Barack Obama

We must ask not only if it is profitable, but is it right?

— Barack Obama

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself … because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

— Barack Obama

Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity.

— Barack Obama

A good compromise … is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, “Huh. It works. It makes sense.”

— Barack Obama

The victories that the 60’s generation brought about … have made America a far better place for all its citizens. But what has been lost in the process, and has yet to be replaced, are those shared assumptions—that quality of trust and fellow feeling—that bring us together as Americans.

— Barack Obama