Top 500 Barack Obama Quotes (2023 Update)

1. “Yes We Can!”

— Barack Obama

2. “Never give up on your dreams.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Quotes About Dreams

3. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

— Barack Obama

4. “There is no excuse for not trying.”

— Barack Obama

5. “Change is never easy, but always possible.”

— Barack Obama

6. “Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.”

— Barack Obama

7. “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”

— Barack Obama

8. “If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.”

— Barack Obama

9. “We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”

— Barack Obama

10. “Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Hard Work Quotes

11. “Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Quality Quotes

12. “Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Quotes About Kids

13. “Our stories may be singular, but our destination is shared.”

— Barack Obama

14. “Your voice can change the world.”

— Barack Obama

15. “For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Quotes About World

16. “Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Reading Quotes

17. “We are running out of time.”

— Barack Obama

18. “We remember, we rebuild, we come back stronger.”

— Barack Obama

19. “Hope – Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!”

— Barack Obama

20. “Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.”

— Barack Obama

21. “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

— Barack Obama

22. “The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Imagination Quotes

23. “Our destiny is not written for us, but by us.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Destiny Quotes

24. “Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

25. “The future is ours to win. But to get there we can’t just stand still...”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Winning Quotes

26. “I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.”

— Barack Obama

27. “Nothing in life that’s worth anything is easy.”

— Barack Obama

28. “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.”

— Barack Obama

29. “We don't ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours.”

— Barack Obama

30. “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.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Character Quotes

31. “Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can.”

— Barack Obama

32. “The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.”

— Barack Obama

33. “A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values.”

— Barack Obama

34. “My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe.”

— Barack Obama

35. “We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up.”

— Barack Obama

36. “In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”

— Barack Obama

37. “Don’t just consume things, create things.”

— Barack Obama

38. “If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.”

— Barack Obama

39. “When times get tough, we don’t give up. We get up.”

— Barack Obama

40. “A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.”

— Barack Obama

41. “Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up.”

— Barack Obama

42. “There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.”

— Barack Obama

43. “Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Fighting Quotes

44. “Persevere. Nothing worthwhile is easy.”

— Barack Obama

45. “What Washington needs is adult supervision.”

— Barack Obama

46. “One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.”

— Barack Obama

47. “You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.”

— Barack Obama

48. “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something.”

— Barack Obama

49. “We have a choice. We can shape our future, or let events shape it for us. And if we want to succeed, we can’t fall back on the stale debates and old divides that won’t move us forward.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Powerful Quotes, Moving Quotes

50. “The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.”

— Barack Obama

Featured in: Justice Quotes