Top 500 Barack Obama Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.”

— Barack Obama

402. “Politics, differences of religion or race, all that fades away when we are confronted with the awesome power of nature, and we’re reminded that all we have is each other.”

— Barack Obama

403. “This victory alone is not the change we seek; it is only the chance for us to make that change.”

— Barack Obama

404. “We’ve come to be consumed by a 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn’t move us forward.”

— Barack Obama

405. “Obama’s response when asked to define sin: “Being out of alignment with my values.””

— Barack Obama

406. “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

— Barack Obama

407. “We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.”

— Barack Obama

408. “This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.”

— Barack Obama

409. “Thank you Planned Parenthood and God bless you.”

— Barack Obama

410. “We run everything to ground. If you see something, say something. Report your concerns to law enforcement. They will be looked at, they will be reviewed.”

— Barack Obama

411. “Mandela’s commitment to democracy was ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power.”

— Barack Obama

412. “Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future. I loved Spock.”

— Barack Obama

413. “I’m here with the Girardo family here in St. Louis.”

— Barack Obama

414. “Gas tax holiday is a classic Washington gimmick.”

— Barack Obama

415. “Politics has never been for the thin-skinned or the faint-of-heart, and if you enter the arena, you should expect to get roughed up.”

— Barack Obama

416. “Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.”

— Barack Obama

417. “I do love the Waldorf-Astoria, though. You know, I hear that from the doorstep you can see all the way to the Russian tea room.”

— Barack Obama

418. “We’ve gotta restore the American people’s confidence in the ethics process by ensuring that political self-interest can no longer prevent politicians from enforcing ethics rules.”

— Barack Obama

419. “Now, some have said I blame too many problems on my predecessor, but let’s not forget that’s a practice that was initiated by George W. Bush.”

— Barack Obama

420. “My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

— Barack Obama

421. “No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together.”

— Barack Obama

422. “I believe it’s important to be open and honest, especially with your friends.”

— Barack Obama

423. “Justice needs to be served, what I think people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. That’s what people around the country expect.”

— Barack Obama

424. “Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.”

— Barack Obama

425. “If you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”

— Barack Obama

426. “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.”

— Barack Obama

427. “A person’s zip code shouldn’t decide their destiny.”

— Barack Obama

428. “I’ve been called worse on the basketball court.”

— Barack Obama

429. “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

— Barack Obama

430. “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.”

— Barack Obama

431. “The first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”

— Barack Obama

432. “We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself...”

— Barack Obama

433. “It’s very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth- or sixth-most interesting person.”

— Barack Obama

434. “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.”

— Barack Obama

435. “I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure, that it will prevail, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time.”

— Barack Obama

436. “I make no apologies for being reasonable.”

— Barack Obama

437. “This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet.”

— Barack Obama

438. “It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

— Barack Obama

439. “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”

— Barack Obama

440. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

— Barack Obama

441. “We will respond to the threat of climate change.”

— Barack Obama

442. “With respect to the pledge I made that if you like your plan you can keep it. The way I put that forward unequivocally ended up not being accurate.”

— Barack Obama

443. “I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late, and when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.”

— Barack Obama

444. “Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them.”

— Barack Obama

445. “Senator Joe Biden is pretty clean and articulate for a white guy.”

— Barack Obama

446. “Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question.”

— Barack Obama

447. “We are a people of improbable hope.”

— Barack Obama

448. “Washington is a place where good ideas go to die.”

— Barack Obama

449. “We have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we’re going to suffer the consequences – together.”

— Barack Obama

450. “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.”

— Barack Obama