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Whatever Success I Have Achieved, Whatever Positions Of Leadership I Have Held Have Depended Less On Ivy League Degrees Or Sat Scores Or Gpas And Have Instead Been Due To That Sense Of Connection And Empathy, The Special Obligation I Felt As A Black Man Like You To Help Those Who Need It Most, People Who Didn't Have The Opportunities That I Had Because There, But For The Grace Of God Go I. I Might Have Been In Their Shoes. I Might Have Been In Prison. I Might Have Been Unemployed. I Might Not Have Been Able To Support A Family. And That Motivates Me.

-Barack Obama

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Whatever Success I Have

Barack Obama

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Whatever Success I Have Achieved, Whatever Positions Of Leadership I Have Held Have Depended Less On Ivy League Degrees Or Sat Scores Or Gpas And Have Instead Been Due To That Sense Of Connection And Empathy, The Special Obligation I Felt As A Black Man Like You To Help Those Who Need It Most, People Who Didn't Have The Opportunities That I Had Because There, But For The Grace Of God Go I. I Might Have Been In Their Shoes. I Might Have Been In Prison. I Might Have Been Unemployed. I Might Not Have Been Able To Support A Family. And That Motivates Me.

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I Don't Oppose All Wars. What I Am Opposed To Is A Dumb War. What I Am Opposed To Is A Rash War.

Our Lives Are Now In A Telephone, All Our Data, All Our Finances, All Our Personal Information, And So It's Proper That We Have Some Constraints On That. But It's Not Going To Be 100 Percent. If It Is 100 Percent, Then We're Not Going To Be Able To Protect Ourselves And Our Societies From Some People Who Are Trying To Hurt Us.

We Don't Have Time For A Meeting Of The Flat Earth Society.

Under My Plan Of A Cap-and-trade System, Electricity Rates Would Necessarily Skyrocket.

I Was Never Great, But I Was A Good [basketball] Player, And I Could Play Seriously. Now I'm Like One Of These Old Guys Who's Running Around, And The Guys I Play With, Who Are All A Lot Younger, They Sort Of Pity Me And Sympathize With Me. They Tolerate Me, But We All Know That I'm The Weak Link On The Court. And I Don't Like Being The Weak Link.

For The Sake Of Our Economy, Our Security, And The Future Of Our Planet, I Will Set A Clear Goal As President: In Ten Years, We Will Finally End Our Dependence On Oil From The Middle East.

Sanctions Alone Could Not Stop Iran's Nuclear Program. But They Did Help Bring Iran To The Negotiating Table.

Transparency And The Rule Of Law Will Be The Touchstones Of This Presidency.

We Want Everybody To Act Like Adults, Quit Playing Games, Realize That It's Not Just My Way Or The Highway.

The Way We Have To Measure Progress Is Not, "is There Ever Going To Be An Incident Of Racism In The Country?" It's, "how Does The Majority Of Our Country Respond?"

Nobody's Changing What You've Got. You Get To Keep It.

You're Going To Face A Choice In November. This Is A Choice Between The Policies That Got Us Into This Mess In The First Place And The Policies That Got Us Out Of This Mess - And What The Other Side Is Counting On Is People Not Having A Good Memory.

The Path Of America's Development Is Never A Straight Line. Sometimes We Move In Ways That Are Forwards; Sometime That Seem Back.

The Real Problem, If You Look At How, For Example, Hezbollah Got A Lot Of Missiles That Are A Grave Threat To Israel, It's Not Because They Were Legal, It's Not Because Somehow That Was Authorized Under International Law; It Was Because There Was Insufficient Intelligence Or Capacity To Stop Those Shipments.

This Week I've Travelled More Than 15,000 Miles From America To China To Burma To Australia. I Have No Idea What Time It Is Right Now.

I Think One Of The Tragedies Of The Civil Rights Movement Was Because The Civil Rights Movement Became So Court-focused, I Think That There Was A Tendency To Lose Track Of The Political And Community Organizing, And Activities On The Ground, That Are Able To Put Together The Actual Coalitions Of Power Throughout Which You Bring About Redistributive Change. And In Some Ways, We Still Suffer From That.

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

You Have People Around The Country Who Are Benefitting From The Steps That We've Taken [with Obamacare] And As Long As They Continue To Get Helped, Then At Least I'll Know In My Own Mind That The Work We Did Here Had A Lasting Impact.

This Is The Defining Issue Of Our Time. This Is A Make-or-break Moment For The Middle Class And For All Those Who Are Fighting To Get Into The Middle Class.

