Barack Obama
Never read Who Moved My Cheese in the workplace when you can read The Joy of Not Working.Collection: Joy
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That's just not part of my religious makeup.Collection: Christian
We want our children to live in an America...that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.Collection: Children
I am confident that we will one day end the scourge of modern slavery, because I believe in those committed to this issue.Collection: Believe
And, you know, I don’t want to have to worry that she is going to get sick as the consequence of having, having her lunch.Collection: Lunch
My first job is to say thank you to those who voted me. Those who didn't, I'm going to get your vote next time.Collection: Jobs
America is number one in wind power.Collection: Wind
Here's the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America.Collection: Country
They, and we, are the legacies of an unbroken chain of proud men and women who served their country with honor, who waged war so that we might know peace, who braved hardship so that we might know opportunity, who paid the ultimate price so that we might know freedom.Collection: Country
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountain top and pointed the way to the Promised Land. Yes we can!Collection: Kings
The thing that has disturbed me most about the Russian hacking episode is - and the thing that surprised me most has not been the fact of Russian hacking. The cyber world is full of information gathering, you know, propaganda, et cetera. I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government. I think that's something new.Collection: Thinking
We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy, and we should do it today while our economy is in the position of global strength, because if we don't write the rules for trade around the world, guess what: China will.Collection: Strength
Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable. Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith or, for that matter, my citizenship.Collection: Matter
Usually, I'm pretty good about sorting through the options and then making decisions that I'm confident are the best decisions in that moment, given the information we have. But there are times where I think I wish I could have imagined a different level of insight.Collection: Thinking
Around the world, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela -- what they did was hard. It takes time. It takes more than a single term. It takes more than a single president. It takes more than a single individual.Collection: President
We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.Collection: Meaningful
My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage. We're the only developed country on Earth where this happens. ... And it happens once a week. And it's a one-day story. ... The country has to do some soul-searching on this.Collection: Country
Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth. Our job is to be true to Him, Hi-His word and His commandments, and we should assume humbly that we're confused and don't always know what we're doin' and we're staggerin' and stumblin' towards him and have some humility in that process.Collection: Confused
Honestly this is not going to change unless the people who want to prevent these kinds of mass shootings from taking place feel at least as passionate, at least as mobilized and well-funded as the NRA and the gun manufacturers are because the politics in Congress are such where even members of Congress who know better are fearful if they vote their conscience and support common sense measures like background checks, they're worried they're going to lose.Collection: Gun
I try to explain to them about the aloha spirit. And it's that spirit that I am absolutely convinced is what America is looking for right now.Collection: America
The more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves.Collection: Country
Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the frontlines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel's security. That starts with insuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. I will insure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran.Collection: Military
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.Collection: Country
But another thing I know is this — we can’t steer ourselves out of this crisis by heading in the same, disastrous direction. We can’t change direction with a new driver who wants to follow the same old map. And that’s what this election is all about.Collection: Maps
A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values.Collection: Numbers
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.Collection: Moving
Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect.Collection: Nsa
In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies.Collection: Mother
It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation.Collection: Moving
Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.Collection: Struggle
And then you've got President Clinton who made the case as only he can. After he spoke, somebody sent out a tweet- they said, you should appoint him secretary of explaining stuff. I like that- secretary of explaining stuff. Although, I have to admit, it didn't really say stuff. I cleaned that up a little bit.Collection: Stuff I Like
As I travel around the world, it's fascinating; European leaders, Asian leaders, they all say to me, America is actually poised to be the world leader for another century - if we can fix some of this political dysfunction. ... We've got a lot of national security challenges, but if we get our economy together, and if we can get our political system to work well, I am really confident about our future.Collection: Dysfunction
Maybe you could be a great writer - maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper - but you might not know it until you write that English paper - that English class paper that's assigned to you.Collection: Book
I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.Collection: War
We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.Collection: Happiness
I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.Collection: Office
I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.Collection: War
For half of the world's population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an "electocracy" than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life--food, shelter, electricity, basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power.Collection: Children
We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.Collection: Religious
So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealedCollection: Muslim Faith
Scripture tells us to "run with endurance the race that is set before us." As we do, may God hold close those who’ve been taken from us too soon.Collection: Running
Progress in the most impoverished parts of our world enriches us all.Collection: Our World
The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.Collection: Religious
What is also true is that partly because my docket was really full here, so I couldn't be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States. We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.Collection: Party
If Democrats are not showing up in those [rural] places even if you're not gonna win right away but if you're not in there at least making an argument that, "Hey, you know what? It's the Democrats who are trying to raise your minimum wage."Collection: Winning
[The Democrats] have got to do a better job of showing up.Collection: Jobs
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.Collection: Thinking
[The generation engaged, inspired, worked for change] that generation, it's coming. They're not the majority yet but they're gonna be the majority soon.Collection: Majority
When you look at what [new generation] believe in, how they value diversity, how they believe in science, how they care about the environment, how they believe in, you know, everybody getting a fair shot, how they believe in not discriminating against people for sexual orientation and you know, their belief that we have to work with other countries to create a more peaceful world and to alleviate poverty, that's the majority an entire generation that's coming up behind us.Collection: Country