Barack Obama on Never Going to See That Kind of Growth Again

Every presidency tin can be seen every bit a series of words. Which is why we decided to read through hundreds of thousands of the words of Barack Obama—who was a writer, in practice and disposition, long before he was the 44th president of the U.s.a.. What does he think of his job? Yes we can, Obama said when he ran. But non overnight, he was quick to add after he won. Alter is hard. Just wait at these 101 things he's said since 2006, from his glossy sense of what his presence in the Oval Office could mean to what turned out to be a much more than constrained, less soaring reality. Hither is the arc of Obama.

ane. "My mental attitude well-nigh something like the presidency is that you lot don't desire to just be the president. You want to alter the land. You want to make a unique contribution. Y'all want to be a neat president." (Men'due south Vogue, September 2006)

2. "This country is prepare for a transformative politics of the sort that John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt represented." (Time, Oct 15, 2006)

iii. "I don't know exactly what makes somebody gear up to be president. It's non clear that JFK was 'set up' to be president, information technology's non clear that Harry Truman, when he was elevated, was 'prepare,' and still, somehow, some people answer and some people don't. My instinct is that people who are ready are folks who go into it understanding the gravity of their work, and are able to combine vision and judgment." (New Yorker, November 6, 2006)

iv. "Well, in that location are a lot of things I think I tin accomplish, but two things I know. The first is, when I enhance my hand and accept that oath of function, there are millions of kids around this land who don't believe that it would always exist possible for them to be president of the United states of america. And for them, the world would change on that 24-hour interval. And the 2d thing is, I think the earth would look at us differently the 24-hour interval I got elected, because information technology would exist a reaffirmation of what America is, about the constant perfecting of who we are. I retrieve I can assistance repair the impairment that's been done." (Game Change, December xiii, 2006)

5. "Too many times, after the ballot is over and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and special interests move in, and people plough away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own." (speech announcing his presidential campaign, February x, 2007)

6. "I'm running for president because the time for the tin't-do, won't-do, won't-even-attempt fashion of politics is over. It'south fourth dimension to turn the page." (speech in San Diego, May two, 2007)

vii. "I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other." (This Week, May thirteen, 2007)

viii. "I actually believe my own rhetoric." (Newsweek, May 2008)

ix. "I was never the likeliest candidate for this office." (election victory speech, November 4, 2008)

ten. "I do have confidence that we're gonna be able to get it right. Just it'southward not gonna be overnight." (Today, February two, 2009)

11. "I always felt that a president is accountable for making the best decisions, but that at that place are going to be a lot of unexpected twists and turns along the way. And as I said recently, this is nonetheless a human enterprise and these are big, tough, complicated issues. Somebody noted to me that by the time something reaches my desk-bound, that means information technology's actually hard. Considering if information technology were easy, somebody else would have fabricated the decision and somebody else would accept solved it." (New York Times, March vii, 2009)

12. "I practice call up in Washington it'south a lilliputian fleck like American Idol, except everybody is Simon Cowell. Everybody'due south got an opinion." (The This night Show with Jay Leno, March 19, 2009)

xiii. "And, y'all know, evidently, at the inauguration I think that there was justifiable pride on the office of the country that nosotros had taken a step to motility united states beyond some of the searing legacies of racial bigotry in this country. But that lasted almost a 24-hour interval." (White House news conference, March 24, 2009)

fourteen. "Well, I had a habit of praying every night, before I get to bed. I pray all the fourth dimension at present. Because I've got a lot of stuff on my plate and I need guidance all the time." (Nightline, July 24, 2009)

15. "Await, you know, when you're in this job, I think, uh—every president who's had information technology is constantly humbled by the degree to which there are a lot of issues out there, and the notion that one person lonely can solve all these bug—I recall y'all're cured of that illusion very speedily." (Nightline, July 24, 2009)

sixteen. "Afterward I received the news, Malia walked in and said, 'Daddy, yous won the Nobel Peace Prize, and information technology is Bo's birthday!' And then Sasha added, 'Plus, we take a three-twenty-four hours weekend coming upwards.' Then information technology'south expert to have kids to keep things in perspective." (remarks on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, October 9, 2009)

