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It Is The Kindness To Take In A Stranger When The Levees Break; The Selflessness Of Workers Who Would Rather Cut Their Hours Than See A Friend Lose Their Job Which Sees Us Through Our Darkest Hours. It Is The Firefighter's Courage To Storm A Stairway Filled With Smoke, But Also A Parent's Willingness To Nurture A Child, That Finally Decides Our Fate.

-Barack Obama

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It Is The Kindness

Barack Obama

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It Is The Kindness To Take In A Stranger When The Levees Break; The Selflessness Of Workers Who Would Rather Cut Their Hours Than See A Friend Lose Their Job Which Sees Us Through Our Darkest Hours. It Is The Firefighter's Courage To Storm A Stairway Filled With Smoke, But Also A Parent's Willingness To Nurture A Child, That Finally Decides Our Fate.

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We Remember The Grind Of The Insurgency -- The Roadside Bombs, The Sniper Fire, The Suicide Attacks. From The 'triangle Of Death' To The Fight For Ramadi; From Mosul In The North To Basra In The South -- Your Will Proved Stronger Than The Terror Of Those Who Tried To Break It.

When People Are Judged By Merit, Not Connections, Then The Best And Brightest Can Lead The Country, People Will Work Hard, And The Entire Economy Will Grow - Everyone Will Benefit And More Resources Will Be Available For All, Not Just Select Groups.

The Soldier 's Courage And Sacrifice Is Full Of Glory , Expressing Devotion To Country , To Cause, To Comrades In Arms. But War Itself Is Never Glorious , And We Must Never Trumpet It As Such.

We're Not Going To Deputize A Whole Bunch Of American Citizens To Start Grabbing People Or Turning Them In, In Part Because The Ordinary American Citizen May Not Know Whether Or Not This Person Is Illegal Or Not. But, You Know, The Notion That We're Going To Criminalize Priests, For Example, Or Doctors Who Are Providing Services To Individuals, And Throw Them In Jail For Doing What Their Calling Asks Them To Do, Which Is To Provide Help And Service To People In Need, I Think That Is A Mistake. I Think That's Out Of America's Character.

Despite All The Noise And Hullabaloo - Military Cooperation, Intelligence Cooperation, All Of That Has Continued. We Have Defended Them Consistently In Every Imaginable Way. But I Also Believe That Both For Our National Interests And Israel's National Interests That Allowing An Ongoing Conflict Between Israelis And Palestinians That Could Get Worse And Worse Over Time Is A Problem. And That Settlements Contribute.

You Mention The Navy, For Example, And The Fact That We Have Fewer Ships Than We Did In 1916. Well Governor, We Also Have Fewer Horses And Bayonets.

As The Wealthiest Nation On Earth, I Believe The United States Has A Moral Obligation To Lead The Fight Against Hunger And Malnutrition, And To Partner With Others.

Hunger And Poverty

We Are In What We Hope Is An Intensive Diplomatic Phase Now. It Will Not Be Open-ended.

Climate Change Poses A Direct Threat To The Infrastructure Of America That We Need To Stay Competitive In This 21st-century Economy.

My Experience Is That Our Intelligence Officials Try To Do The Right Thing, But Even With Good Intentions, Sometimes They Make Mistakes. Sometimes They Can Be Overzealous.

Good Intentions

To Avoid Being Mistaken For A Sellout, I Chose My Friends Carefully. The More Politically Active Black Students. The Foreign Students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors And Structural Feminists And Punk-rock Performance Poets.

Leather Jackets

Let's Face It, Fox News, You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone. It'll Be Harder To Convince The Public That Hillary Clinton Was Born In Kenya.

Yes, Our Greatness As A Nation Has Depended On Individual Initiative, On A Belief In The Free Market. But It Has Also Depended On Our Sense Of Mutual Regard For Each Other, Of Mutual Responsibility. The Idea That Everybody Has A Stake In The Country, That We're All In It Together And Everybody's Got A Shot At Opportunity. Americans Know This. We Know That Government Can't Solve All Our Problems - And We Don't Want It To. But We Also Know That There Are Some Things We Can't Do On Our Own. We Know That There Are Some Things We Do Better Together.

We Didn't Become The Most Prosperous Country In The World Just By Rewarding Greed And Recklessness. We Didn't Come This Far By Letting The Special Interests Run Wild. We Didn't Do It Just By Gambling And Chasing Paper Profits On Wall Street. We Built This Country By Making Things, By Producing Goods We Could Sell.

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.

Today, Women Make Up About Half Our Workforce. But They Still Make 77 Cents For Every Dollar A Man Earns. That Is Wrong, And In 2014, It’s An Embarrassment. Women Deserve Equal Pay For Equal Work.

