Barack Obama Quotes
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...Started by missionaries in 1841, Punahou Academy had grown into a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites...It hadn't been easy to get me in, my grandparents told her (my mother); there was a long waiting list, and I was considered only because of the intervention of Gramps' boss, who was an alumnus (my first experience with affirmative action, it seems, had little to do with race).
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The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people. It's not the only country that has psychosis. And yet we kill each other in these mass shootings at rates that are exponentially higher than anyone else. Well, what's the difference? The difference is that these guys can stack up a bunch of ammunition in their houses, and that's sort of par for the course.
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There's a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that.Yes, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens that I grew up with. I am the product of a working class upbringing.
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There's nothing that America can't handle if we actually look squarely at the problem. ...Change depends on our actions.
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So I'm not proposing anything radical. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot. ... At the same time, most people agree that we should not raise taxes on middle-class families or small businesses -- not when so many folks are just trying to get by.
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Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.
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It’s not that I want to punish your success. I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success, too. My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.
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A free market was never meant to be a free licence to take whatever you can get, however you can get it.
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You have to be involved in terms of what's happening in your local neighborhood and what issues are there.
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We have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own
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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.
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The United States, we know what happens when we start dividing ourselves along lines of race or religion or ethnicity.
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What Washington needs is adult supervision.
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I'm always suspicious of politics dividing people instead of bringing them together.
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If you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.
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If you want a model for what is possible, if you want to see how to build a peaceful and prosperous and dynamic society, then look at Berlin and look at Germany.
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The War on Drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.
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I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting." (Victory Speech, Nov. 7, 2012)
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A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.
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It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.
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There are always things that I think I wish I could have done better.
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If there's even one thing we can do - even one life we can save - we have an obligation to try
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Right around my first year of college - I remember "Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison, just moved me tremendously. The power of language and how it can peel back truths, bring things to the surface. So I learned a lot from fiction.
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We must begin by acknowledging a hard truth. We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations, acting individually or in concert, will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
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We do want people to know if in fact we learn of an incident that's focused on a particular city.If we learn of long-term planning, that's focused on a particular industry or infrastructure. And so we feel we have an obligation to let people know if we have information of a credible threat or not.
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People are whupped. I'm whupped. My wife is whupped. Unless it's your job to be curious, who really has the time to sit and ask questions and explore issues?
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n case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died - an entire town destroyed.
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We were just at the beginnings of a recovery [in 2010]. And the, you know, whoever is president at that point is gonna get hit and his party's gonna get hit. That then means that suddenly you've got a redistricting in which a lot of state legislatures are now Republican. They draw lines that give a huge structural advantage in subsequent elections.
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Unless you're one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else. Somebody brought you.
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Let's be grateful for what we have. Let's be mindful of those who have less. Let's appreciate those who hold a special place in our lives, and make sure they know it. And let's think about those who can't spend the holiday with their loved ones - especially the members of our military serving overseas.
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