Being President is a little like being the grounds-keeper at a cemetery: there’s plenty of people below you but no one’s listening.
Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world. And the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.
This will arguably be the third great revolution of America, if we can prove that we literally can live without having a dominant European culture.
We passed welfare reform. All of you know I believe we were right to do it.
We need not just a new generation of leadership but a new gender of leadership.
What happened to us in September, 2001, is a microcosmic but painful and powerful example of the fact we live in an inter-dependent world that is not yet an integrated global community.
In the whole history of this country, we have probably won more friends from the power of our example than from the power of our military.
One of the things that I think we have learned is that we should all be very careful about making predictions about the future.
Justice may be blind, but we all know that diversity in the courts, as in all aspects of society, sharpens our vision and makes us a stronger nation.
We simply cannot afford to give the reigns of government so someone who will double down on trickle down.
Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans have ever been a relentless, questioning, hopeful people.
Simply put, no society can truly flourish if it stifles the dreams and productivity of half its population. Happily, I see evidence all over the world that women are gaining social and economic power that they never had before. This is good news...
We want to live forever, and we’re getting there.
People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.
Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we will only lose tomorrow.
Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.
Forget what you may have heard about a digital divide or worries that the world is splintering into ‘info haves’ and ‘info have-nots.’ The fact is, technology fosters equality, and it’s often the relatively cheap and mundane devices that do the most good.
Keep your eyes on the prize and don’t turn back.
What are the needs of the world? What can I do that won’t be done if I don’t do it?
Progress changes consciousness, and when people’s consciousness changes, then their awareness of what is possible changes as well – a virtuous circle.
All my life I’ve been interested in other people’s stories. I wanted to know them, understand them, feel them.