A Number Of Countries, Including Some Who Have Loudly Criticized The Nsa, Privately Acknowledge That America Has Special Responsibilities As The World's Only Superpower, That Our Intelligence Capabilities Are Critical To Meeting These Responsibilities, And That They Themselves Have Relied On The Information We Obtain To Protect Their Own People.

That's Just How White Folks Will Do You. It Wasn't Merely The Cruelty Involved; I Was Learning That Black People Could Be Mean And Then Some. It Was A Particular Brand Of Arrogance, An Obtuseness In Otherwise Sane People That Brought Forth Our Bitter Laughter. It Was As If Whites Didn't Know They Were Being Cruel In The First Place. Or At Least Thought You Deserved Of Their Scorn.

This Kind Of Inequality - A Level That We Haven’t Seen Since The Great Depression - Hurts Us All. When Middle-class Families Can No Longer Afford To Buy The Goods And Services That Businesses Are Selling...it Drags Down The Entire Economy From Top To Bottom. America Was Built On The Idea Of Broad-based Prosperity... That’s Why A Ceo Like Henry Ford Made It His Mission To Pay His Workers Enough So That They Could Buy The Cars He Made. It’s Also Why A Recent Study Showed That Countries With Less Inequality Tend To Have Stronger And Steadier Economic Growth Over The Long Run.

You Got Into These Small Towns In Pennsylvania And, Like A Lot Of Small Towns In The Midwest, The Jobs Have Been Gone Now For 25 Years And Nothing's Replaced Them. And They Fell Through The Clinton Administration, And The Bush Administration, And Each Successive Administration Has Said That Somehow These Communities Are Gonna Regenerate And They Have Not. And It's Not Surprising Then They Get Bitter, They Cling To Guns Or Religion Or Antipathy To People Who Aren't Like Them Or Anti-immigrant Sentiment Or Anti-trade Sentiment As A Way To Explain Their Frustrations.

This Country Of Ours Has More Wealth Than Any Nation, But That's Not What Makes Us Rich. We Have The Most Powerful Military On Earth, But That's Not What Makes Us Strong. Our Universities And Our Culture Are The Envy Of The World, But That's Not What Keeps The World Coming To Our Shores. Instead, It Is That American Spirit - That American Promise - That Pushes Us Forward Even When The Path Is Uncertain; That Binds Us Together In Spite Of Our Differences; That Makes Us Fix Our Eye Not On What Is Seen, But What Is Unseen, That Better Place Around The Bend.

Some Heinous Crimes Justify The Ultimate Punishment.

We Can't Expect To Solve Problems If All We Do Is Tear Each Other Down. You Can Disagree With A Certain Policy Without Demonizing The Person Who Espouses It.

We Have Proved That The True Strength Of Our Nation Comes Not From The Scale Of Our Wealth But From The Power Of Our Ideals - Opportunity, Democracy, Liberty And Hope.

I Can Make A Firm Pledge, Under My Plan, No Family Making Less Than $250,000 A Year Will See Any Form Of Tax Increase. Not Your Income Tax, Not Your Payroll Tax, Not Your Capital Gains Taxes, Not Any Of Your Taxes.

If You're A Progressive, You've Got To Be Worried About How The Federal Government Is Spending Its Revenue, Because We Don't Have Enough Money To Spend On Things Like Early Childhood Education That Are So Important.

Senator Joe Biden Is Pretty Clean And Articulate For A White Guy.

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The Fact That My 15 Minutes Of Fame Has Extended A Little Longer Than 15 Minutes Is Somewhat Surprising To Me, And A Matter Of Bewilderment For My Wife.

If You Look At Libya, I Was Deeply Concerned About What Would Happen After Qaddafi Was Gone.

Iran Is The Latest Expression Of A Deep, Ancient, Powerful Culture That's Different Than Ours. And We Don't Know How It's Going To Play Itself Out.

Hillary Clinton Possesses An Extraordinary Intelligence And A Remarkable Work Ethic. I Am Proud That She Will Be Our Next Secretary Of State.

In Order For Us To Solve Many Big Problems Around The World, It Is In Our Interest To Work With Russia And Obtain Their Cooperation.

Around The World

Now Is Not The Time To Gut These Job-creating Investments In Science And Innovation. Now Is The Time To Reach A Level Of Research And Development Not Seen Since The Height Of The Space Race.

I Delivered A Clear And Forceful Message That Although We Recognize Russia's Intelligence Gathering Will Sometimes Take Place Even If We Don't Like It, There's A Difference Between That Than Either Meddling With Elections Or Going After Private Organizations Or Commercial Entities, And That We're Monitoring It Carefully, And We Will Respond Appropriately If And When We See This Happening.

The Middle East Is Obviously An Issue That Has Plagued The Region For Centuries.