The Issue Of Climate Change Is One That We Ignore At Our Own Peril. There May Still Be Disputes About Exactly How Much We're Contributing To The Warming Of The Earth's Atmosphere And How Much Is Naturally Occurring, But What We Can Be Scientifically Certain Of Is That Our Continued Use Of Fossil Fuels Is Pushing Us To A Point Of No Return. And Unless We Free Ourselves From A Dependence On These Fossil Fuels And Chart A New Course On Energy In This Country, We Are Condemning Future Generations To Global Catastrophe.

The Study Of Geography Is About More Than Just Memorizing Places On A Map. It's About Understanding The Complexity Of Our World, Appreciating The Diversity Of Cultures That Exists Across Continents. And In The End, It's About Using All That Knowledge To Help Bridge Divides And Bring People Together.

Sometimes People Just Feel As If We Want To Try Something To See If We Can Shake Things Up.

That Is The Nature Of Democracy. It Is Hard. It Is Not Always Inspiring.

Above All, Our Freedom Endures Because Of The Men And Women In Uniform Who Defend It.

Empathy Is A Quality Of Character That Can Change The World.

Because As Tough As Things Have Been, I Am Convinced You Are Tougher. I've Seen Your Passion And I've Seen Your Service... I've Seen A Generation Eager, Impatient Even, To Step Into The Rushing Waters Of History And Change Its Course.

In Our Household, The Bible, The Koran And The Bhagavad Gita Sat On The Shelf Alongside Books Of Greek And Norse And African Mythology

People'd Be Like, "oh, Spending Taxpayer Money." It's Like, "no, No, I Actually I'm Paying For All Of This. The Only Thing I Don't Pay For Is Secret Service And An Airplane."

Rather Than Me Sort Of Characterize The Appropriateness Or Inappropriateness Of What Donald Trump Is Doing At The Moment, I Think What We Have To See Is How Will The President-elect Operate, And How Will His Team Operate, When They've Been Fully Briefed On All These Issues, They Have Their Hands On All The Levers Of Government, And They've Got To Start Making Decisions.

I'm Personally Very Grateful To My Many Friends In The Greek-american Community, Sons And Daughters Of Greece Who Have Found Success In Every Walk Of American Life.

I Think That Mr. Snowden Raised Some Legitimate Concerns. How He Did It Was Something That Did Not Follow The Procedures And Practices Of Our Intelligence Community. If Everybody Took The Approach That I Make My Own Decisions About These Issues, Then It Would Be Very Hard To Have An Organized Government Or Any Kind Of National Security System.

Security Systems

In A Summer Marked By Instability In The Middle East And Eastern Europe, I Know The World Also Took Notice Of The Small American City Of Ferguson, Missouri - Where A Young Man Was Killed, And A Community Was Divided. So Yes, We Have Our Own Racial And Ethnic Tensions.

I Think At A Certain Age I Became Conscious Of The Power Of Words. And It Was Fairly Late. I Was Kind Of A Goofball - But I Was Always Subconsciously Thinking About Issues.

[this Upset] Means That Means Donald Trump Now Has To Transition To Governance.

What You Have Is Mitt Romney Running Around The Country Saying 'well, You Know, My Wife Tells Me That What Women Really Care About Are Economic Issues, And When I Listen To My Wife, That's What I'm Hearing.' Guess What? His Wife Has Actually Never Worked A Day In Her Life.

The Other Thing Is Going To Be Me Being Able To Show Not Just The American People Or The Israeli People But The World That, In Fact, We Have Mechanisms In Place That Will Prevent Iran From Having A Nuclear Weapon.

I Think That There's Gonna Be A Lot Of Work To Do In Order To Consolidate The Transformations That I Was Interested In.

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

Futures Together

Certainly I've Appreciated Angela Merkel As A Partner.

I Think That At A Certain Stage Those Early Ambitions Burn Away, Partly Because You Achieve Something, You Get Something Done, You Get Some Notoriety. And Then The Particularities Of Who You Are And What Your Deepest Commitments Are Begin Expressing Themselves. You're Not Just Chasing The Idea Of "me" Being Important, But You, Rather, Are Chasing A Particular Passion.

Robin Williams Was An Airman, A Doctor, A Genie, A Nanny ... And Everything In Between. But He Was One Of A Kind.

That Is The True Genius Of America-a Faith In Simple Dreams, An Insistence On Small Miracles.

Let Us Remember That We Can Do These Things Not Just Because Of Wealth Or Power, But Because Of Who We Are: One Nation Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All.

Justice For All

The Path Towards Sustainable Energy Sources Will Be Long And Sometimes Difficult. But America Cannot Resist This Transition, We Must Lead It.

I Do Have An Obligation To Make Sure That I Am Following Some Of The Rules. I Can't Simply Ignore Laws That Are Out There.

One Of The Issues The Democrats Have To Be Clear On Is The Given Population Distribution Across The Country. We Have To Compete Everywhere. We Have To Show Up Everywhere. We Have To Work At A Grassroots Level, Something That's Been A Running Thread In My Career.