17. "I don't recall annihilation prepares you for the presidency." (U.South. News & World Study, October 27, 2009)

18. "Practise every mean solar day. Seeing my family. Keeping things in perspective. Reading history. Reminding yourself that this is a long-term proposition and you're not going to go everything exactly correct, simply hopefully, if you're moving things in the right trajectory, that things usually work out." (U.S. News & World Report, October 27, 2009)

19. "The worst matter about existence president is all the racket, all the political games—you lot know, information technology can be like a hall of mirrors, where but a few people are talking to each other and never breaking out of it. And Michelle is very skillful at making me focus non on the firsthand orbit that we're in but what's going on outside of it." (interview with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, December 11, 2009)

xx. "Allow'due south be clear here. Seven presidents have tried to reform a health care system that everyone acknowledges is broken. Seven presidents have failed up until this point." (lx Minutes, December 13, 2009)

21. "You know, we alive in history. And it'south complicated. And things aren't always, you know, completely clean." (6 0 Minutes, December 13, 2009)

22. "You know, this is a town where once a screw-upwardly happens, people tin can't merely say, 'OK, that was a spiral-up and allow's fix it.' There has to be, you know, two weeks' worth of cable chatter about it." (60 minutes, December 13, 2009)

23. "There's got to be a sense sometimes that nosotros're willing to rise above our particular interests, our particular ideas, in order to become things done. Right now, that civilization has, I recall, broken down over the terminal several years, and 1 of my jobs over the adjacent three years is to try to see if nosotros tin can revive that." (ABC News, Dec 16, 2009)

24. "The 1 matter I'g clear about is that I'd rather be a really good ane-term president than a mediocre two-term president. And I—and I believe that." (ABC News, January 26, 2010)

25. "When your poll numbers drop, you're an idiot. When your poll numbers are high, you're a genius. If my poll numbers are low, and then I'1000 cool and cerebral and cold and detached. If my poll numbers are high, well, 'He's calm and reasoned.'" (ABC News, January 26, 2010)

26. "My point is the easiest thing to do in politics is to point fingers, to figure out who to arraign for something, or to make people afraid of things. That's the easiest style to get attention. That'south what reporters will report on. Y'all call somebody a name, you say, 'Look what a terrible thing they've done, and they're going to do more than terrible things to you lot if you don't lookout out.'" (speech in New Hampshire, February 2, 2010)

27. "Permit's acknowledge that democracy has e'er been messy. Let's not be overly nostalgic." (National Prayer Breakfast, Feb 4, 2010)

28. "We—I've got a whole bunch of portraits of presidents effectually here, starting with Teddy Roosevelt, who tried to practise [health care reform] and didn't get it washed. The reason that information technology needs to be done is not its effect on the presidency. Information technology has to do with how information technology's going to affect ordinary people who right at present are desperately in need of help." (Special Written report with Bret Baier, March 17, 2010)

29. "People don't progress in a direct line. Countries don't progress in a straight line." (David Remnick's The Span, April 6, 2010)

30. "As I've found out after a year in the White Firm, changing this blazon of slash-and-burn down politics isn't easy." (University of Michigan graduation speech, May 1, 2010)

31. "I also accept the shortest commute of everyone I know. And that makes a huge departure because it ways no matter how long I'm working whatever given solar day I can always become upstairs to meet my wife and kids. And that'due south something I probably appreciate more than anything else about beingness here in the White House." (C-Span, August 12, 2010)

32. "You know, the Lincoln Sleeping room, I don't go into much, except when there are visitors. Every once in a while, I'll sneak in, only to reread the Gettysburg Accost." (C-Span, August 12, 2010)

