Barack Obama

Obviously I couldn’t have done anything that I’ve done without Michelle… not only has she been a great first lady, she is just my rock. I count on her in so many ways every single day.

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 that you can force others to live by your own beliefs.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

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.

Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.

… because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.

It was sort of important for us not to deal with a specific policy change, or a specific sort of approach, but to deal with cultural change.

Thomas Jefferson, another great figure, he said, well, we have no choice but to exterminate the indigenous population, the Native Americans; the reason is they’re attacking us. Why are they attacking us? Because we’re taking everything away from them.

Politics in the true sense, have to do with the prosperity, peace and security of the people.

The financial industry, that means Goldman Sachs, if managed properly, will calculate the potential cost to itself if a loan goes bad, but not the impact on the financial system, which can be severe. This inherent deficiency of markets is well known.

I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.

Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

Stalin is the most popular figure in all of Russia.

The revolution does not need historians.

Well, I’m telling them two things. One is that, look, this is going to be something when the American people realize – once it’s passed – that, A, it does take care of preexisting conditions; B, you’re insurance rates aren’t going to skyrocket; C, the insurance companies aren’t going to be running the show like they were before; D, you’re going to be in a position where you can keep your insurance that you have. That once the American public realizes that, you’re going to get a reward for this. They’re going to be rewarded.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.

The goal of Socialism is Communism.

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.

The difference between a good govt. system and its poor administration is easily explained; the chief administrators are not Bosses in the best sense.