Cutting Benefits Is Not The Right Answer. Raising The Retirement Age Is Not The Best Option.

As Has Been Well Documented, I Smoked Pot As A Kid, And I View It As A Bad Habit And A Vice, Not Very Different From The Cigarettes That I Smoked As A Young Person Up Through A Big Chunk Of My Adult Life. I Don't Think It Is More Dangerous Than Alcohol.

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.

And What Would Help Minority Workers Are The Same Things That Would Help White Workers: The Opportunity To Earn A Living Wage, The Education And Training That Lead To Such Jobs, Labor Laws And Tax Laws That Restore Some Balance To The Distribution Of The Nation's Wealth.

I Think The Most Important Thing For The Public And The Press Is To Just Listen To What Donald Trump Says And Follow Up And Ask Questions About What Appear To Be Either Contradictory Or Uninformed Or Outright Wacky Ideas.

The Campaign Was A More Significant Training Ground Than I Think People Give It Credit For. By The Time I Got Here, I Think I Had A Pretty Good Sense Of What Was Required. But The Circumstances In Which I Came In Were Different Than Most Executives, Right? The Enterprise Was In The Midst Of A Major Crisis.

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.

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.

I Think That What Is True Is That The Russians Intended To Meddle, And They Meddled. And It Could Be Another Country In The Future.

I Do Believe, Separate And Apart From Any Particular Election Or Movement, That We Are Going To Have To Guard Against A Rise In A Crude Sort Of Nationalism Or Ethnic Identity Or Tribalism That Is Built Around An Us And A Them.

Iran's Nuclear Program . . . There Was Going To Be A Time Limit . . .

And If We Walk Away Now, If We Simply Retreat Into Our Respective Corners, We Will Never Be Able To Come Together And Solve Challenges Like Health Care, Or Education, Or The Need To Find Good Jobs For Every American.

I Do Think That Saving The Economy Was A Pretty Big Deal. We Did A Lot Of Stuff Early That Ended Up Having An Impact. I Believe That The Work We've Done In Moving Our Energy Future In A Cleaner Direction Is Going To Stick Even If Some Of The Individual Steps That We Took Are Reversed By Future Administrations. I Think That It's Embedded Itself In The Economy.

What We May Think Is Funny Or Cute May End Up Being Powerfully Hurtful.

I Guarantee That There Is No Political Influence In Any Investigation Conducted By The Justice Department Or The Fbi, Not Just In This Case, But In Any Case, Full Stop, Period.

Guarantees That

My Liberty Depends On You Being Free, Too.

For Me, Lincoln Is Like Just A Handful Of People - A Gandhi, Or A Picasso, Or A Martin Luther King Jr. - Who Is An Original And Captures Something Essential.

If It Is Orderly And Lawful, Immigration Is Good For Our Economy.

Part Of What's Changed In Politics Is Social Media And How People Are Receiving Information.

International Inspectors Are On The Ground And Iran Is Being Subjected To The Most Comprehensive, Intrusive Inspection Regime Ever Negotiated To Monitor A Nuclear Program. Inspectors Will Monitor Iran's Key Nuclear Facilities 24 Hours A Day, 365 Days A Year. For Decades To Come, Inspectors Will Have Access To Iran's Entire Nuclear Supply Chain. In Other Words, If Iran Tries To Cheat - If They Try To Find Build A Bomb Covertly, We Will Catch Them.

...i Believe Deeply That We Canot Solve The Challenges Of Your Time Unless We Solve Them Together - Unless We Perfect Our Union By Understanding That We May Have Differnt Stories, But We Hold Common Hopes; That We May Not Look The Same And We May Not Have Come From The Same Place, But We All Want To Move In The Same Direction - Towards A Better Future For Our Children And Our Grandchildren. This Belief Comes From My Unyielding Faith In The Decency And Generosity Of The American People.

I Have Made It Clear That We Will Hunt Down Terrorists Who Threaten Our Country, Wherever They Are. That Means I Will Not Hesitate To Take Action Against Isil In Syria, As Well As Iraq. This Is A Core Principle Of My Presidency: If You Threaten America, You Will Find No Safe Haven.

In This New, Hyper Competitive Age, None Of Us, None Of Us Can Afford To Be Complacent.

It Could Be Another Election Where The Alignments Between Republicans And Democrats Are Different Than They Were This Time And Who A Foreign Country Prefers.

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.

Our Friends At The Republican Convention Were More Than Happy To Talk About Everything They Think Is Wrong With America, But They Didn't Have Much To Say About How They'd Make It Right. They Want Your Vote, But They Don't Want You To Know Their Plan.

I Don't Want Ever To Be A President Who Is Comfortable And At Ease With Killing People.

