Barack Obama Quotes About Struggle

• And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you. I have learned from you. And you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.

  Barack Obama

  Lying, Struggle, White

  Second Presidential Election Victory Speech, delivered 7 November 2012, McCormick Place Chicago, Illinois

• When I touched my hand against the Western Wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot and saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year-old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket, and when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I was reminded of the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map - face of the Earth.

  Barack Obama

  Prayer, Children, Wall

• If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I'll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America, because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Shoes, White

  Msnbc live with Cenk Uygur, www.nbcnews.com. February 25, 2011.

• Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

  Barack Obama

  Inspirational, Freedom, Integrity

• As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Pride, Men

• I'd like to help struggling homeowners who can't pay their mortgages, I'd like to invest in our crumbling infrastructure, I'd like to reform the tax system so multimillionaires can't pretend their earnings are capital gains and pay at the rate of 15 percent. I'd like to make public higher education free, and pay for it with a small transfer tax on all financial transactions. I'd like to do much more - a new new deal for Americans. But Republicans are blocking me at every point.

  Barack Obama

  Block, Struggle, Helping

• The underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Diversity, Together

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams From My Father”, p.10, Canongate Books

• As a product of history and faith, Jewish Americans have helped to open our eyes to injustice, to people in need, and to the simple idea that we ought to recognize ourselves in the struggle of our fellow men and women.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Eye, Simple

• Today, we are closer to fulfilling America's promise of economic and social justice because we stand on the shoulders of giants like Dr. King, yet our future progress will depend on how we prepare our next generation of leaders. We must fortify their ladders of opportunity by correcting social injustice, breaking the cycle of poverty in struggling communities, and reinvesting in our schools. Education can unlock a child's potential and remains our strongest weapon against injustice and inequality.

  Barack Obama

  Kings, Children, Struggle

• With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I'm going to press on for equality. I'm going to press on for the sake of our children. I'm going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I am going to press on.

  Barack Obama

  Inspirational, Determination, Jobs

  "Obama Tells Congressional Black Caucus To 'Stop Grumbling'" by Zeke Miller, www.businessinsider.com. September 25, 2011.

• Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let's say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he's held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it's time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us - on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.

  Barack Obama

  Teacher, Struggle, Fall

  "Petition Response: On Conversion Therapy". Barack Obama's statement on the petition on conversion therapy at the White House in Washington, D.C., obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. April 8, 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

• When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances for waiting and for patience is over. Too many lives have been lost, too many billions of dollars have been spent for us to trust the president on another tired and failed policy that's opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.

  Barack Obama

  Country, War, Struggle

  "Tucker" with Tucker Carlson, www.nbcnews.com. January 31, 2007.

• When the economy is still struggling, putting people back to work, finding ways to spur economic activity, ultimately can help to reduce the structural deficits and debts that countries experience.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Struggle, People

  Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece in Joint Press Conference, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. November 15, 2016.

• America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Commitment, Sacrifice

  Announces the Death of Osama Bin Laden, delivered 1 May 2011

• That is the story of our history - whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people or the struggle for equality for all of our citizens, our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Commitment, Sacrifice

  Source: www.today.com

• Absolutely. I think, I think the American people, at their core, are a decent people. I think that we still have prejudice in our midst, but I think that the vast majority of Americans are willing, are willing to judge people on the basis of their ideas and their character. And in the case of the presidency, I think what's most important is whether the American people think that you understand their hopes and dreams and struggles and whether they think you can actually help them achieve those hopes and dreams.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Struggle, Character

  "CNN Newsroom" with Kyra Phillips and Don Lemon, www.cnn.com. December 11, 2006.

• My tax plan will cut taxes for 95 percent of workers, because we need to put money back into the pockets of struggling middle-class families and close the egregious tax loopholes that have exploded over the last eight years. My plan eliminates capital gains taxes entirely for the small businesses and start-ups that are the backbone of our economy, as opposed to John McCain's plan, which would tax these businesses. John McCain is running to serve out a third Bush term. But the truth is, when it comes to taxes, that's not being fair to George Bush.

  Barack Obama

  Running, Struggle, Cutting

  "Countdown" with Keith Oldermann, www.nbcnews.com. June 10, 2008.

• If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent.

  Barack Obama

  Senior, Struggle, Illinois

  Interview with Cathleen Falsani, www.beliefnet.com. March 27, 2004.

• And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they've got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.

  Barack Obama

  Couple, Struggle, Kids

• Too many Americans who struggle with mental health illnesses are suffering in silence rather than seeking help, and we need to see to it that men and women who would never hesitate to go see a doctor if they had a broken arm or came down with the flu, that they have that same attitude when it comes to their mental health.

  Barack Obama

  Attitude, Struggle, Men

• My father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. 'You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!

  Barack Obama

  Father, Struggle, Hard Work

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance”, p.220, Broadway Books

• Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.

  Barack Obama

  Struggle, Pride, Psych

• When we helped prevent the massacre of civilians trapped on a distant mountain, here's what one of them said: "We owe our American friends our lives. Our children will always remember that there was someone who felt our struggle and made a long journey to protect innocent people." That is the difference we make in the world.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Struggle, Safe Haven

  President Obama's Speech on Combating ISIS and Terrorism, www.cnn.com. September 10, 2014.

• America is a land of big dreamers and big hopes. It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, depression and world war, a struggle for civil and social rights and the brink of nuclear crisis. And it is because our dreamers dreamed that we have emerged from each challenge more united, more prosperous, and more admired than before.

  Barack Obama

  Depression, War, Struggle

  Commencement Address at Knox College, delivered 4 June 2005, Galesburg, Illinois

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