Internationally, I Have Obviously Been Deeply Concerned About How We Fight The Terrorist Threat.

America Can't Provide Health Care To People Who Need It. We Can't Invest In Science And Technology, Which Will Determine Whether Or Not We Are Going To Be Competitive In The Long Term. There Has Never Been A Country On Earth That Saw Its Economy Decline And Yet Maintained Its Military Superiority.

We Remain A Young Nation, But In The Words Of Scripture, The Time Has Come To Set Aside Childish Things. The Time Has Come To Reaffirm Our Enduring Spirit; To Choose Our Better History; To Carry Forward That Precious Gift, That Noble Idea, Passed On From Generation To Generation: The God-given Promise That All Are Equal, All Are Free, And All Deserve A Chance To Pursue Their Full Measure Of Happiness.

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.

Nations Are More Successful When Their Women Are Successful.

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I Mean, I Do Think At A Certain Point You've Made Enough Money.

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Donald Trump Is Temperamentally Unfit.

Iraq Will Require Us Occupation Of Undetermined Length.

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Democracies Have

There's Some Bittersweet Feelings About Leaving The People Here [in The White House]. 'cause Even Though All The Team You Assemble, You Know, You're Going To Stay In Touch With 'em, It's Not The Same, You Know? The Band Kind Of Breaks Up.

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From The First Moment A Woman Dared To Speak That Hope - Dared To Believe That The American Dream Was Meant For Her Too - Ordinary Women Have Taken On Extraordinary Odds To Give Their Daughters The Chance For Something Else; For A Life More Equal, More Free, And Filled With More Opportunity Than They Ever Had. In So Many Ways We Have Succeeded, But In So Many Areas We Have Much Work Left To Do.

If We Have A Phased Redeployment Where We're As Careful Getting Out As We Were Careless Getting In, Then There's Not Reason Why We Shouldn't Be Able To Prevent The Wholesale Slaughter I Think Some People Have Suggested Might Occur.

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The Russians Don't Make Determinations About What Our Defense Posture Is.

We're Going To Have To Come Together And Take Meaningful Action To Prevent More Tragedies Like This, Regardless Of The Politics.

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

Secularists Are Wrong When They Ask Believers To Leave Their Religion At The Door Before Entering Into The Public Square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - Indeed, The Majority Of Great Reformers In American History - Were Not Only Motivated By Faith, But Repeatedly Used Religious Language To Argue For Their Cause. To Say That Men And Women Should Not Inject Their "personal Morality" Into Public Policy Debates Is A Practical Absurdity.

Learning To Stand In Somebody Else's Shoes, To See Through Their Eyes, That's How Peace Begins. And It's Up To You To Make That Happen. Empathy Is A Quality Of Character That Can Change The World.

In The Course Of A Healthy Debate, We Prioritize Different Goals, And The Different Means Of Reaching Them. But Without Some Common Baseline Of Facts, Without A Willingness To Admit New Information And Concede That Your Opponent Might Be Making A Fair Point, And That Science And Reason Matter - Then We're Going To Keep Talking Past Each Other, And We'll Make Common Ground And Compromise Impossible.

Globalization Makes Our Economy, Our Health, And Our Security All Captive To Events On The Other Side Of The World. And No Other Nation On Earth Has A Greater Capacity To Shape That Global System, Or To Build Consensus Around A New Set Of International Rules That Expand The Zones Of Freedom, Personal Safety, And Economic Well-being. Like It Or Not, If We Want To Make America More Secure, We Are Going To Have To Help Make The World More Secure.

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.

Some Banks Won’t Make It. Other Banks Are Going To Make Sure That We Strengthen. All Deposits Are Going To Be Safe For Ordinary People, But We’re Going To Have To Bring Out Some Of These Bad Assets.

Each Wave Of Immigrants That Have Come In Have Been Able To Assimilate, Integrate And Then Rise Up And Become Part Of This Great American Dream.

There Are Some Who Question The Scale Of Our Ambitions, Who Suggest That Our System Cannot Tolerate Too Many Big Plans. Their Memories Are Short, For They Have Forgotten What This Country Has Already Done, What Free Men And Women Can Achieve When Imagination Is Joined To Common Purpose, And Necessity To Courage.

Evil Does Exist In The World. A Non-violent Movement Could Not Have Halted Hitler's Armies. Negotiations Cannot Convince Al Qaeda's Leaders To Lay Down Their Arms. To Say That Force May Sometimes Be Necessary Is Not A Call To Cynicism - It Is A Recognition Of History; The Imperfections Of Man And The Limits Of Reason.

The Us And Australia Have A Lot In Common. One Of The Things We Have In Common Is We Produce A Lot Of Carbon.

With Effort We Can Protect The Foundation Of Our Democracy, For Which So Many Marched Across This Bridge, The Right To Vote.