Obviously, If Congress Wants To Talk About Anything, We're Happy To Provide Information. We're Committed To Moving Forward Under The Current Act.

With Only 2 Percent Of The World's Oil Reserves, Oil Isn't Enough. This Country Needs An All-out, All-of-the-above Strategy That Develops Every Available Source Of American Energy. A Strategy That's Cleaner, Cheaper, And Full Of New Jobs.

The Muslim Call To Prayer Is One Of The Prettiest Sounds On Earth At Sunset.

I Have 90 Percent Or 95 Percent Support In The African American Community And It's Not Sort Of "well, He's Black, So It's Okay. We're Not Going To Say Anything Even Though We're Seething." And I Hang Out With A Lot Of Middle-aged Black Women, And They're Not Casual In Their Support Of Me. There's A Lot Of Love Forthcoming. Partly Because They Understand The Constraints Of This Society. They Know That This Is Hard.

African American

I Think What Will Happen With Donald Trump Is There Are Going To Be Certain Elements Of His Temperament That Will Not Serve Him Well Unless He Recognizes Them And Corrects Them.

We've Had Every Official In Hawaii, Democrat And Republican, Every News Outlet That Has Investigated This, Confirm That, Yes, In Fact, I Was Born In Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961, In Kapiolani Hospital.

Everybody Knows Politics Is A Contact Sport.

I Know The American People. I've Met A Lot Of Them. I've Met A Lot More Of Them Than Any Columnist Has, Or Any Talking Head On Tv Has. And They're Pretty Sophisticated.

I Can't Even Get A Credit Card Without Three Credit Bureaus Saying I'm Good Enough.

So On This Human Rights Day, Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Advancement Of Human Rights And Freedoms For All, And Pledge Always To Live By The Ideals We Promote To The World.

One Of The Great Things About The United States Is That When It Comes To World Affairs, The President Obviously Is The Leader Of The Executive Branch, The Commander-in-chief, The Spokesperson For The Nation, But The Influence And The Work That We Have Is The Result Not Just Of The President, It Is The Result Of Countless Interactions And Arrangements And Relationships Between Our Military And Other Militaries, And Our Diplomats And Other Diplomats, The Intelligence Officers And Development Workers.

We Invest In Early Childhood Education. We Invest Additional Job Training Dollars. We Make Sure That We've Got A Strong Research And Development Strategy So That We Continue To Innovate. Rebuilding Our Infrastructure, Which We Know Will Attract Businesses.

Research And Development

The World Is Less Violent Than It Has Ever Been.

Let's Say I'm On The Policy Wonk End Of The Spectrum. As Much As I Can Dive Into A Briefing Book And Really Work To Master Various Subjects That Come Before My Desk, I'm Still Not An Expert On A Huge Amount Of The Stuff That We Work On.

The Elevation Of Appearance Over Substance, Of Celebrity Over Character, Of Short Term Gains Over Lasting Achievement Displays A Poverty Of Ambition. It Distracts You From What's Truly Important.

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.

The Leaders We Revere And The Businesses That Last Are Generally Not The Result Of A Narrow Pursuit Of Popularity Or Personal Advancement, But Of Devotion To Some Bigger Purpose. That's The Hallmark Of Real Success. The Other Trapping Of Success Might Be The By Product Of This Larger Mission, But It Can't Be The Central Thing.

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.

Cool, Logical, Big-eared And Level-headed, The Center Of Star Trek's Optimistic, Inclusive Vision Of Humanity's Future. I Loved Spock.

Legislatively, The Thing I'm Most Proud Of Is Healthcare, And I Will Continue To Be Most Proud Of It Because Not Only Do We Have 30 Million People Who Are Going To Get Healthcare, We've Got Six Million Young People Who Are Able To Stay On Their Parents' Plan Until They're 26.

It’s Not That I Want To Punish Your Success. I Want To Make Sure That Everybody Who Is Behind You, That They’ve Got A Chance For Success, Too. My Attitude Is That If The Economy’s Good For Folks From The Bottom Up, It’s Gonna Be Good For Everybody. I Think When You Spread The Wealth Around, It’s Good For Everybody.

We Have Now Just Enshrined, As Soon As I Sign This Bill, The Core Principle That Everybody Should Have Some Basic Security When It Comes To Their Healthcare.

... Our Interests And Our Conscience Compel Us To Act On Behalf Of Those Who Long For Freedom. And We Must Be A Source Of Hope To The Poor, The Sick, The Marginalized, The Victims Of Prejudice.

I Try Never To Get Too High When Things Are Going Well. I Try Never To Get Too Low When Things Are Going Poorly. I Try To Keep An Even Keel.

You Can Put Lipstick On A Pig. It's Still A Pig.

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.)

