Barack Obama Quotes About Quality

• In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.

  Barack Obama

  Country, War, Mean

• 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.

  Barack Obama

  Character, Eye, Shoes

  Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul, www.washingtonpost.com. April 7, 2009.

• One of the best investments we can make in a child’s life is high-quality early education.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Quality, Life Is

  Fifth Presidential State of the Union, delivered 28 January 2014

• America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it - so long as we seize it together.

  Barack Obama

  America, Diversity, Long

  Second Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 21 January 2013, Washington, D.C.

• Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

  Barack Obama

  Character, Empathy, Quality

• For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its costs.

  Barack Obama

  Jobs, Technology, Bridges

  First Presidential Inaugural Address, Delivered 20 January 2009

• Now, today, some children are enrolled in excellent programs. Some children are enrolled in mediocre programs. And some are wasting away their most formative years in bad programs....That's why I'm issuing a challenge to our states: Develop a cutting-edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs; show us how you'll work to ensure that children are better prepared for success by the time they enter kindergarten. If you do, we will support you with an Early Learning Challenge Grant that I call on Congress to enact.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Cutting, Years

• One of the great qualities of Chancellor Merkel is that she is steady. She analyzes a situation. She's honest. Sometimes we've had disagreements, but when we do, it's very constructive. And we are consistently open with each other about how we should approach these issues.

  Barack Obama

  Issues, Quality, Honest

  Source: www.spiegel.de

• We are not going to have a situation where our education spending goes back to its lowest level since the year 2000 despite a larger population and more kids to educate. We know that the single most important thing in terms of how well we can compete around the world is the quality of our workforce. We can't do that to our kids.

  Barack Obama

  Kids, Years, Quality

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• Imagine if you had genuine, high-quality early-childhood education for every child, and suddenly every black child in America - but also every poor white child or Latino [child], but just stick with every black child in America - is getting a really good education. And they're graduating from high school at the same rates that whites are, and they are going to college at the same rates that whites are, and they are able to afford college at the same rates because the government has universal programs. So now they're all graduating.

  Barack Obama

  Children, School, College

  Source: www.theatlantic.com

• The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure.

  Barack Obama

  Lying, Pride, America

  First Speech to a Joint Session of Congress, delivered 24 February 2009

• Whenever I look at the history of presidents I deeply admire - the one thing that I'm always struck by is persistence. It's a quality that's underrated. Being able to plough through, being able to stay buoyant in the face of challenges.

  Barack Obama

  Persistence, Challenges, President

  "Mitt Romney and Barack Obama talk leadership in dueling 60 Minutes interviews". www.cbsnews.com. September 24, 2012.

• In recent years, we've become enamored with our own past success. Lulled into complacency by the glitter of our own achievements. We've become accustomed to the title of Military Superpower, forgetting the qualities that got us there. We've become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn't reckless deals and get rich quick schemes that got us where we are, but hard work and smart ideas, quality products and wise investments.

  Barack Obama

  Wise, Military, Smart

• A central notion in the Affordable Care Act was we had an inefficient system with a lot of waste that didn't also deliver the kind of quality that was needed that often put health care providers in a box where they wanted to do better for their patients, but financial incentives were skewed the other way... We don't need to reinvent the wheel; you're already figuring out what works to reduce infections in hospitals or help patients with complicated needs.

  Barack Obama

  Health, Quality, Needs

  Barack Obama's remarks Marking the Fifth Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act at the South Court Auditorium in Washington, D.C., obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. March 25, 2015.

• I remember reading [ Studs Terkel's] "Working" when it first came out and just finding that very powerful. I was going into community organizing. What stuck was to reveal the sacredness of ordinary people's lives. That everybody has a story. And I think Studs is terrific at drawing out that shimmering quality of people's everyday struggles.

  Barack Obama

  Powerful, Reading, Struggle

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