Barack Obama

If we want to stop the cycle of poverty, then we need to start with our families.

If too many of our kids don't have health insurance; it's time to take the bullet out.

Ministers, it's time to unite behind our faith and help all of God's children around the world and here at home realize that we are all surgeons. Our faith, the word and his will are the instruments we need to take the bullets out.

So what's stopping us? What's stopping us from taking these bullets out and rebuilding our families, our communities, our nation and our faith in one another? What's stopping us from seeing the light and the way and the faith that unites…

Look at what happened in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast when Katrina hit. People ask me whether I thought race was the reason the response was so slow. I said, 'No. This Administration was colorblind in its incompetence.'

Much of what we saw on our television screens 15 years ago was Los Angeles expressing a lingering, ongoing, pervasive legacy—a tragic legacy out of the tragic history this country has never fully come to terms with.

But in the middle of that desperate time, there was a miracle: a baby born with a bullet in its arm. We need to hear about these miracles in these desperate times because they are the blessings that can unite us when some in the world try…

If we have more black men in prison than are in our colleges and universities, then it's time to take the bullet out.

And it made me think about our cities and communities all around this country, how not only do we still have scars from that riot and the 'quiet riots' that happen every day—but how in too many places we haven't even taken the bullet out.

This disaster was a powerful metaphor for what's gone on for generations.

Those 'quiet riots' that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths. They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates.

A few weeks ago, I attended a service at First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the LA Riots. After a jury acquitted 4 police officers of beating Rodney King—a beating that was filmed and flashed around…

So, you're about four-and-a-half years late on leadership on this issue.

Are we our brother's keeper, our sister's keeper?

The fact is, is that I opposed this war from the start. So you're about four-and-a-half years late on leadership on this issue.

Probably what we're going to be doing is more off the record steps that aren't scheduled, so that I can just hop into a diner and sit down at the counter and start having conversations.

The Illinois senator wants universal health care, largely paid for by the government and employers.

It is time to bring this war to a close.

I just introduced this bill on nonproliferation on nuclear weapons that are out there, loose nukes in former Soviet territories. I was working with my Republican colleague, Dick Lugar, to introduce this bill. I was excited about it.

In the face of impossible odds, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

If we're willing to shoulder each other's burdens, to take great risks, and to persevere through trial, America will continue its journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day.

America will continue its journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day.

At a time when America finds itself at a crossroads, facing challenges we haven't seen in decades, we need to hold on to this idea more than ever.

The real test is not whether you avoid failure, but whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it.