All I Care About Is Making Sure That I Leave Behind An America That Is Stronger, More Prosperous, More Stable, More Secure Than It Was When I Came Into Office And That's Going To Continue To Drive Me.

I Think It's Very Important To Remember That So Much Of The Work That Gets Done Between Countries Is Not Done At The Level Of Presidents, But Is Done Within Various Agencies, Whether It's Law Enforcement Or Economic Ministries. And When They Establish Relationships And Systems Of Communications And Shared Projects And Shared Visions, Those Structures Continue Even After Any Particular President Is Gone. It Builds Trust And Understanding Between Countries That Are Critically Important.

We Don't Have This Huge Footprint, We Are Less Likely To Be Targeted As, You Know, Occupiers [in Afghanistan And Iraq].

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.

The Spirit's There And That's Not Just My Imagination. I Think If You Look At Surveys And Attitudes Among Young People, You See It.

Today, On This Day Of Possibility, We Stand In The Shadow Of A Lanky, Raw-boned Man With Little Formal Education Who Once Took The Stage At Old Main And Told The Nation That If Anyone Did Not Believe The American Principles Of Freedom And Equality, That Those Principles Were Timeless And All-inclusive, They Should Go Rip That Page Out Of The Declaration Of Independence.

We Have A Stake In One Another...what Binds Us Together Is Greater Than What Drives Us Apart.

I Do Think That It Is Impossible For Us To Think Only In Terms Of The Palestinian-israeli Conflict And Not Think In Terms Of What's Happening With Syria Or Iran Or Lebanon Or Afghanistan And Pakistan. These Things Are Interrelated. And If We Are Looking At The Region As A Whole And Communicating A Message To The Arab World And The Muslim World, That We Are Ready To Initiate A New Partnership Based On Mutual Respect And Mutual Interest, Then I Think That We Can Make Significant Progress.

Over The Last 15 Months, We've Traveled To Every Corner Of The United States. I've Now Been In 57 States? I Think One Left To Go.

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

Why Can't I Just Eat My Waffle?

If We Are Truly Created Equal Then Surely The Love We Commit To One Another Must Be Equal As Well

America Remains The One Indispensable Nation. And The World Needs A Strong America.

If You Want To Right-size Executive Power Relative To The Other Branches Of Government, The Best Way To Do That Is To Have A Healthy Congress In Which The Two Parties Are Debating, Disagreeing, But Also Occasionally Working Together To Pass Legislation.

When It Comes To Crime, The Violent Crime Rate In America Has Been Lowered During My Presidency And Any Time In The Last Three, Four Decades.

I Think A Basic Principle Of Our Constitution Is Nobody Above The Law

For The Sake Of Our Security, Our Economy And Our Planet, We Must Have The Courage And Commitment To Change.

I Use A Different Style If I'm Speaking To A Big Crowd; I Can Gin Up Folks Pretty Well. But When I'm In These Town Hall Settings, My Job Is Not To Throw Them A Lot Of Red Meat. I Want To Give Them A Sense Of My Thought Process.

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

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

The War On Drugs Has Been An Utter Failure. We Need To Rethink And Decriminalize Our Marijuana Laws.

You Might Slow Down A Little Bit, You Might Not Jump As High As You Used To, But I Know What I'm Doing And I'm Fearless.

The Only Time I Get Frustrated With Activist Criticism Is If I Have Recognized Them, And Invited Them To Work With Me To Figure Out How We Solve This Problem That They're Concerned About, And Either They Don't Engage Out Of The Sense Of Purity - "i'm Not Going To Shake His Hand" - Or You're Not Sufficiently Prepared So You Don't Even Know What To Ask For, Or You're Not Being Strategic As An Activist And Trying To Figure Out How The Process Has To Work In Order For You To Get What You Want.

The Public School System Is Not About Educating Black Children. Never Has Been. Inner-city Schools Are About Social Control. Period. They’re Operated As Holding Pens—miniature Jails, Really. It’s Only When Black Children Start Breaking Out Of Their Pens And Bothering White People That Society Even Pays Any Attention To The Issue Of Whether These Children Are Being Educated.

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.

My Core Goal Is To Dismantle, Defeat, Destroy Al Qaeda And Its Allies That Killed Americans And Are Still Plotting To Go Kill Americans.

I Promised To Bring Change To Washington. The Underlying Reason For The Economic Mess We're In Has Been Building For Years. It's A Fundamental Imbalance In Which The Top 1 Percent Now Gets Almost A Quarter Of All National Income. We Haven't Seen Income And Wealth This Concentrated Since The Late Nineteen Twenties, And We All Know What Happened Then - The Great Depression. We'll Never Really Get Out Of The Gravitational Pull Of The Great Recession Until We Fix This Basic Problem.

Great Depression

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.