Will Not Collect A Ransom In Exchange For Not Crashing The American Economy.

American Economy

We Agreed That Our Economic And Financial Teams Will Remain In Close Contact As We Stay Focused On Ensuring Economic Growth And Financial Stability.

I Still Don't Feel Responsible For What Donald Trump Says Or Does. But I Do Feel A Responsibility As President Of The United States To Make Sure That I Facilitate A Good Transition And I Present To Him As Well, As The American People My Best Thinking, My Best Ideas About How You Move The Country Forward. To Speak Out With Respect To Areas Where I Think The Republican Party's Wrong, But To Pledge To Work With Them On Those Things That I Think Will Advance The Causes Of Security And Prosperity And Justice And Inclusiveness In America.

I Do Want To Once Again Speak Directly To The Iranian People. Yours Is A Great Civilization With A Vibrant Culture That Has So Much To Contribute To The World - In Commerce And In Science And In Arts. For Decades, Your Government's Threats And Actions To Destabilize Your Region Have Isolated Iran From Much Of The World, And Now Our Governments Are Talking With One Another. Following The Nuclear Deal, You, Especially Young Iranians, Have The Opportunity To Begin Building New Ties With The World.

As We Keep Up The Pressure, Our Air Campaign Will Continue To Hit Isil Harder Than Ever.

One Of The Things That You Learn, Having Been In This [president's] Office For Four Years, Is The Old Adage Of Abraham Lincoln's. That With Public Opinion There's Nothing You Can't Do And Without Public Opinion There's Very Little You Can Get Done.

Nobody Really Thinks That Bush Or Mccain Have A Real Answer For The Challenges We Face, So What They're Going To Try To Do Is Make You Scared Of Me. You Know, He's Not Patriotic Enough. He's Got A Funny Name. You Know, He Doesn't Look Like All Those Other Presidents On Those Dollar Bills, You Know. He's Risky.

[young People] Are Showing Enormous And Entrepreneurship And Working With Each Other Across Borders.

Entrepreneurship

Health Care Got Done Because There Were A Lot Of People Out There Who Aren't Professional Politicians, But Are Citizens, Who Pushed For It Even When The Politics Was Hard.

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.

The Size Of Your Paycheck Shouldn’t Determine Your Child’s Future.

Yes To Trade, But Trade That Ensures That These Other Countries That Trade With Us Aren't Engaging In Child Labor.

If We Are Truly Created Equal Than Truly The Love We Commit To One Another Must Be Equal As Well, This Ruling Will Strengthen All Of Our Communities By Offering To All Same Sex Couples The Dignity Of Marriage Across This Great Land.

As I Said In My State Of The Union Address Ensuring The Security Of The United States And The Safety Of Our People Demands A Smart, Patient And Disciplined Approach To The World.

We Are Very Grateful For The Vital Contributions Germany Has Made To This Fight, Training Local Forces In Iraq, Sharing Intelligence Providing Reconnaissance Aircraft Including The Recent Deployment Of Additional Nato Awacs.

We Think About The Enormous Costs Of Homelessness, Or The Enormous Cost Of Hiv/aids, Over The Long Term, As People Visit Emergency Rooms, Etc. The More We Are Investing In That Ounce Of Prevention The Better Off We're Going To Be.

We've Got To Change Our Regulatory System.

Black Churches Minister To Social Needs Out Of Necessity.

We Want To See The Iranians Engage, And As You Know, We Have Attempted To Bring About That Engagement Over The Course Of The Last Three-plus Years. It Has Not Proven Effective.

It Ought To Concern Every Person, Because It Is A Debasement Of Our Common Humanity. It Ought To Concern Every Community, Because It Tears At Our Social Fabric. It Ought To Concern Every Business, Because It Distorts Markets. It Ought To Concern Every Nation, Because It Endangers Public Health And Fuels Violence And Organized Crime. I’m Talking About The Injustice, The Outrage, Of Human Trafficking, Which Must Be Called By Its True Name - Modern Slavery.

Common Humanity

No Other Advanced Nation Endures This Kind Of Violence. None. Here In America, The Murder Rate Is Three Times What It Is In Other Developed Nations. The Murder Rate With Guns Is Ten Times What It Is In Other Developed Nations. And There's Nothing Inevitable About It. It Comes About Because Of Decisions We Make Or Fail To Make. And It Falls Upon Us To Make It Different.

We Do Need To Make Sure That We Have An Orderly, Lawful Immigration Process.

I Want My Children - I Want Malia And Sasha - To Understand That They've Got Responsibilities Beyond Just What They Themselves Have Done. That They Have A Responsibility To The Larger Community And The Larger Nation, That They Should Be Sensitive To And Extra Thoughtful About The Plight Of People Who Have Been Oppressed In The Past, Are Oppressed Currently.