33. "I volition say that the S Lawn is boggling. And nosotros congenital this play set out here that Malia and Sasha used to apply a lot. They're at present getting old enough where sometimes they don't use it as much as we expect. But I've got nieces and nephews and kids of staff come in. And at that place are times when I'1000 working hither and I'll expect out the window and suddenly somebody's on a swing or laughing as they go downward a slide, and it reminds you lot of why nosotros're doing what we're doing." (C-SPAN, August 12, 2010)

34. "Yous know, look, our political life is like our private lives. There are ups and downs. There are peaks and valleys." (New York Times Magazine, October 12, 2010)

35. "I make no apologies for having set loftier expectations for myself and for the land, because I recollect we can meet those expectations. At present, the one thing that I will say—which I anticipated and tin can be tough—is the fact that in a big, messy democracy like this, everything takes time. And we're not a civilisation that's built on patience." (New York Times Magazine, Oct 12, 2010)

36. "History never precisely repeats itself. But at that place is a design in American presidencies—at least modern presidencies. You come in with excitement and fanfare. The other party initially, having been beaten, says information technology wants to cooperate with you. You lot starting time implementing your program as you promised during the campaign. The other political party pushes back very hard. It causes a lot of consternation and drama in Washington. People who are already contemptuous and skeptical about Washington more often than not wait at information technology and say, 'This is the same old mess as we've seen before.' The president'south poll numbers driblet. And y'all take to then sort of wrestle back the confidence of the people as the programs that you've put in place start bearing fruit." (New York Times Magazine, October 12, 2010)

37. "I am president, I am not male monarch. I can't practice these things simply by myself." (Univision, October 25, 2010)

38. "My attitude is, if we're makin' progress, footstep by step, inch by inch, day by twenty-four hour period, that we are being true to the spirit of that campaign." (The Daily Bear witness, October 27, 2010)

39. "And so, the nearly important things for me over the terminal two years, in terms of stress reduction, is the fact that if I'm here in Washington, I'm having dinner at 6:30, only about every night. And sitting around that table, listening to [my kids], and trying to respond their questions, that keeps my bearings." (ABC News, Nov 26, 2010)

40. "As I travel across the state folks frequently ask me what is information technology that I pray for. And similar almost of yous, my prayers sometimes are full general: 'Lord, give me the strength to see the challenges of my office.' Sometimes they're specific: 'Lord, give me patience as I sentry Malia go to her start dance—where in that location volition be boys.' 'Lord, take that skirt get longer as she travels to that trip the light fantastic.'" (National Prayer Breakfast, February iii, 2011)

41. "I think that when yous're president of the U.s.a., information technology comes with the territory that folks are going to criticize you. That'due south what I signed up for." (NPR, July 22, 2011)

42. "No wonder I have got more than gray hair at present." (CNN, Baronial sixteen, 2011)

43. "As long as I'm president, I'm gonna exist held responsible, in some fashion, to set the problem." (hr, December 11, 2011)

44. "Sometimes when I'm talking to my team, I describe us as, you know—I'one thousand the captain and they're the crew on a ship, going through actually bad storms. And no matter how well we're steering the send, if the boat'south rocking back and forth and people are getting sick and, you lot know, they're being buffeted past the winds and the rain and, you know, at a certain bespeak, if you're asking, 'Are you enjoying the ride right at present?' Folks are gonna say, 'No.' And [if you] say, 'Do yous call up the captain's doing a expert job?' People are gonna say, 'Yous know what? A good captain would take had us in some smooth waters and sunny skies, at this bespeak.' And I don't control the weather. What I tin can control are the policies nosotros're putting in place to brand a divergence in people's lives." (threescore Minutes, December 11, 2011)

45. "You lot know, there was actually a expert commodity written a while back, taking a expect at the old press clips from every Democratic president, dating back to Franklin Roosevelt, including Roosevelt. And, you know, nobody was happy with them. Nobody was happy with them. You know? Bill Clinton, who's honey past the Democratic Party, at this bespeak—and I consider to exist an extraordinarily successful president—yous wait at his old press clippings, he was getting beat up with some of the aforementioned stuff I was getting beat upward with." (hr, December 11, 2011)