I Can Say With Confidence That I Never Bought Into The Hype, And I Made Sure That The People Around Me Didn't Buy Into The Hype, And I Did Not Surround Myself With People Who Fed Me The Hype. And I'm Glad Of That As Well.

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

It's Particularly Important That We Reach Out To Everybody In Our Countries, Those Who Feel Disaffected, Those Who Feel Left Behind By Globalization And Address Their Concerns In Constructive Ways As Opposed To More Destructive Ways.

Women Can't Wait For Equal Pay. And I Won't Stop Fighting To Address This Inequality.

Of Course, There's Been A Real Debate About Where To Invest And Where To Cut, And I'm Committed To Working With Members Of Both Parties To Cut Our Deficits And Debt. But We Can't Simply Cut Our Way To Prosperity.

The Problem Is, That We've Got A Position, Often Times By The Nra That Says Any Regulation Whatsoever Is The Camel's Nose Under The Tent. And That, I Think, Is Not Where The American People Are At.

When George Bush Came Into Office, We Had Surpluses. And Now We Have Half-a-trillion-dollar Deficit Annually. When George Bush Came Into Office, Our National Debt Was Around $5 Trillion. It's Now Over $10 Trillion. We've Almost Doubled It.

I Am A Firm Believer That You Don't Do Anything Significant By Yourself. Again, Maybe There Are Exceptions. There's The Picasso Or The Mozart.

To Sustain A Governing Majority, That Requires An Ability For Republicans And Democrats To Find Some Common Ground. And Right Now, The Structure Of The System Is Such Where It Makes It Really Hard For People To Work Together.

Working Together

Community Colleges Play An Important Role In Helping People Transition Between Careers By Providing The Retooling They Need To Take On A New Career.

I Was Able To Do That [showing Up Of Democratic Benefits] When I Was The Candidate. But I've Not Seen Or Presided Over That Kind Of Systematic Outreach That I Think Needs To Happen.

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

We Remain The Most Prosperous, Powerful Nation On Earth. Our Workers Are No Less Productive Than When This Crisis Began. Our Minds Are No Less Inventive, Our Goods And Services No Less Needed Than They Were Last Week Or Last Month Or Last Year

If We Get To A Point Where People In This Country Feel More Affinity With A Leader Who Is An Adversary And View The United States And Our Way Of Life As A Threat To Him, Then We're Gonna Have Bigger Problems Than Just Cyber Hacking.

It Was Young People Who Stubbornly Insisted On Justice, Stubbornly Refused To Accept The World As It Is That Transformed Not Just The Country But Transformed The World.

I Came In With A Healthy Skepticism About These Programs. My Team Evaluated Them. We Scrubbed Them Thoroughly. We Actually Expanded Some Of The Oversight, Increased Some Of The Safeguards. But My Assessment, And My Team's Assessment Was That They Help Us Prevent Terrorist Attacks. In The Abstract, You Can Complain About 'big Brother' And How This Is A Potential Program Run Amok. But When You Actually Look At The Details, Then, I Think We've Struck The Right Balance.

Sometimes Slow, Steady Effort Is Rewarded With Justice That Arrives Like A Thunderbolt.

Basically, I Am A Night Owl. My Wife Is An Early Bird, So She Goes To Bed Around 9:30, And My Kids Are In Bed About 8. So, If I Am Home, I Will Usually Start Writing About 9:30 And Go Till About 12:30 Or 1:30, Depending On What My Energy Level Is.

[a]lthough The Principle Of Equality Has Always Been Self-evident, It Has Never Been Self-executing.

I Refuse To Condemn Your Generation And Future Generations To A Planet That's Beyond Fixing.

The Quicker You Resolve The Problems With Banks And There's Transparency In That Process, The Faster They Recapitalize And Are Able To Make Investments.

There's No Reason Why Americans Should Die When Afghans Are Perfectly Capable Of Defending Their Own Country.

The Ideals And The Values Of The United States Inspired The Entire World. I Don't Think Any Of Us Can Say That Our Standing In The World Now, The Way Children Around The World Look At The United States, Is The Same. And Part Of What We Need To Do Is To Send A Message To The World That We Are Going To Invest In Issues Like Education, We Are Going To Invest In Issues That Relate To How Ordinary People Are Able To Live Out Their Dreams. And That Is Something That I'm Going To Be Committed To As President Of The United States.

Yes, This Is Hard. But There Should Be No Question That The United States Of America Is Stepping Up To The Plate. We Recognize Our Role In Creating This Problem; We Embrace Our Responsibility To Combat It. We Will Do Our Part, And We Will Help Developing Nations Do Theirs. But We Can Only Succeed In Combating Climate Change If We Are Joined In This Effort By Every Nation - Developed And Developing Alike. Nobody Gets A Pass.