Every Country Has Violent, Hateful, Or Mentally Unstable People. What's Different Is Not Every Country Is Awash With Easily Accessible Guns.

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.

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.

If We Can Make Sure That That Young Boys Starting At The Age Of Three Or Four Already Knows Their Colors And Their Letters And Are Getting Good Preschool, And By The Time They Get Into School They've Got A Good Teacher And Are Getting The Support That They Need And Are Able To Keep Up With Their Classwork, That Is Going To Do More To Reduce The Incarceration Rate At The Same Time, Obviously, As It Increases The College Enrollment Rate.

Lincoln Basically Pulled In All The People Who Had Been Running Against Him Into His Cabinet Because, Whatever Personal Feelings There Were, The Issue Was 'how Can We Get This Country Through This Time Of Crisis?'

That's The True Genius Of America: That America Can Change. Our Union Can Be Perfected. What We've Already Achieved Gives Us Hope For What We Can And Must Achieve Tomorrow.

I'm Not So Optimistic As To Think That You Would Ever Be Able To Garner A Majority Of An American Congress That Would Make Those Kinds Of Investments Above And Beyond The Kinds Of Investments That Could Be Made In A Progressive Program For Lifting Up All People.

Our Kids Grew Up Here [in The White House]. Some Of Our Best Friends Have Been Made Here In This Place. There Have Been Moments That Were Highlights For Us - That - You Know, Are Going To Be Hard To Duplicate.

Mandela's Commitment To Democracy Was Ratified Not Only By His Election, But By His Willingness To Step Down From Power

That Just Gives Sort Of The Democracy An Opportunity To Test Ideas, For Those Who Lost To Catch Their Breath, Regain Energy, Re-energize Themselves And Then Get Back In The Arena, And Then We'll Make Some More Progress In The Future.

I Am Designating A New Director Of Recovery For Auto Communities And Workers To Cut Through Red Tape And Ensure That The Full Resources Of Our Federal Government Are Leveraged To Assist The Workers, Communities, And Regions That Rely On Our Auto Industry.

You Know, The Bowling Alley Doesn‘t Seem To Be Improving My Game. That‘s The One Thing I Have Noticed.

Winnie The Pooh Seems To Me To Be A Fundamental Text On National Security.

National Security

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.

The Federal Government And Our Democracy Is Not A Speedboat. It's An Oceanliner, As I Discovered When I Came Into Office. It Took A Lot Of Really Hard Work For Us To Make Significant Policy Changes, Even In Our First Two Years, When We Had Larger Majorities Than Mr. Trump Will Enjoy When He Comes Into Office.

America At Its Best Is Inclusive And Not Exclusive.

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.

No One Nation Can Or Should Try To Dominate Another Nation.

You Have To Be Involved During Midterm Elections, You Have To Care About What Happens At A School Board Level.

As We Look Forward To The New Year, Let's Resolve To Recommit Ourselves To The Values We Share.

Whether Our Forebears Were Strangers Who Crossed The Atlantic Or The Pacific Or The Rio Grande, We Are Here Only Because This Country Welcomed Them In And Taught Them That To Be An American Is About Something More Than What We Look Like, Or What Our Last Names Are, Or How We Worship.

My Hope Is That More And More Investors Around The World See An Opportunity To Do Business In Greece.

One Of The Things You Discover About Being President Is That There Are All These Rules And Norms And Laws And You Got To Pay Attention To Them.

Ours Is A Nation Of Laws: Of Citizens Who Live Under Them And For The Citizens Who Enforce Them. So, To A Community In Ferguson That Is Rightly Hurting And Looking For Answers, Let Me Call Once Again For Us To Seek Some Understanding Rather Than Simply Holler At Each Other. Let's Seek To Heal Rather Than To Wound Each Other.

My Hope Is Donald Trump Makes Things Better. And If He Does, We'll All Benefit From It.

I Never Understood That Line. The Point Was To Inhale. That Was The Point.

Democracy Cannot Be Imposed On Any Nation From The Outside. Each Society Must Search For Its Own Path, And No Path Is Perfect.

I Think It's A Healthy Thing For The Democratic Party To Go Through Some Reflection.

So My Biggest Fun Has Been Watching My Daughters Grow Up. Now, Unfortunately They're Hitting The Age Where They Still Love Me, But They Think I'm Completely Boring. And So They'll Come In, Pat Me On The Head, Talk To Me For 10 Minutes, And Then They're Gone All Weekend. Right? They Break My Heart! So Now I've Got To Start Thinking, Well What's Going To Replace That Fun?

But 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.

A Little Reminder To Those Who Don't Back Obama And Gay Marriage. It's Probably Cause You're Gay.

