Barack Obama

Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn't matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

A brighter future is ours to write. Let’s begin this new chapter — together — and let’s start the work right now.

We're opposing Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17.

The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong.

Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. We were strangers once, too.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort -- a sustained effort -- to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.

We honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar. And we will not grow weary.

Every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.

Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky.

I’m convinced that a world in which girls are educated is a safer, more stable, more prosperous place.

Honestly this is not going to change unless the people who want to prevent these kinds of mass shootings from taking place feel at least as passionate, at least as mobilized and well-funded as the NRA and the gun manufacturers are because the politics in Congress are such where even members of Congress who know better are fearful if they vote their conscience and support common sense measures like background checks, they're worried they're going to lose.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

If we’re going to have arguments, let’s have arguments — but let’s make them debates worthy of this body and worthy of this country.

They say I need to be seasoned; they say I need to be stewed. They say, 'We need to boil all the hope out of him -- like us -- and then he'll be ready.'

We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. This happened because of you. Thank you.

Foreign Assistance is not an end in itself. The purpose of aid must be to create the conditions where it's no longer need.

On my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront anti-Semitism, prejudice, and intolerance across the world. On this Yom Hashoah, we must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals-not simply to pledge "never again," but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity.

To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.

I have no more campaigns to run... I know because I won both of them.

Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.