46. "I recall that when I came into office in 2008, it was my firm conventionalities that at such an important moment in our history, there was no reason why Democrats and Republicans couldn't put some of the former ideological baggage bated and focus on common sense, what works, practical solutions to the tough problems we were facing. And I think the Republicans made a different calculation, which was, 'You know what? We really screwed up the economy. Obama seems popular. Our best bet is to stand on the sidelines, because we remember the economic system's gonna get worse, and at some point, but blame him.'" (hr, December 11, 2011)

47. "I didn't overpromise. And I didn't underestimate how tough this was gonna be. I always believed that this was a long-term projection; this wasn't a short-term projection." (60 Minutes, December eleven, 2011)

48. "The one thing I've prided myself on before I was president—and it turns out that continues to be truthful as president—I'm a persistent son of a gun. I only stay at it. And I'm merely gonna keep on staying at information technology as long as I'm in this office." (60 Minutes, Dec 11, 2011)

49. "I've got 5 more than years of stuff to exercise." (60 Minutes, December xi, 2011)

50. "There's nothing more humbling, really, than being president. It'due south a strange thing. Suddenly, y'all've got all the pomp and the circumstance and you've got the helicopters and yous've got the Air Force One and—and the plane is actually squeamish. It really is. I mean, Bill may not miss existence president, but he misses that plane. Allow's face it, he does. It'south a great airplane. And I'll miss it, besides." (remarks at a private fundraiser in McLean, Virginia, April 29, 2012)

51. "But not yet." (remarks at a private fundraiser in McLean, Virginia, Apr 29, 2012)

52. "The gridlock you see in Washington does not be out in neighborhoods and cities and towns across the land. If I go to Malia'southward or Sasha's soccer game and I'm standing there with a bunch of parents, I don't know whether or not they're Democrats or Republicans, and virtually of them have the same concerns and the same values." (Late Bear witness with David Letterman, September 19, 2012)

53. "You'll run into I wear but gray or bluish suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to brand decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make." (Vanity Fair, October 2012)

54. "You need to focus your decision-making energy. Y'all need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the solar day distracted by trivia." (Vanity Off-white, Oct 2012)

55. "I played a lot of sports when I was a kid, and nonetheless do. If you have a bad game, yous just move on. You wait forward to the next i. And it makes you that much more adamant." (ABC News, October 10, 2012)

56. "And then nosotros've made real progress these past four years. But … we know our piece of work'due south not washed yet. … And that'due south why I'thousand running for a second term as president. Because nosotros've got more piece of work to do." (campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, November 1, 2012)

57. "The biggest challenge we've always had is that dissimilar FDR—who came into office when the economy had already bottomed out, and so people understood that everything done subsequent to his election was making things better—I came in just as nosotros were sliding." (Rolling Stone, November 8, 2012)

58. "I recall that beingness in this function has made me even more appreciative of my family in ways that I didn't call up I could exist. I already loved them so much, but when you lot're under all these pressures, to come abode every unmarried dark—at to the lowest degree when I'm in boondocks—and have Michelle and the girls there, and depict joy from them … they are my remainder and they keep me grounded, and that's truer now than it's ever been." (O, The Oprah Magazine, November 2012)

59. "Do I wish that things were more than orderly in Washington, and rational, and people listened to the all-time arguments and compromised and operated in a more than thoughtful and organized style? Absolutely. Merely when you look at history, that'south been the exception rather than the norm." (Encounter the Press, December 30, 2012)

lx. "In that location are all sorts of lessons to be learned both from past presidents and my ain outset term. I've said this before, but 1 of the things that happened in the kickoff term was that we had so many fires going on at the aforementioned time that we were focusing on policy and getting it correct, which ways that we were spending less time communicating with the American people about why we were doing what we were doing and how it tied together with our overarching desire of strengthening our middle class and making the economy work." (New Republic, Jan 27, 2013)