Perhaps I Possess A Certain Midwestern Sensibility That I Inherited From My Mother And Her Parents, A Sensibility That Warren Buffet Seems To Share: That At A Certain Point One Has Enough, That You Can Derive As Much Pleasure From A Picasso Hanging In A Museum As From One That's Hanging In Your Den, That You Can Get An Awfully Good Meal In A Restaurant For Less Than Twenty Dollars, And That Once Your Drapes Cost More Than The Average American's Yearly Salary, Then You Can Afford To Pay A Bit More In Taxes.

I Mean, If You Think About - If You Think About It, Ups And Fedex Are Doing Just Fine, Right? No, They Are. It's The Post Office That's Always Having Problems.

There's So Much Active Misinformation And It's Packaged Very Well And It Looks The Same When You See It On A Facebook Page Or You Turn On Your Television. If Everything Seems To Be The Same And No Distinctions Are Made, Then We Won't Know What To Protect.

I Think We've Done A Pretty Good Job Staying In Touch With The American People. But At A Certain Point You Can't Help But Lose Some Feel For What's On The Ground Because You're Not On The Ground.

When Bp Was Not Moving Fast Enough On Claims, We Told Bp To Set Aside $20 Billion In A Fund - Managed By An Independent Third Party - To Help All Those Whose Lives Have Been Turned Upside Down By The Spill.

Rather Than Pointing Fingers Or Assigning Blame, Let’s Use This Occasion To Expand Our Moral Imaginations, To Listen To Each Other More Carefully, To Sharpen Our Instincts For Empathy And Remind Ourselves Of All The Ways That Our Hopes And Dreams Are Bound Together.

I Think That What Is Always True When You Run Against An Incumbent President Is, Is That You End Up Talking More About That President's Record Than Your Vision For The Future, And I Think That The Democrats Do Have To Present A Proactive Agenda And Vision For The Country And Not Simply Run Against Something If They're Going To Be Successful.

I Opposed The Defense Of Marriage Act In 1996. It Should Be Repealed And I Will Vote For Its Repeal On The Senate Floor. I Will Also Oppose Any Proposal To Amend The U.s. Constitution To Ban Gays And Lesbians From Marrying.

The Key Is Whether Or Not We Have Got Priorities That Are Working For You, As Opposed To Those Who Have Been Dictating The Policy In Washington Lately. And That's Mostly Lobbyists And Special Interests. We Have Got To Put An End To That.

Every Three Weeks, We Bring Online As Much Solar Power As We Did In All Of 2008...that’s Why, Over The Past Six Years, We’ve Done More Than Ever Before To Combat Climate Change, From The Way We Produce Energy, To The Way We Use It.

The Most Frustrated And Most Stymied It Is The Fact That The United States Of America Is The One Advanced Nation On Earth In Which We Do Not Have Sufficient Common-sense, Gun-safety Laws. Even In The Face Of Repeated Mass Killings.

My Life Story Is Something Obviously That Belongs To Me Very Personally. And The Fact Of The Matter Is That I Had Choices And Chances And Opportunities That Were Provided To Me, Based On The Way I Was Able To Direct My Own Decision-making. And What I'm Working To Fight For Is To Make Sure That All Women Have The Ability To Do That.

Ultimately, If You Think About All The Youth That Everybody Has Mentioned Here In Africa, If Everybody Is Raising Living Standards To The Point Where Everybody Has Got A Car And Everybody Has Got Air Conditioning, And Everybody Has Got A Big House, Well, The Planet Will Boil Over - Unless We Find New Ways Of Producing Energy.

I'll Remember The View Out This Window [from Oval Cabinet], Because This Is Where We Had Our - The Playground That We Put In When Malia And Sasha Came In. Being Able Every Once In Awhile To Look Out The Window And See Your Daughters During The Summer, Swinging On That Swing Set, That Made The Presidency A Little Bit Sweeter.

We Know We Can't Stop Every Act Of Violence, Every Act Of Evil In The World, But Maybe We Could Try To Stop One Act Of Evil, One Act Of Violence.

Every Single American - Gay, Straight, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender - Every Single American Deserves To Be Treated Equally In The Eyes Of The Law And In The Eyes Of Our Society. It’s A Pretty Simple Proposition.

Yes, We Can. Yes, We Can Change. Yes, We Can.

I Am Willing To Work With Anybody Who Wants To Have A Serious Conversation About Our Fiscal Future. We're Not Going To Do This Under The Threat Of Blowing Up The Entire Economy. I Will Not Negotiate Over Congress' Responsibility To Pay The Bills That Have Already Been Racked Up. I Don't Know How I Can Be More Clear About This.

Everybody Potentially Can Make The Claim That We Should All Be Treated Fairly.

