Barack Obama Quotes

People should be able to rise as hard, high as their hard work, their ambition, their talent will take them.

I want to lead a nation where anyone who aims high can achieve their dreams.

Anything is possible for anyone in America.

England is still a place where a naughty boy who comes from nothing can live his dream.

I want our children in America to know the limits of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

The gap between aspiration and reality could hardly be wider. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible.

That's the beauty of America - the fact that all of us can be anything we want to be if we put in the work.

If there is a national, secular religion in the United States, it is the belief that America is the Land of Opportunity, that we are a meritocracy, that any kid, no matter who they are, or where they come from, can work hard and move up in the world: that their effort matters.

I believe that Iowa is - and ought to be - a place where, if you're willing to work for it, you can make your dreams come true.

In America, with education and hard work, it really does not matter where you came from; it matters only where you are going.

The American dream means that you have the chance to work hard, get an education and do great things for yourself, for your kids. The great thing in American is it doesn't matter what your last name is, doesn't matter if you're wealthy.

Everybody should have a chance to rise. That's our philosophy in Ohio and that's my philosophy for America.

No matter where you're born in life or what the circumstances are when you're born, like your parents being poor or not connected to power, you have a chance in this country to go as far as your talent and your work will take you.

Dreams do come true, but not without the help of others, a good education, a strong work ethic, and the courage to lean in.

You know, as Secretary of State, I've been privileged to represent this great country, and I know its strengths, and I know its challenges. One of its strengths is the belief - here and abroad - that this is a place where you get ahead on merit. It doesn't matter where you came from; it matters where you're going.

I hope someday what people can do with their lives depends on their talents and how hard they are willing to work, rather than on where they happen to be born.

I hoped for something else. It's a simple dream, but it speaks to us so powerfully because it is our dream - one that exists at the very center of the American experience. One that says if you're willing to work hard and take responsibility, then you'll have the chance to reach for something else; for something better.

We live in the kind of society where, in almost all cases, hard work is rewarded.

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

Mr. Lincoln's elevation shows that in America every station in life may be honorable; that there is no barrier against the humblest; but that merit, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to be known.

No matter where you are from, no matter what your background is, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, every person can achieve his or her dreams.

This is what America is about when it comes to understanding that it is equal opportunity versus equal achievement. Each and every one of us has the opportunity for greatness in this country.

The American dream, to me, means having the opportunity to achieve, because I don't think you should be guaranteed anything other than opportunity.

In a country where there is no privileged class, genius and industry may attain the highest honors.

The American Dream