61. "And a big chunk of my day is occupied by news of war, terrorism, ethnic clashes, violence done to innocents." (New Republic, Jan 27, 2013)

62. "I am more mindful probably than most of not but our incredible strengths and capabilities, but as well our limitations." (New Republic, January 27, 2013)

63. "I think, y'all know, one of the things that humbles you lot as president—I'm certain Hillary feels the same way as secretary of state—is that y'all realize that all you tin practice every single day is to figure out a direction, make sure that you lot are working as hard every bit you can to put people in places where they tin succeed, ask the right questions, shape the right strategy. Only it'southward going to be a team that both succeeds and fails. And information technology's a process of abiding comeback, considering the world is big and it is chaotic. Yous know, I recall Bob Gates—you know, first thing he said to me, I think mayhap first week or two that I was there and we were meeting in the Oval Office. And he, obviously, has been through seven presidents or something. And he says, 'Mr. President, one matter I can guarantee you is that at this moment, somewhere, somehow, somebody in the federal government is screwing upwards.'" (60 Minutes, Jan 27, 2013)

64. "Yous know, at that place are transitions and transformations taking place all around the world. We are not going to exist able to command every aspect of every transition and transformation. Sometimes they're going to go sideways. Sometimes, you lot know, there'll be unintended consequences." (60 Minutes, January 27, 2013)

65. "But I practice worry sometimes that equally soon as nosotros leave the prayer breakfast, everything we've been talking about the whole time at the prayer breakfast seems to be forgotten—on the same day of the prayer breakfast. I mean, you'd like to recall that the shelf life wasn't and then short. But I go back to the Oval Office and I start watching the cable news networks and it'south similar we didn't pray." (National Prayer Breakfast, February 7, 2013)

66. "As president, sometimes I have to search for the words to console the comfortless. Sometimes I search Scripture to determine how best to residual life as a president and every bit a husband and as a father. I frequently search for Scripture to figure out how I tin can exist a better man as well as a meliorate president." (National Prayer Breakfast, Feb 7, 2013)

67. "What people actually typically desire is a make clean solution, a silver bullet, hither'southward what we're going to do and nosotros only movement forrad—well, that's not, unfortunately, how the world works." (Charlie Rose, June 17, 2013)

68. "If we go far the habit where a few folks, an extremist fly of 1 party, whether it'due south Democrat or Republican, are allowed to extort concessions based on a threat of undermining the full faith and credit of the United States, then any president who comes subsequently me, not just me, will find themselves unable to govern finer." (CNBC, October 2, 2013)

69. "It is not unusual for Democrats and Republicans to disagree. That'due south the mode the founders designed our government. Democracy's messy. But when y'all take a situation in which a faction is willing potentially to default on U.S. government obligations, then we are in trouble." (CNBC, October two, 2013)

70. "Am I exasperated? Absolutely I'm exasperated." (CNBC, Oct 2, 2013)

71. "How business is done in this town has to change." (remarks at the White House, Oct 17, 2013)

72. "Disagreement cannot hateful dysfunction. It tin't degenerate into hatred." (remarks at the White Business firm, October 17, 2013)

73. "You lot know, when Social Security was outset passed, people said, 'This is socialism, this is terrible.' When Medicare passed, people were fighting it, maxim, 'You're going to lose, yous know, your health care.' Some of the aforementioned arguments that are made about the Affordable Intendance Deed you heard virtually Social Security, you lot heard near Medicare. But once y'all get over that hump and the matter starts rolling, and people become accepted to information technology and confident virtually it, it ends up helping a lot of people and, you know, that'southward just the nature of social change in this country." (Steve Harvey, December 20, 2013)