In Reaffirming The Greatness Of Our Nation, We Understand That Greatness Is Never A Given. It Must Be Earned. Our Journey Has Never Been One Of Shortcuts Or Settling For Less. It Has Not Been The Path For The Faint-hearted, For Those Who Prefer Leisure Over Work, Or Seek Only The Pleasures Of Riches And Fame. Rather, It Has Been The Risk-takers, The Doers, The Makers Of Things -- Some Celebrated, But More Often Men And Women Obscure In Their Labor -- Who Have Carried Us Up The Long, Rugged Path Towards Prosperity And Freedom.

Libraries Remind Us That Truth Isn't About Who Yells The Loudest But Who Has The Right Information.

I Don't Know About Cricket But Still I Watch Cricket To See Sachin Play..not Because I Love His Play, Its Because I Want To Know The Reason Why My Country's Production Goes Down By 5 Percent When He Is In Batting

Those Opportunity Gaps Begin Early, Often At Birth. And They Compound Over Time, Becoming Harder And Harder To Bridge, Making Too Many Young Men And Women Feel Like, No Matter How Hard They Try, They May Never Achieve Their Dreams.

I Think Back To The Day I Drove Michelle And A Newborn Malia Home From The Hospital Nearly 11 Years Ago - Crawling Along, Miles Under The Speed Limit, Feeling The Weight Of My Daughter's Future Resting In My Hands. I Think About The Pledge I Made To Her That Day: That I Would Give Her What I Never Had - That If I Could Be Anything In Life, I Would Be A Good Father. I Knew That Day That My Own Life Wouldn't Count For Much Unless She Had Every Opportunity In Hers.

A Political Candidacy Built Around Hope And Change And Compromise Would Eventually Become A Presidency Of Crisis And Confrontation.

The Fact That There Is A Robust Debate In Congress Is Good. The Fact That The Debate Sometimes Seems Unanchored To Facts Is Not So Good.

To The Extent That We've Got A Fiscal Crisis Right Now, Part Of It Is Prompted By A Bullheaded Insistence On The Part Of The President, For Example, That We Should Extend All Of His Tax Cuts, Make All Of Them Permanent.

People Will Still Be Looking To The United States. Our Example Will Still Carry Great Weight.

More Than A Building That Houses Books And Data, The Library Represents A Window To A Larger World, The Place Where We've Always Come To Discover Big Ideas And Profound Concepts That Help Move The American Story Forward And The Human Story Forward.

As I Reflect Back On What's Worked For Me In This [presidential] Office It's Been That I've Gotten People Who Maybe Didn't Believe In The Process To Get Engaged. Ironically, I've Even Gotten The Other Side That Maybe Didn't Believe In The Process To Get Engaged.

My Question Would Be Whether There Is Active Persecution Of Atheists.

I Reject Discrimination Against Muslim Americans - Who Are Just As Patriotic As We Are.

You Can't Just Listen To Rush Limbaugh And Get Things Done.

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 Think That [donald Trump] Clearly Was Able To Tap Into A Lot Of Grievances. And He Has A Talent For Making A Connection With His Supporters That Overrode Some Of The Traditional Benchmarks Of How You'd Run A Campaign Or Conduct Yourself As A Presidential Candidate. What Will Be Interesting To See Is How That Plays Out During The Course Of His Presidency.

If We Have Osama Bin Laden In Our Sights And The Pakistani Government Is Unable Or Unwilling To Take Them Out, Then, I Think That We Have To Act And We Will Take Them Out. We Will Kill Bin Laden. We Will Crush Al Qaeda. That Has To Be Our Biggest National Security Priority.

Black Children, White Children, Latino Children. America Is Becoming More Diverse, It's Becoming More Tolerant As A Consequence There's More Interactions Between Groups. There Are Going Be Tensions That Arise.

I Would Have I Think Made A Bigger Mistake If I Had Said, "eh, Chemical Weapons. That Doesn't Really Change My Calculus." I Think It Was Important For Me As President Of The United States To Send A Message That In Fact There Is Something Different About Chemical Weapons [in Syria].

If We Aren't Willing To Pay A Price For Our Values, Then We Should Ask Ourselves Whether We Truly Believe In Them At All.

America Is An Unlikely Place - A Country Built On Defiance Of The Odds; On A Belief In The Impossible. And I Remind You Of This Because As You Set Out To Live Your Own Stories Of Success And Achievement, It's Now Your Turn To Help Keep It This Way.

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

Angela [merkel] And I Also Agreed The Need For A Comprehensive And Humane Response To The Devastating Humanitarian Crisis In Syria And For The Influx Of Migrants And Refugees From Around The World. We Need To Build On The Progress Achieved At The U.n. Refugee Summit, Which Yielded New Commitments From Some 50 Nations And Organizations.

