55+ Barack Obama Quotes on Leadership and Change

In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

The change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.

We are the change we have been waiting for.

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.

One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it changes a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.

We don’t ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours.

It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and retirement plans. The cornerstones of middle-class security all bear the union label.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

It’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle against 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.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. And it will leave you unfulfilled.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depend on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

Our stories may be singular, but our destination is shared.

No, you can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom’. If you don’t like birth control, don’t use it. Religious freedom doesn’t mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.

Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

On every front, there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

The worst thing that colonialism did was cloud our view of our past.

Enthusiasm makes up for a host of deficiencies.

With patience 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.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can’t afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

While we breathe, we will hope.

The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.

You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our Democracy; Tonight is your answer.

The thing about hip-hop today is it’s smart, it’s insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn’t, couldn’t end there. At least that’s what I would choose to believe.

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,’ he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. ‘Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

A lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.

Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire, and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.’

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

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

A nation that can’t control its energy sources can’t control its future.

You might be locked in a world, not of your own making, her eyes said, but you still have a claim on how it is shaped. You still have responsibilities.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using the government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs -including my own- on nonbelievers.

The cynics may be the loudest voices – but I promise you, they will accomplish the least.

We may not be able to stop evil in the world, but how we treat one another is entirely up to us.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we’ve done to make so many children’s hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass – what values we must live by.

Nothing in life that’s worth anything is easy.

We will outstretch the hand if you unclench your fist.

We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.

I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Hope — Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us…A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.

If you run you stand a chance of losing, but if you don’t run you’ve already lost.

But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.

The value of social movements and activism is to get you at the table, get you in the room, and then start trying to figure out how is this problem going to be solved.

It’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

I think when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.

I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. And it will leave you unfulfilled.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

If you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love.

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God’s plan for us.

To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, and your hard work to change the world.

We are the change we have been waiting for.

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.

We need to keep making our streets safer and our criminal justice system fairer – our homeland more secure, our world more peaceful and sustainable for the next generation.

To be known. To be heard. To have one’s unique identity recognized and seen as worthy. It was a universal human desire, I thought, as true for nations and peoples as it was for individuals.

Michelle’s like Beyoncé in that song. ‘Let me upgrade ya!’ She upgraded me.

Each of us deserves the freedom to pursue our own version of happiness. No one deserves to be bullied.

We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

The truth is, I’ve never been a big believer in destiny. I worry that it encourages resignation in the down-and-out and complacency among the powerful.

Where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can.

Let me tell your something. I’m from Chicago. I don’t break.

When times get tough, we don’t give up. We get up.

My little girls can break my heart. They can make me cry just looking at them eating their string beans.