Barack Obama Quotes

Since opinions do not find in me a ready soil to thrust and spread their roots into, no premise shocks me, no belief hurts me, no matter how opposite to my own they may be.

How do we teach a child our own, or those in a classroom to have compassion: to allow people to be different; to understand that like is not equal; to experiment; to laugh; to love; to accept the fact that the most important questions a human being can ask do not have or need answers.

Being able to allow people to be who they are without trying to change them is important.

I've told you before. You shouldn't judge people based on appearances and your preconceptions.

When people sit across from people - gay, straight, whatever - and they talk, they find out that people they may have been demonizing for their lifetime aren't the demons we've expected them to be.

Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are.

I've learned a lot just being around people who grew up so differently from me, which is cool. It teaches you how to be a lot more tolerant. The bigger your world is, the more tolerant and accepting you become, because you have friends from all walks of life. You learn to be a little bit less selfish.

Don't assume that all fat people are gluttons. And don't use the word 'fat.' There is a principle here. Learn from logic and experience not to associate things - especially in preaching - that don't necessarily go together.

We still have a lot of work to do in American culture. More open-mindedness is happening - in some cases rapidly, in some, slowly.

What's important to me is people just being people.

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.

It's a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they're different. It's very limiting.

Can I just tell you, I think it's the most beautiful thing about young people today, it gives me so much hope for the future, that they don't really recognize race the way my generation does.

I try to look for the good in everybody, regardless of the way they're labeled.

Never judge a person if you don't know him.

Education helps one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

Racism has a very quick expiration date when exposed to actual contact with people.

To think that everybody's like you is silly.

Reasonable people can have differences.

Sometimes, there isn't respect for our ways, but you can't change people.

Every generation is more open to new things.

We need to educate young people, give them the possibility to understand that the diversity is positive, to feel and experience it, so that they can then join forces in promoting more diverse world.

We should all be allies to ideas or people or initiatives that we don't necessarily have a real knowledge in.

I encourage people and their different points of view.

I can tell you, without diversity, creativity remains stagnant.