In Obama's Words

Obama delivers speech on the national debt

...without even looking at a poll, my finely honed political instincts tell me that almost nobody believes they should be paying higher taxes.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron hold joint news conference

The successful meetings we've had and the joint initiatives we're announcing today represent the depths and breadth of our relationship. We discussed our efforts to strengthen the global recovery and create good jobs for our people. The investment relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is the largest in the world, one that accounts for nearly 1 million jobs in each of our economies. We believe we can make that relationship even stronger with deeper cooperation in areas critical to our future prosperity, like higher education and science and innovation; areas critical to our national security like cyber crime; and areas vital to the stability of the world, including international development.”

• Other issues:Foreign Policy

Obama delivers remarks at the Human Rights Campaign’s 15th Annual National Dinner

We don't believe in a small America. We don't believe in the kind of smallness that says it's okay for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the president of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don't believe in that. We don't believe in standing silent when that happens. We don't believe in them being silent since. You want to be Commander-in-Chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient.”

• Other issues:Economy, Government and Politics, Social Issues

Obama and Bill Clinton hold White House press conference

Here's what I'll say. I've been keeping the first lady waiting for about half an hour, so, I'm going to take off. ... You're in good hands and Gibbs will call last question.”

• Other issues:Economy, Government and Politics, Health Care, Social Issues

Obama delivers remarks at a rally

I make these points not because I want to re-argue the past. I just don't want to re-live the past. We can't afford it. We can't afford it.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks at a DNC event in New York City

We believe in free enterprise. We believe in entrepreneurship. We believe in individual liberties. We believe in self-help. But we also believe in community. We also believe in looking out for one another.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao at joint press conference

"As we look to the future, what's needed, I believe, is a spirit of cooperation that is also friendly competition. In areas like those that I've just mentioned, we will cooperate, forging partnerships and making progress that neither nation can achieve alone."”

• Other issues:Foreign Policy

Obama delivers remarks to workers

They are banking on you forgetting who caused this mess in the first place. But, Providence, it is up to you to let them know we have not forgotten.”

• Other issues:Economy

Obama delivers remarks to the Business Council

But as Americans, and as a nation, we will not be terrorized. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated.”

• Other issues:Economy

Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul

I want to focus on three areas in which I think we can make some progress: advancing dialogue between our two countries, but also advancing dialogue between the United States and the Muslim world; extending opportunity in education and in social welfare; and then also reaching out to young people as our best hope for peaceful, prosperous futures in both Turkey and in the United States.”

• Other issues:Foreign Policy

Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event in New York City

I just came from another fund-raising event at the home of somebody now extraordinarily successful -- his parents were Holocaust survivors. And he described, in introducing me, how they were able to come over here with almost nothing and yet still provide a good public education for their kids, and still give them a leg up and allow them to succeed. And the question is, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, are we going to be able to say the same thing about the next generation coming up.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks at a DNC event in New York City

My name is Barack Obama. I was born in Hawaii. The 50th state of the United States of America. No one checked my ID on the way in. But just in case .”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks at a rally for Congressman Perriello

...some of you got involved in 2008 because you believed we were at a defining moment in our history. We still are. You believed this is a time where the decisions we make won't just affect us, but will affect future generations, our children and our grandchildren. That's still true.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks at a rally for Senator Murray

She's helped a lot of people. She's solved a lot of problems. And now she needs our help so she can keep on fighting for you in the United States Senate.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks at a DNC rally

I know that during the campaign, especially after we had already started winning, the feeling was, well, this is just exciting. You got those nice Hope posters, and then there was the inauguration, and you got Beyonce singing and Bono.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama holds a town hall meeting with future Chinese leaders

I should be honest, as President of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely...”

• Other issues:Foreign Policy

Obama's Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Health Care

We did not come here just to clean up crises, we came to build a future. I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”

• Other issues:Health Care

Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event in Honolulu, Hawaii

This competition for new jobs and businesses and middle-class security, that's the race I know we can win. But you don't win it by saying every American is on their own. We're not going to win it if we just hand out more tax cuts to people who don't need them, let companies play by their own rules without any restriction, and we just hope somehow that the success of the wealthiest few translates in the prosperity for everybody else. We have tried that, by the way. We tried it for 10 years. It's part of what got into the mess that we're in. It doesn't work. It didn't work for Herbert Hoover, when it was called trickle-down economics during the Depression. It didn't work between 2000 and 2008, and it won't work today. And the reason it won't work is because we are not a country that is built on survival of the fittest. That's not who we are.”

• Other issues:Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks on the American Jobs Act in Mesquite, Texas

My question to Congress is, what are you waiting for? The work is there to be done. There are workers ready to do it. Contractors, they're begging for work. They'll come in on time, under budget. Interest rates have never been lower. It is time for us to put those folks back to work. It's time for them to pass the American Jobs Act. Pass this bill.”

• Other issues:Economy, Government and Politics

Obama delivers remarks on the economy and health care at Families USA conference

I am not willing to just refight the battles of the last two years. I'm not open to efforts that will take this law apart without considering the lives and the livelihoods that hang in the balance.”

• Other issues:Health Care, Social Issues