least Once A Week, Maybe Once A Day, I Said, "ah, I Should Have Done That Better."

I Want To Reduce America's Deficit By Cutting Spending That We Don't Need But Also By Asking The Wealthy To Do A Little Bit More So That We Can Invest In Things Like Research And Technology That Are The Key To A 21st Century Economy.

We Can Seize This Future Together Because We Are Not As Divided As Our Politics Suggests.

Futures Together

That's When America Soars, When We Look Out For One Another And We Take Care Of Each Other, When We Root For One Another's Success, When We Strive To Do Better And To Be Better Than The Generation That Came Before Us And Try To Build Something Better For Generations To Come, That's Why We Do What We Do. That's The Whole Point Of Public Service.

Of All The Rocks Upon Which We Build Our Lives, We Are Reminded Today That Family Is The Most Important. And We Are Called To Recognize And Honor How Critical Every Father Is To That Foundation. They Are Teachers And Coaches. They Are Mentors And Role Models. They Are Examples Of Success And The Men Who Constantly Push Us Toward It.

So We Have A Choice To Make. We Can Once Again Let Washington's Bad Habits Stand In The Way Of Progress. Or We Can Pull Together And Say That In America, Our Destiny Isn't Written For Us But By Us. We Can Place Good Ideas Ahead Of Old Ideological Battles, And A Sense Of Purpose Above The Same Narrow Partisanship. We Can Act Boldly To Turn Crisis Into Opportunity And, Together, Write The Next Great Chapter In Our History And Meet The Test Of Our Time.

It Is True, I Worry About The Hype. The Only Person More Over-hyped Than Me Is You.

I Know My Country Has Not Perfected Itself. At Times, We've Struggled To Keep The Promise Of Liberty And Equality For All Of Our People. We've Made Our Share Of Mistakes, And There Are Times When Our Actions Around The World Have Not Lived Up To Our Best Intentions.

One Thing You Learn In This Job [being Us President] Is That Even If Something's Not Your Fault, You're Still Responsible. And That's How It Should Be.

In America, We've Set Up A System Whereby When You Take On College Debt, You Will Never Have To Pay More Than 10 Percent Of Your Income In Repayments. And What That Will Do Is Make Sure That You Will Never Be Prevented From Going To School Just Because Of Money. We Want To Make Sure That You And Others Like You Can Succeed.

I Was Reminded That It Is My Obligation Not Only As An Elected Official In A Pluralistic Society, But Also As A Christian, To Remain Open To The Possibility That My Unwillingness To Support Gay Marriage Is Misguided.

I Don't Expect That The President-elect [donald Trump] Will Follow Exactly Our Blueprint Or Our Approach, But My Hope Is That He Does Not Simply Take A Real-politic Approach And Suggest That, You Know, If We Just Cut Some Deals With Russia, Even If It Hurts People Or Even If It Violates International Norms, Or Even If It Leaves Smaller Countries Vulnerable Or Creates Long-term Problems In Regions Like Syria, That We Just Do Whatever Is Convenient At The Time.

I Think Every Case Is Different. Every Situation Is Different. People Come On The F.b.i.'s Radar Screen For A Variety Of Reasons At A Variety Of Times.

We Are God's Partners In Matters Of Life And Death.

Like It Or Not, We Have To Have A Financial System That Is Healthy And Functioning.

Financial System

It's My Job As President And Congress’s Job To Maker Sure That There’s Some Rules Of The Road That People Are Going To Abide By And That We’ve Got Transparency And Accountability That This Stuff Is Being Posted And One Of The Things That We Are Going To Do Is Put Together An Independent Board On The Recovery Package…

I Started As A Community Organizer. Every One Of My Campaigns Was Premised On Getting New People Involved. And If There's A Theme In My Public Career It's That If Ordinary People Get Involved Then Good Things Happen. So I Want To See The Democratic Party Move In That Direction. And What That Means Is That We Aren't Just Micro-targeting To Eke Out Presidential Victories; It Means That We're Showing Up In Places Where Right Now We're Not Winning A Lot.

That Is The True Genius Of America, A Faith In The Simple Dreams Of Its People, The Insistence On Small Miracles. That We Can Say What We Think, Write What We Think, Without Hearing A Sudden Knock On The Door.

