Barack Obama Quotes

“I, more than anything, obviously the presidency is the people, and it's been interesting the emotions in the last few months. What you realize is that you may never have the team that is together in the same way, under the same pressures, and the attachments that you make to folks from your chief of staff down to.”

“What I've said to [my team] is, "Look, we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job."”

“My finely honed political instincts tell me that almost nobody believes that they should be paying higher taxes.”

“Part of what makes me most optimistic is if you look at the attitudes of young people. Across the board, young people are much more comfortable with respecting differences. They are much more comfortable with diversity.”

“Peace depends upon compromise among peoples who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied.”

“Over the past eight years, the United States has worked hard to deepen partnerships across the region and across South-east Asia in particular. We're now a part of the East Asia Summit and we have a strategic partnership with Asean. At the US-Asean Leaders Summit I hosted earlier this year in Sunnylands, California, we agreed to a set of principles that will shape the future peace and prosperity of the region, from promoting innovation and furthering economic integration to addressing transnational challenges like global health security and climate change.”

“The United States has to go through structural reforms in terms of improving our education system or revamping our infrastructure or, you know, looking at some regulations that weren't properly controlling excesses on Wall Street.”

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

“State visits are often an opportunity for the United States to reaffirm our ties and friendship with our closest partners around the world.”

“To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

“We're not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops, we're automatically going to make Americans safe.”

“My hope is Donald Trump makes things better. And if he does, we'll all benefit from it.”

“Nobody's cooler than my two girls. They just seem to take whatever comes with, you know - happiness and - steadiness. And they're loving school. They're making friends... and - they've already joined some clubs. And Sasha, you know - I think maybe to endear - myself to her, she - she decided she wanted to join a basketball team. So - what more could I want?”

“America remains the one indispensable nation. And the world needs a strong America.”

“I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm gonna make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.”

“[My kids] are, sweet, kind, funny, smart, respectful people, and they treat everybody with respect. That's not just the biases of a parent. We feel pretty good when we hear back from friends, cause they still have sleepovers and they go to other folks houses and when the parents say, oh you know, Malia, she's just so sweet, or Sasha helped to pick up the dishes.”

“The thing I know for sure is that at the end of my life, what I'm going to remember is the love I felt for my family and my friends, and whatever good I did for other people.”

“I think that whenever you have got an incoming president of the other side it takes a while for people to reconcile themselves with that new reality.”

“I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream...he realizes that he's gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grownup and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic.”

“There's a reason why the NRA's not here. They're just down the street. And since this is the main reason they exist, you'd think that they'd be prepared to have a debate with a president.”

“But the basic principle that we’re going to have to see some of this debt written down, that the government is going to have to support some banks, that others that are not viable, essentially that we’re going to have to do something with those assets.”

“Stamina. There is a greater physical element to this job than you would think, just being able to grind it out. And I think your ability to not just mentally and emotionally, but physically be able to say, "We got this. We're going to be OK."”

“We have a rare chance to pursue a new path, a different, better future that delivers progress for both our peoples and the wider world. That's the opportunity before the Iranian people. We need to take advantage of that.”

“That is the nature of democracy. It is hard. It is not always inspiring.”

“To resolve this issue will require Iran to come to the table and discuss in a clear and forthright way how to prove to the international community that the intentions of their nuclear program are peaceful. [...] The question is going to be whether in these discussions they show themselves moving clearly in that direction.”