74. "There take been times where I've been constrained by the fact that I had two immature daughters who I wanted to spend time with—and that I wasn't in a position to piece of work the social scene in Washington." (New Yorker, January 27, 2014)

75. "The only time I get frustrated is when folks human action like information technology's non complicated and in that location aren't some real tough decisions, and are sanctimonious, as if somehow these aren't complicated questions." (New Yorker, January 27, 2014)

76. "I have strengths and I have weaknesses, similar every president, like every person. I do think one of my strengths is temperament. I am comfortable with complexity, and I call back I'm pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I'one thousand taking measure of my deportment against the options and possibilities bachelor to me, understanding that there are going to exist mistakes that I make and my squad makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good nosotros can do and the bad that we can prevent, and that there's going to be tragedy out there and, by occupying this office, I am part of that tragedy occasionally, only that if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought upwardly with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of nearly Americans, that at the end of the day, things will be better rather than worse." (New Yorker, Jan 27, 2014)

77. "At the cease of the day we're part of a long-running story. Nosotros just try to go our paragraph right." (New Yorker, January 27, 2014)

78. "I try to focus not on the fumbles, but on the next programme." (Fox News, February two, 2014)

79. "I don't get a risk to take walks very often. Secret Service gets a little stressed. But every once in a while, I'yard able to sneak off. I'm sort of like the circus behave that kind of breaks the chain, and I first taking off, and everybody starts whispering, 'The bear is loose!'" (remarks at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York, May 22, 2014)

fourscore. "The behave is loose." (leaving the White House for a Starbucks run, June 9, 2014)

81. "The last fourth dimension I took a walk unencumbered was in Austin, Texas. True story. This is before a debate in the principal. And I walked along the river, and I got about probably a mile, mile and a half, and then some people started spotting me. … Clandestine Service got nervous." (remarks in Austin, July x, 2014)

82. "What I've said to my team is, 'Get me out of Washington.' Let me talk to people who are doing the right thing and struggling, so that they know they're being heard by at least somebody in Washington. Allow's remind the country what nosotros should be focused on. And so that nosotros can also possibly prod Congress into doing the right matter." (remarks in Austin, July 10, 2014)

83. "Once I'chiliad done, then I'll look back and run across what the legacy is." (YouTube interview, Jan 22, 2015)

84. "I'grand not ignoring it. I'm dealing with it every day. That'due south what I wake upwardly to each morning. I become a thick volume full of expiry, devastation, strife and anarchy. That's what I take with my morning tea." (Vox, February ix, 2015)

85. "I don't get besides high, don't get likewise low." (Huffington Post, March 21, 2015)

86. "Equally long every bit I stay focused on those northward stars, and then I tend not to go also rattled." (Huffington Post, March 21, 2015)

87. "I want to give thanks everybody here for their prayers, which mean so much to me and Michelle. Peculiarly at a time when my daughters are starting to grow up and starting to go on college visits, I demand prayer. I commencement tearing up in the centre of the day and I can't explain information technology. Why am I then sad? They're leaving me." (White House Easter Prayer Breakfast, April 7, 2015)

88. "I got a letter a while back from a admirer living in Colorado, and conspicuously an intelligent guy, and he had taken a lot of time to write this letter. And he said, you know, 'I voted for y'all twice, only I'm feeling disillusioned.' … And information technology went on and on, chronicling all the things that hadn't gotten done. And nigh of what he said I responded to, I think, pretty effectively, because he seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened and how he had benefited. But the cadre, I think, of his concern, the core of his complaint, was that he thought that when I got to Washington I could bring people together and make them work more effectively. And the fact of the thing is, is that Washington is still gridlocked and all the same seems obsessed with the brusk term and the next election instead of the next generation. And on that upshot, I had to tell him, 'Yous're right.' I am frustrated, and y'all take every correct to be frustrated, because Congress doesn't work the fashion it should. Issues are left untended. Folks are more interested in scoring political points than getting things washed—non because whatever private member of Congress is a bad person—there are a lot of good, well-significant, hardworking people out there—but because the incentives that have been built into the system reward short-term, advantage a polarized politics, reward being simplistic instead of being true, advantage division. And as mightily as I have struggled against that, I told him, 'You lot're correct. Information technology all the same is broken.' But I reminded him that when I ran in 2008, I, in fact, did not say I would ready information technology; I said nosotros could fix it. I didn't say, 'Yep, I can.' I said—what? … 'Yes, we can.'" (remarks in Santa Monica, California, June eighteen, 2015)

