Top 500 Barack Obama Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.”

— Barack Obama

252. “Our patience is not infinite. We’re not willing to let this go on forever.”

— Barack Obama

253. “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!”

— Barack Obama

254. “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.”

— Barack Obama

255. “We will finish the race.”

— Barack Obama

256. “It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy.”

— Barack Obama

257. “It’s important to listen to what scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient, especially when it’s inconvenient.”

— Barack Obama

258. “What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth.”

— Barack Obama

259. “The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we’ve changed this country before.”

— Barack Obama

260. “I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs -including my own- on nonbelievers.”

— Barack Obama

261. “The terrorists do not speak for over a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology.”

— Barack Obama

262. “Solyndra is a great investment in our future.”

— Barack Obama

263. “I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It’s not a good use of our resources.”

— Barack Obama

264. “There was never a promise that race relations in America would be entirely resolved during my presidency or anybody’s presidency. I mean, this has been a running thread – and – and fault line in American life and American politics since its founding.”

— Barack Obama

265. “I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point.”

— Barack Obama

266. “To break our addiction to oil is one of the greatest challenges that our generation will have to master.”

— Barack Obama

267. “I can’t really characterize any country, except to say that we work well with a number of our foreign counterparts.”

— Barack Obama

268. “We should not anticipate that every time countries come together that we are doing some revolutionary thing. Instead of hitting home runs, sometimes we’re going to hit singles.”

— Barack Obama

269. “The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.”

— Barack Obama

270. “We need to eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.”

— Barack Obama

271. “We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions.”

— Barack Obama

272. “I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.”

— Barack Obama

273. “Nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line.”

— Barack Obama

274. “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

— Barack Obama

275. “I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.”

— Barack Obama

276. “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.”

— Barack Obama

277. “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.”

— Barack Obama

278. “This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.”

— Barack Obama

279. “Scripture tells us to run with endurance the race that is set before us. As we do, may God hold close those who have been taken from us too soon.”

— Barack Obama

280. “Jesus lived a life of peace, love, kindness and forgiveness, during the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, may we all do our best to follow his example.”

— Barack Obama

281. “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.”

— Barack Obama

282. “That is the true genius of America-a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.”

— Barack Obama

283. “A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”

— Barack Obama

284. “I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.”

— Barack Obama

285. “If poverty is a disease that infects the entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community.”

— Barack Obama

286. “What is the empathy deficit? The inability of people to stand in other folks shoes. It’s hard to empathize with people who have different values than you.”

— Barack Obama

287. “The world doesn’t just revolve around you. There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit.”

— Barack Obama

288. “We should raise the minimum wage so that no one who works full time has to live in poverty.”

— Barack Obama

289. “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

— Barack Obama

290. “The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose.”

— Barack Obama

291. “Instead of giving in to cynicism and division, let’s move forward with the confidence and optimism and unity that define us as a people.”

— Barack Obama

292. “If you go out and make some things happen, you will fill the world with hope.”

— Barack Obama

293. “The cyber world is sort of the Wild, Wild West, and to some degree, we’re asked to be the sheriff.”

— Barack Obama

294. “It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation.”

— Barack Obama

295. “Constitution is a living document; no strict constructionism.”

— Barack Obama

296. “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.”

— Barack Obama

297. “While the future is unknowable, the winds always blow in the direction of human progress.”

— Barack Obama

298. “On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”

— Barack Obama

299. “When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.”

— Barack Obama

300. “We need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.”

— Barack Obama