I put forward a budget of what I called “middle-class economics” that continues to be fiscally prudent but makes necessary investments for us to continue the economic momentum and job growth.
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.
But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.
You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.
At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better.
The best anti-poverty program is a world-class education.
We have proved that the true strength of our nation comes not from the scale of our wealth but from the power of our ideals – opportunity, democracy, liberty and hope.
Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. We were strangers once, too.
But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.
I will tell you, when 20 6-year-olds are gunned down and Congress literally does nothing, yeah that’s the closest I came to feeling disgusted.
I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.
Reading makes all other learning possible. We have to get books into our children’s hands early and often.
Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.
The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong.
If you’re a strong man, you should not feel threatened by strong women.
One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we’ve internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves.
Many of us were kind of irritated with Obama for larding it with tax cut, which we didn’t think was going to be stimulative.
When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.
Let’s make two things clear: Isil is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of Isil’s victims have been Muslim. And Isil is certainly not a state.
What’s good for America better damn well be good for General Motors.