Barack Obama Quotes About Mistakes

• Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Military, Mistake

  "Barack Obama: climate deniers pose serious threat to US security" by Lauren Gambino, www.theguardian.com. May 20, 2015.

• What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world.

  Barack Obama

  Kindness, Mistake, Joy

  Eulogy for Ted Kennedy, delivered 29 August 2009

• So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead. Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God.

  Barack Obama

  Christian, Jesus, Brother

  "Obama: 'A Christian by Choice'" by Kristin Brown, www.foxnews.com. September 28, 2010.

• I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.

  Barack Obama

  Daughter, Mother, Baby

  "We're Raising a Generation of Would-be Killers". "Glenn Beck" with Glenn Beck, www.foxnews.com. October 26, 2009.

• Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes.

  Barack Obama

  Father, Mistake, Men

• I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Country, Mistake

  Address to the People of Berlin, delivered 24 July 2008, Victory Column

• And above all, children need our unconditional love - whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Dad, Mistake

  "Obama talks of fatherhood". "Obama talks of fatherhood" by Mj Lee, www.politico.com. June 18, 2011.

• These are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made, we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think it's normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It's not normal. ... What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Teenager, Stupid

  Barack Obama's remarks after visit at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. July 16, 2015.

• But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Mistake, Believe

  A More Perfect Union, delivered 18 March 2008, Philadelphia, PA

• My top priority in any trade negotiation is expanding opportunity for hardworking Americans. It's no secret that past trade deals haven't always lived up to their promise, and that's why I will only sign my name to an agreement that helps ordinary Americans get ahead, the bill put forward today would help us write those rules in a way that avoids the mistakes from our past, seizes opportunities for our future and stays true to our values.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Writing, Past

  "Lawmakers clear path for Obama's historic trade deal" by Eric Bradner, www.cnn.com. April 30, 2015.

• The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old - is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Running, Country

  Barack Obama, (2008). “Change We Can Believe In”, p.237, Canongate Books

• Of course, there is no question that Libya - and the world - will be better off with Gaddafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.

  Barack Obama

  Military, Mistake, Mean

  "Obama Libya Speech Strongly Defends Intervention" by Ben Feller, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 28, 2011.

• My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.

  Barack Obama

  Jobs, Mistake, Perfect

  "Obama tells Al Arabiya peace talks should resume". Interview with Hisham Melhem, www.alarabiya.net. January 27, 2009.

• I think we would have made a lot more mistakes and would have accomplished a lot less had we not been grounded in some basic truths.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Thinking, Made

  Source: www.theatlantic.com

• We don't turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up. We draw strength from our victories, and we learn from our mistakes, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, knowing that Providence is with us, and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on Earth.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Blessed, Eye

  Second Democratic Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, delivered 6 September 2012, Charlotte, North Carolina

• If we can’t puncture some of the mythology around austerity, politics or tax cuts or the mythology that’s been built up around the Reagan revolution, where somehow people genuinely think that he slashed government and slashed the deficit and that the recovery was because of all these massive tax cuts, as opposed to a shift in interest-rate policy - if we can’t describe that effectively, then we’re doomed to keep on making more and more mistakes.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Recovery, Cutting

  "President Obama Weighs His Economic Legacy" by Andrew Ross Sorkin, www.nytimes.com. April 28, 2016.

• I know there are problems that I say to myself, If maybe I was a little more gifted I might have been able to solve. But that's not because I believe what I did was a mistake. It's that maybe it required the talents of a Lincoln.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Believe, Littles

  Source: www.vanityfair.com

• I would have I think made a bigger mistake if I had said, "Eh, chemical weapons. That doesn't really change my calculus." I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that in fact there is something different about chemical weapons [in Syria].

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Thinking, Important

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• We're not going to deputize a whole bunch of American citizens to start grabbing people or turning them in, in part because the ordinary American citizen may not know whether or not this person is illegal or not. But, you know, the notion that we're going to criminalize priests, for example, or doctors who are providing services to individuals, and throw them in jail for doing what their calling asks them to do, which is to provide help and service to people in need, I think that is a mistake. I think that's out of America's character.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Character, Thinking

  "Transcript: NPR Democratic Candidates' Debate". www.npr.org. December 4, 2007.

• I face the world as it is and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake, evil does exist in the world.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, People, Evil

  Nobel Prize for Peace Acceptance Speech and Lecture, delivered 10 December 2009, Oslo City Hall, Oslo, Norway

• We learn from our mistakes, we do some reflection, we lick our wounds, we brush ourselves off - then we go forward, with the presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Reflection, Citizens

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we hadn't been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Thinking, Should Have

  Source: abcnews.go.com

• My experience is that our intelligence officials try to do the right thing, but even with good intentions, sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they can be overzealous.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Trying, Good Intentions

  Source: www.spiegel.de

• I actually believe that we need missile defense, because of Iran and North Korea and the potential for them to obtain or to launch nuclear weapons, but I also believe that, when we are only spending a few hundred million dollars on nuclear proliferation, then we're making a mistake.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Believe, North Korea

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• I've said many times around the world that like any government, like any country, like, any set of human institutions, we have our flaws. We've operated imperfectly. There are times we've made mistakes.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Mistake, Government

  Remarks by President Obama and Chancellor Merkel of Germany in a Joint Press Conference, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. November 17, 2016.

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