89. "I've been through this. I've screwed up. I've been in the barrel tumbling down Niagara Falls, and I emerged, and I lived. And that's such a liberating feeling. It'due south one of the benefits of age." (WTF with Marc Maron, June 22, 2015)

90. "You know at that place'southward a identify in Hawaii, Hanauma Bay, which is at present a natural preserve. But information technology'southward a cute coral reef, and my mother, she always says that the reason I'm calm is because when she was pregnant with me she used to get downward to this bay and sit and listen to the water." (BBC, June 30, 2015)

91. "I can say this unequivocally. The VA is meliorate now than when I came into office. Authorities works better than when I came into role. The economy, by any metric, is meliorate than when I came into office. And then the reason I can sleep at dark is, I say to myself, 'You know what? It's better.' Now, am I satisfied with information technology? No. And should voters exist satisfied with it? Absolutely not. Because otherwise, you know, if we get conceited and lazy, and then stuff doesn't happen." (The Daily Show, July 21, 2015)

92. "What I found during the course of the presidency, and I suppose this is truthful in life, is that investments and work that you make dorsum hither sometimes take a little longer than the 24-hour news bicycle to behave fruit." (BBC, July 24, 2015)

93. "I am in my second term. It has been an extraordinary privilege for me to serve equally president of the United States. I cannot imagine a greater accolade or a more interesting job. I love my work. Only nether our Constitution, I cannot run again. I can't run over again. I actually think I'm a pretty good president—I recollect if I ran, I could win. But I can't. So there's a lot that I'd like to do to keep America moving, but the police is the police force. And no 1 person is above the law. Not even the president. And I'll exist honest with you—I'm looking forward to life subsequently being president. I won't take such a big security detail all the fourth dimension. It means I can go take a walk. I tin spend fourth dimension with my family." (speech in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 28, 2015)

94. "I've been effectually this track at present for a while." (NPR, August 10, 2015)

95. "Gotta keep moving." (NPR, Baronial 10, 2015)

96. "That's i of the hardest things in politics to convince people of: to make investments today that don't pay off until many years from now." (Rolling Stone, September 23, 2015)

97. "I do recollect that Speaker Boehner sometimes had a tough position because in that location were members in his caucus who saw compromise of any sort as weakness or betrayal. And when yous have divided government, when you take a commonwealth, compromise is necessary. And I think Speaker Boehner sometimes had difficulty persuading members of his caucus of that." (White House news conference, September 25, 2015)

98. "Just as I said from the kickoff, it'southward going to take time." (news conference in Antalya, Turkey, November xvi, 2015)

99. "In that location'southward no doubt that the longer I'thou in this job, the more than confident I am most the decisions I'chiliad making and more knowledgeable nearly the responses I can expect. And every bit a consequence, you end upwards being looser. There's non much I have non seen at this point, and I know what to expect, and I can anticipate more than I did before." (GQ, November 17, 2015)

100. "When I think about how I empathise my role as citizen, setting aside existence president, and the virtually of import set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I've learned I think I've learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfy with the notion that the world is complicated and total of grays, just at that place'south still truth there to be establish, and that you have to strive for that and piece of work for that." (New York Review of Books, November xix, 2015)

101. "Ane of the things that you find is when yous're in this job, you retrieve about it differently than when y'all're merely running for the task." (news briefing in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, December i, 2015)

steedresichey.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/obama-quotes-213485

Share this post