Our Goal Is To Have A Country That's Not Divided By Race.

One Of The Proudest Things Of My Three Years In Office Is Helping To Restore A Sense Of Respect For America Around The World.

I Don't Have To Negotiate An Arms Agreement With Great Britain Or With France.

If You Don't Have Good People, And You Don't Have A Good Process And You Don't Have, At Some Level, The Basic Reverence For [presidential] Office, And An Understanding Of The Incredible Responsibilities And Obligations, Then, I Think You Can Get Into Trouble.

You Don't Like A Particular Policy Or A Particular President? Then Argue For Your Position. Go Out There And Win An Election. Push To Change It. But Don't Break It. Don't Break What Our Predecessors Spent Over Two Centuries Building. That's Not Being Faithful To What This Country's About.

Robin Williams Was An Airman, A Doctor, A Genie, A Nanny, A President, A Professor, A Bangarang Peter Pan, And Everything In Between. But He Was One Of A Kind....he Arrived In Our Lives As An Alien But He Ended Up Touching Every Element Of The Human Spirit

For America To Get More Entangled Militarily In Syria Is A Serious Step, And We Have To Do So Making Absolutely Certain That We Know Who We Are Helping; That We're Not Putting Arms In The Hands Of Folks Who Eventually Could Turn Them Against Us Or Allies In The Region.

If People Find That Controversial Then I Would Just Refer Them To The Sermon On The Mount.

Israel Is A True Friend. It Is Our Greatest Ally In The Region. And If Israel Is Attacked, America Will Stand With Israel. I've Made That Clear Throughout My Presidency.

I Kept Finding The Same Anguish, The Same Doubt; A Self-contempt That Neither Irony Nor Intellect Seemed Able To Deflect. Even Dubois’s Learning And Baldwin’s Love And Langston’s Humor Eventually Succumbed To Its Corrosive Force, Each Man Finally Forced To Doubt Art’s Redemptive Power, Each Man Finally Forced To Withdraw, One To Africa, One To Europe, One Deeper Into The Bowels Of Harlem, But All Of Them In The Same Weary Flight, All Of Them Exhausted, Bitter Men, The Devil At Their Heels.

I Would Say Of All The Things That Have Happened During The Course Of My Presidency The Knowledge That You Have Hundreds Of Thousands Of People Who Have Been Killed, Millions Who Have Been Displaced, [makes Me] Ask Myself What Might I Have Done Differently Along The Course Of The Last Five, Six Years.

At A Time When The European Project Is Facing Challenges, It's Especially Important To Show The Benefits Of Economic Integration By Continuing To Invest In Our People And Working To Reduce Inequality, Both Within And Across Our Countries.

You Work With What You Got.

I'm No Longer Just A Candidate. I'm The President. I Know What It Means To Send Young Americans Into Battle, For I Have Held In My Arms The Mothers And Fathers Of Those Who Didn't Return. I've Shared The Pain Of Families Who've Lost Their Homes, And The Frustration Of Workers Who've Lost Their Jobs.

It's Important To Know That The Vast Majority Of People Who Were Excited In 2008 Are Still Really Enthusiastic. We've Got More Volunteers Now Than Ever, And They're Engaged, They're Motivated, They're Not Paying Attention To The Ups And Downs Of Polls Or Washington.

It's Hard To Anticipate. I Can Tell You What I'm Feeling Right Now Is That I'm Busier Than I Expected These Last Two Weeks. A Great Deal Of Emotion Around The People That I've Worked With And The Gratitude I Feel For The Sacrifices They've Made On Behalf Of The American People, But Also On Behalf Of Me Personally.

That Is Why We Fight - In Hopes Of A Day When We No Longer Need To.

It's Easier To Make Negative Attacks And Simplistic Slogans [in Social Media] Than It Is To Communicate Complex Policies.

I Have Great Respect For Both President Obama And The Office That He Holds

It Is Absolutely Important That We Have A Unified Alliance And That We Explain To The Russians That You Cannot Be A 21st-century Superpower, Or Power, And Act Like A 20th-century Dictatorship.

You're Not Going To Be Able To Make Good Decisions Without Building Some Relationship Of Trust Between Yourself And Community.