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

Don't Just Buy A New Video Game, Make One. Don't Just Download The Latest App, Help Design It. Don't Just Play On Your Phone, Program It.

You Know, When Trayvon Martin Was First Shot I Said That This Could Have Been My Son. Another Way Of Saying That Is Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me 35 Years Ago. And When You Think About Why, In The African American Community At Least, There's A Lot Of Pain Around What Happened Here, I Think It's Important To Recognize That The African American Community Is Looking At This Issue Through A Set Of Experiences And A History That Doesn't Go Away.

[the White House Staff] Start Bringing In Their Kids, Who You Think Should Be Babies And Now Are In Second Grade Or Something, And You've Watched Them Grow Up. So I Think What Ends Up Happening Is You End Up Maintaining Those Networks And Those Contacts, But The Concentrated Interactions And Experience That You Have Here, I Don't Think, I Don't Expect You Can Duplicate Anyplace Else.

We, The People, Still Believe That Every Citizen Deserves A Basic Measure Of Security And Dignity.

My Goal Is Not To Resolve Conflicts And Tensions In The Region Through More War. My Goal Is To Make Sure That, You Know, We Are Able To Negotiate A Deal That We Can Verify.

Someone Once Said That Every Man Is Trying To Live Up To His Father's Expectations Or Make Up For Their Father's Mistakes.

I Think That Donald Trump Is Coming To This Office With Fewer Set Hard-and-fast Policy Prescriptions Than A Lot Of Other Presidents Might Be Arriving With.

We Must Begin By Acknowledging A Hard Truth. We Will Not Eradicate Violent Conflict In Our Lifetimes. There Will Be Times When Nations, Acting Individually Or In Concert, Will Find The Use Of Force Not Only Necessary But Morally Justified.

I Have Been A Strong Proponent Of Pay-as-you-go. Every Dollar That I've Proposed, I've Proposed An Additional Cut So That It Matches.

Rather, My Perceptions About How We Solve Problems In Health Care Or Education Span Across A Whole Range Of Areas. And I Want To Try To Capture That Complexity.

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

The Good News Is I Think There Are A Lot Of Young People Certainly Who Were Involved In My Campaigns, And I Think Continue To Be Involved In Work Not Just Politically, But Through Nonprofits And Other Organizations, That Can Carry This Hard Work Of Democracy Forward.

I Have Seen, The Desperation And Disorder Of The Powerless: How It Twists The Lives Of Children On The Streets Of Jakarta Or Nairobi In Much The Same Way As It Does The Lives Of Children On Chicago 's South Side.

You [as A President] Have To Have A Strong Team Around You. You Have To Have Respect For Institutions And The Process To Make Good Decisions Because You Are Inherently Reliant On Other Folks.

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

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.

[the Americans] Believe In The Idea That Jamal And Johnny Should Be Treated Equally.

There Are People In Iran Who Have The Same Aspirations As People All Around The World For A Better Life.

I Changed Those Things That Were In Direct - My Direct Control. I Mean, I - Look, I'm Proud Of The Fact That, With Two Weeks To Go, We're Probably The First Administration In Modern History That Hasn't Had A Major Scandal In The White House.

We Should Be More Modest In Our Belief That We Can Impose Democracy On A Country Through Military Force.

There's Nobody To Guide Through The Process Of Becoming A Man... To Explain To Them The Meaning Of Manhood. And That's A Recipe For Disaster.

What I Worry About Would Be That You Essentially Have Two Chambers, The House And The Senate, But You Have Simply, Majoritarian, Absolute Power On Either Side. And That's Just Not What The Founders Intended.

My Administration Is Committed To Creating An Unprecedented Level Of Openness In Government. We Will Work Together To Ensure The Public Trust And Establish A System Of Transparency, Public Participation, And Collaboration. Openness Will Strengthen Our Democracy And Promote Efficiency And Effectiveness In Government.

N Case You Missed It, This Week, There Was A Tragedy In Kansas. Ten Thousand People Died - An Entire Town Destroyed.

Our Country Was Born Out Of A Desire To Be Free. And Every Day Since, It's Been Protected By Our Men And Women In Uniform - People Who Believed So Deeply In America, They Were Willing To Give Their Lives For It.

Foreign Assistance Is Not An End In Itself. The Purpose Of Aid Must Be To Create The Conditions Where It's No Longer Need.

I Think When You're Governing, It Will Become Increasingly Apparent That If You Were To Just Eliminate Trade Deals With Mexico, For Example, Well, You've Got A Global Supply Chain. The Parts That Are Allowing Auto Plants That Were About To Shut Down To Now Employ Double Shifts Is Because They're Bringing In Some Of Those Parts To Assemble Out Of Mexico. And So It's Not As Simple As It Might Have Seemed.