Immigration Is Part Of The Reason Why Our Economy Is Stronger And Better Positioned Than Most Of Our Other Competitors, Is Because We've Got A Younger Population That's More Dynamic When It Comes To Trade.

[white House] Feels Even More Like Home Now Because You Have All These Memories That Were Formed Watching Your Kids Grow Up.

I Think That Sometimes The Democrats Have To Run Upstream Or Swim Upstream Because We've Got The Republicans Making It Out As If We Don't Care About These Things, And We Should Be Able To Engage And Be Willing To Engage In The Discussion About Morality And Values.

Unlike My Opponent, I Will Not Let Oil Companies Write This Country's Energy Plan, Or Endanger Our Coastlines, Or Collect Another $4 Billion In Corporate Welfare From Our Taxpayers.

I Think That Leadership More Than Anything Is About Setting A Course And Describing A Vision For People.

Filibuster Has Long Tradition, But Used To Harm Civil Rights.

We Lose Ourselves When We Compromise The Very Ideals That We Fight To Defend. And We Honor Those Ideals By Upholding Them Not When It's Easy, But When It Is Hard.

In America, We Want A Peaceful Planet. We Want People To Be Able To Enjoy Their Lives And Know They're Going To Have A Bright And Prosperous Future, Not Be At War. That's Our Purpose.

Prosperous Future

You Have Social Media And The Internet And Immigration And So, Suddenly, Cultures Are Clashing And People Feel As If They're Less Familiar With The People Around Them. That Causes Social Anxieties.

What's Good For America Better Damn Well Be Good For General Motors.

It Was The Labor Movement That Helped Secure So Much Of What We Take For Granted Today. The 40-hour Work Week, The Minimum Wage, Family Leave, Health Insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Retirement Plans. The Cornerstones Of The Middle-class Security All Bear The Union Label.

I've Now Been In 57 States. I Think One Left To Go.

The Belief That Peace Is Desirable Is Rarely Enough To Achieve It. Peace Requires Responsibility. Peace Entails Sacrifice.

For Democrats Who Are Feeling Completely Discouraged, I've Been Trying To Remind Them, Everybody Remembers My Boston Speech In 2004. They May Not Remember Me Showing Up Here In 2005 When John Kerry Had Lost A Close Election, Tom Daschle, The Leader Of The Senate, Had Been Beaten In An Upset. Ken Salazar And I Were The Only Two Democrats That Won Nationally. Republicans Controlled The Senate And The House, And Two Years Later, Democrats Were Winning Back Congress, And Four Years Later I Was President Of The United States.

We Cannot Meet 21st Century Challenges With A 20th Century Bureaucracy.

I Believe That We Have Better Ideas. But I Also Believe That Good Ideas Don't Matter If People Don't Hear Them.

When Our Sailors In The Persian Gulf Accidentally Strayed Into Iranian Waters, That Could Have Sparked A Major International Incident. Some Folks Here In Washington Rushed To Declare That It Was The Start Of Another Hostage Crisis. Instead, We Worked Directly With The Iranian Government And Secured The Release Of Our Sailors In Less Than 24 Hours.

Even When Folks Are Hitting You Over The Head, You Can't Stop Marching. Even When They're Turning The Hoses On You, You Can't Stop.

Everybody Knows Politics Is A Contact Sport.

All Of Us Have A Responsibility To Work For The Day When The Mothers Of Israelis And Palestinians Can See Their Children Grow Up Without Fear; When The Holy Land Of The Three Great Faiths Is The Place Of Peace That God Intended It To Be; When Jerusalem Is A Secure And Lasting Home For Jews And Christians And Muslims, And A Place For All Of The Children Of Abraham To Mingle Peacefully Together As In The Story Of Isra - (applause) - As In The Story Of Isra, When Moses, Jesus, And Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Them, Joined In Prayer. (applause.)

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

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

No Religion Is Responsible For Terrorism. People Are Responsible For Violence And Terrorism.

But Shouldn't We Also Quit Marketing Murder As A Game?

Operations In Iraq And Afghanistan And The War On Terrorism Have Reduced The Pace Of Military Transformation And Have Revealed Our Lack Of Preparation For Defensive And Stability Operations. This Administration Has Overextended Our Military.

I Don't Think We Should Ever Accept The Idea That Someone Can Come Along And Take Away Our Safety And Our Freedom.

Does That Mean That All Vestiges Of Past Discrimination Would Be Eliminated, That The Income Gap Or The Wealth Gap Or The Education Gap [between Afro-americans And White] Would Be Erased In Five Years Or 10 Years? Probably Not, And So This Is Obviously A Discussion We've Had Before When You Talk About Something Like Reparations.

There's A Utility In The Democracy Refreshing Itself On An Ongoing Basis.

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