It Was Basic Research In The Photoelectric Field-in The Photoelectric Effect That Would One Day Lead To Solar Panels. It Was Basic Research In Physics That Would Eventually Produce The Cat Scan. The Calculations Of Today's Gps Satellites Are Based On The Equations That Einstein Put To Paper More Than A Century Ago.

The Day I'm Inaugurated, This Country Looks At Itself Differently And The World Looks At America Differently. If You Believe That We've Got To Heal America And We've Got To Repair Our Standing In The World, Then I Think My Supporters Believe That I Am A Messenger Who Can Deliver That Message Around The World In A Way That No Other Candidate Can Do.

Too Often, We Have Failed To Enforce International Norms When It's Inconvenient To Do So.

What We Have Done, I Think, Is Build A Model From A Lot Of Hard Lessons In Afghanistan And Iraq But In Other Places Around The World, Where We Are Working With Them In An Advisory Capacity.

In December, I Agreed To Extend The Tax Cuts For The Wealthiest Americans Because It Was The Only Way I Could Prevent A Tax Hike On Middle-class Americans. But We Cannot Afford $1 Trillion Worth Of Tax Cuts For Every Millionaire And Billionaire In Our Society. We Can't Afford It. And I Refuse To Renew Them Again.

I Am Encouraged By The President-elect's [donald Trump] Insistence That Nato Is A Commitment That Does Not Change. And His Full Commitment To Nato As The Foundation For Our International Security I Think Is Very Important.

The Pain I Felt Was My Father's Pain.

For More Than Four Decades, The Libyan People Have Been Ruled By A Tyrant - Moammar Gaddafi. He Has Denied His People Freedom, Exploited Their Wealth, Murdered Opponents At Home And Abroad, And Terrorized Innocent People Around The World - Including Americans Who Were Killed By Libyan Agents.

Jerusalem Will Remain The Capital Of Israel, And It Must Remain Undivided.

I Will Veto Any Effort To Get Rid Of Those Automatic Spending Cuts To Domestic And Defense Spending. There Will Be No Easy Off Ramps On This One.

My Second Piece Of Advice Is To Stay Global. As The World Continues To Change And We Become More Connected To Each Other, Globalization Will Bring Both Benefits And Disruptions To Our Lives. But Either Way, It's Here, And It's Not Going Away.

No Matter How Much You've Done, Or How Successful You've Been, There's Always More To Do, Always More To Learn, And Always More To Achieve.

To Anyone Out There Who Has Ever Been Assaulted: You Will Never Be Alone. You Are Never Alone. We Have Your Back. I've Got Your Back.

Violence Against Women

We Need Earmark Reform, And When I'm President, I Will Go Line By Line To Make Sure That We Are Not Spending Money Unwisely.

In Iraq And Syria, American Leadership - Including Our Military Power - Is Stopping Isil's Advance, Instead Of Getting Dragged Into Another Ground War In The Middle East, We Are Leading A Broad Coalition, Including Arab Nations, To Degrade And Ultimately Destroy This Terrorist Group.

Theoretically, You Can Make, Obviously, A Powerful Argument That Centuries Of Slavery, Jim Crow, Discrimination Are The Primary Cause For All Those Gaps. That Those Were Wrongs Done To The Black Community As A Whole, And Black Families Specifically, And That In Order To Close That Gap, A Society Has A Moral Obligation To Make A Large, Aggressive Investment, Even If It's Not In The Form Of Individual Reparations Checks, But In The Form Of A Marshall Plan, In Order To Close Those Gaps. It Is Easy To Make That Theoretical Argument.

We Believe That Big Nations Should Not Bully Smaller Nations, And That The Sovereignty Of Nations Must Be Respected. And We Have Long Urged That Disputes Be Resolved Peacefully, Including Through Mechanisms Like International Arbitration.

It Is Easy To Get To A Higher Number When You Are Not Asking Anything Difficult From Yourself.

The Promotion Of Human Rights Cannot Be About Exhortation Alone. At Times, It Must Be Coupled With Painstaking Diplomacy. I Know That Engagement With Repressive Regimes Lacks The Satisfying Purity Of Indignation. But I Also Know That Sanctions Without Outreach -- Condemnation Without Discussion -- Can Carry Forward Only A Crippling Status Quo. No Repressive Regime Can Move Down A New Path Unless It Has The Choice Of An Open Door.

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