Our Goal Is To Have A Country That's Not Divided By Race. And My Impression, As I Travel Around The Country, Is That That's The Kind Of Country That Most People Want, As Well, And That We All Have Prejudice, We All Have Certain Suspicions Or Stereotypes About People Who Are Different From Us, Whether It's Religious Or Racial Or Ethnic, But What I Think I Found In The American People, I Think There's A Core Decency There, Where If They Take The Time, If They Get The Time To Know Individuals, Then They Want To Judge Those Individuals By Their Character.

If In Fact The Republicans Make Some Modifications [of Obamacare], Some Of Which I May Have Been Seeking Previously, But They Wouldn't Cooperate Because They Didn't Wanna Make The System Work, And Re-label It As Trumpcare, I'm Fine With That.

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.

We Have To All Shoulder The Responsibility For Keeping The Planet Habitable, Or We're Going To Suffer The Consequences - Together.

That's Why I Stand Here Tonight. Because For Two Hundred And Thirty Two Years, At Each Moment When That Promise Was In Jeopardy, Ordinary Men And Women - Students And Soldiers, Farmers And Teachers, Nurses And Janitors - Found The Courage To Keep It Alive.

The Real Test Is Not Whether You Avoid Failure, Because You Won't. It's Whether You Let It Harden Or Shame You Into Inaction, Or Whether You Learn From It. . .

I Want Every Young Man Who Sees Me To Know That I'm Not That Different From Them. I Wasn't Born Into Wealth. I Wasn't Born Into Fame. I Made A Lot Of Mistakes - But I Kept At It.

In Addition To Giving Our Children The Science And Math Skills They Need To Compete In The New Global Context, We Should Also Encourage The Ability To Think Creatively That Comes From A Meaningful Arts Education.

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.

I've Been Keeping My Own Naughty And Nice List For Washington.

Back In The '50s And '60s, Most Politicians Were Concerned About Not Talking About Faith, Partly Because There Were Consequences You Had To Deal With - (for Instance) Catholicism Had Been Made An Issue.

There's No Way To Resolve Syria Without Iran Being Involved, Given Its Financing Of Assad And The Fact That Hezbollah Is Probably The Most Effective Fighting Force That Assad Can Count On.

When This Crisis Began, Crucial Decisions About What Would Happen To Some Of The World's Biggest Companies - Companies Employing Tens Of Thousands Of People And Holding Trillions Of Dollars In Assets - Took Place In Hurried Discussions In The Middle Of The Night. We Should Not Be Forced To Choose Between Allowing A Company To Fall Into A Rapid And Chaotic Dissolution Or Forcing Taxpayers To Foot The Bill.

Today, We Are Closer To Fulfilling America's Promise Of Economic And Social Justice Because We Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants Like Dr. King, Yet Our Future Progress Will Depend On How We Prepare Our Next Generation Of Leaders. We Must Fortify Their Ladders Of Opportunity By Correcting Social Injustice, Breaking The Cycle Of Poverty In Struggling Communities, And Reinvesting In Our Schools. Education Can Unlock A Child's Potential And Remains Our Strongest Weapon Against Injustice And Inequality.

If You Like Your Doctor Or Health Care Provider, You Can Keep Them. If You Like Your Health Care Plan, You Can Keep That, Too.

As I've Said, There Were Patriots Who Supported This War, And Patriots Who Opposed It. And All Of Us Are United In Appreciation For Our Servicemen And Women, And Our Hopes For Iraqis' Future.

Insist That The First Question Each Of Us Asks Isn't "what's Good For Me?" But "what's Good For The Country My Children Will Inherit?

There Are Places I Want To Visit Where If I'm Wearing A Baseball Cap And Some Sunglasses I Think I Can Get Away With And Mingle In A Crowd.

I've Always Viewed The Paris Agreement As A Starting Point. If You Look At All The Commitments That Have Been Made By All The Countries, It's Still Not Sufficient To Deal With The Very Dangerous Situation We Face. What It Has Done Is That It Created An Architecture Whereby As Technology Improves, As We Find New Clean Sources Of Energy, As We Make Our Economies More Efficient, Then Gradually We Can Turn Up The Dial And Improve The Outcomes Of Paris.

I Think It Is Important For Europe To Understand That Even Though I Am President And George Bush Is Not President, Al Qaeda Is Still A Threat.

Ironically, The Single Thing That Has Strengthened Iran Over The Last Several Years Has Been The War In Iraq. Iraq Was Iran's Mortal Enemy. That Was Cleared Away. And What We've Seen Over The Last Several Years Is Iran's Influence Grow. They Have Funded Hezbollah, They Have Funded Hamas, They Have Gone From Zero Centrifuges To 4,000 Centrifuges To Develop A Nuclear Weapon.

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